here we go, age 24-30 days...

Guys, I have a question for you, who are growing from seeds. I am using small plastic container with foil over the top. About 2cm of fine sand is added, evenly spread, sprayed with water and the seeds are put on the top of it. Then it is sprayed again, so the seeds are not flowing in water (using towel), the foil is placed on the top of the box, secured with rubber band and it is left under fluorescent lights, with temperature about 30C.

The main problem is not sprouting, which is ok, but most of the sprouts stop growing shortly and they don't make the first areole with nano-spines. They are simply too small to be grafted. For some hybrids, I was not able to get even one seedling at this stage, for some there was 80% success. Is it normal? Or am I doing anything wrong?

Another problem is the thickness of the seedlings. Most are tiny, although some are fatter. Those fatter are much easier for grafting. I don't have an idea whether they are etiolating, but I doubt, because the lights are quite strong. The seedlings are never green, always brown. What could I do to increase the thickness?

Pete666
Seedlings need light, FAE (fresh air exchange) and fertilizer to be at their best.
They also need to be free of pests and pathogens.

If they aren't thriving then one or more of these needs is not ideal. I include a pic of 3 month old seedlings for refference.

As for the topic, I select first for growth traits, vigor is a must.
Second I select for manageable spines.
Third I select for size and surface area.
Forth I select for potency.

0_o, thanks for response.


Light should not be problem in my case, they have plenty of light. I am following wakinyans advice to use a lot if it, even direct sunlight. I understand some of them won't make it and I accept this kind of selection. But in my case all seeds (not just some) of some hybrids don't do it even to first areole.

FAE might be a problem, because the foil over the top was not leaving too much air in the container. I am just in the middle of experiment with bags rather than just the foil. There is much more air in the bag.

Pests and pathogens should not be the problem. My water is good, I always use one day old water to decrease chlorine levels. But to ensure, I did tests with ro water too, the same results.

But I have yet another suspect - too high temps. I am currently testing having the containers out of the growbox - on a windowsill



I will take these factors into consideration too, of course. Maybe with different prioritization, my aim is the maximum of the medicine (just mescaline) from minimum cactus mass grown in minimum time and with minimal extraction effort. The name of this topic is not precise, it is not just about potency. The only factor I am not interested in is the spines. I am thankful for having extraction TEK where I can use whole cactus so as far as I am able to cut 2cm stars for my blender, I am happy.

Excellent!
I had overlooked temperature but you are absolutely correct in addressing it.

I will note that genetics is also an issue and I have seen some seeds do better than others. For example some F2 seedlings of crosses between different species have issues like those you report.

Aye man, those seedllings look pretty big for 3 months... What is your technique exactly?

I haven't been having alot of luck on the seed starting business here lately either... Now that summer is over I'm indoors and using lights and for some reason I keep getting infections...

I switched to using coco coir instead of just plain sand as I used to always use so that's another variable...Trying a few with vermiculite on top now too...

Those were sown 7/29/1 in coir, I have them under 5000k LED lights, about 6 inches beneath lights and about 60W per square foot.

I put plastic trays in plastic bags and surface sow, I give a germination period of about 2 weeks and then I take them out of the bags, I put a thin topdressing of sand on top and began feeding with 20:20:20 1/2 tsp per gallon with a pump sprayer at every watering.

They got stunted a little from fungus gnats so aren't as far along as they should be.

At first I make sure they are nice and purple/red, if they aren't then they aren't getting enough light. The plants are from high altitude near the equator and have pigments that auto-regulate PAR. If they are only green then they aren't getting ideal light. After a month or two of growing they gradually become a dark green and the pigment becomes hard to see.

I realize this is contrary to a lot of belief about the plants but I've been doing this for 20 years and a lot of what people say doesn't seem accurate given my experience, particularly when it comes to the pigments and light levels for seedlings as well as for feeding. Note that in my experience seedlings of Trichocereus can turn purple/red at light levels below optimum and I've never seen it as a sign of too much light. As a rule of thumb I give cactus seedlings the same amount of light as Cannabis, capsicum or tomato. If you can keep them from overheating they can take full sun if germinated in it. However if you grow them at lower light levels do not put them in full sun suddenly, they need to be slowly introduced to it or it will kill them. Artificial lights are no problem though, LED and fluorescent lights don't put out enough light to harm them, and they can take HID light the same as any left plant.


Then I just feed and water and use a fan to keep air moving.
They do the rest, when they get crowded I transplant and those are due.

These are the same seedlings from 0ct 2

Have yout tried to sterilize the sand within microwave together with short wash of the seeds in 3% peroxide? I was doing that at the beginning but then realized it is not necessary. But everybody has different environment with different spores.

You are not the first one experiencing this discrepancy with common belief about cactuses, right Wakynian?

Some information about sprouting ...
I have tested 3 types of water - tap water, ro water and 3% peroxide. 100 identical seeds on sand. The worst was peroxide, no usable seeds after 3 weeks. Ro water was better, but still much worse than tap water, which provided very nice and fat sedlings. This makes sense, as there are some nutrients so the seedling can grow more than with ro water.
It is still not a solution to my problems with quality of seedlings, but confirms what was expected.

Regarding the issue with overwatering pereskiopsis - I still can see some yellowing leaves. They have almost ceased to yellow and fall off, but it is about 3 weeks I recognized this problem and the plants are still not fully recovered. Hard to say how serious the impact was to the grow rate, but I can imagine it still takes week or two for full recovery of the root system. Definitely not worth overwatering.

Regarding the problem with seeds...the problem was too high temp. I have decreased it to about 25C and the difference is huge. Almost all seeds are growing, they are pretty thick.
So just sand, ordinary water so the seeds are not in the water but laying on the sand, zip-lock bag big enough to keep the container, about 250W/m2 and 2-4 weeks are the key for perfect seeds for grafting.

Looking goood...


Dealing with some sort of fungi or infection in my plants... Trying to figure out what to do ...

If you don't have plenty of airflow and low humidity and you can solve it I suggest solving it now before you have to deal with this too...

I am sorry for that. How many plants are affected? Have you considered using some chems?
I think my ventilation is OK.
If it is fungi, then low humidity should be dedired, no?

Only one of my grafts seems to be infected by something. I am still waiting whether it stops. If not, i will regraft it.

Picture of current state of section with the oldest grafts...

Ha! Those are awesome!

Thanks!

I may have overlooked it in the thread but how are you getting such a high pup count around the graft point?

I don't have an idea, this was unexpected to me as well. Almost all the grafts have one or more pups. Might be normal when grafting 2-4 week old babies, but this run is first for me, so can't say for sure. But I am thankful for them, as I am planning to cut the main section for analysis and continue growing once they are big enough.

Great post. Its just what I was looking for