Almost 6 months old.

Nice!

Although not related to the content we discuss here i will share that from few green apples i saved 16 germinated seeds that i planted individually and now im waiting for the cotyledons to pop up and after 1 year i will transplant them outdoors in the forest. One of my life goals is to plant 1 million trees (if not 1 million atleast couple thousand).

Keep planting, but plan before you plant! xaxa



Edit: What is the latin name of the plants behind that look like sticks?

I saved seeds of raspberry, cherry, plum and more and cold stratified them recently to prepare them for planting. I'm a fan of fruit trees.

The stick like plants are Ephedra fragilis and Ephedra nebrodensis.

Ooo my god i felt stupid for a split second to not recongnize them i found them familiar but i couldnt tell what they were, nice, how do you consume the ephedra? via tea i guess?

And yes i love fruit trees too i love nature, everyone should plant atleast 1 tree in their lifetime.

That's HUGE for 6 months.. Whats your secret??

I don't consume the Ephedra, I just started growing it.
It is a good cold hardy xeriscaping plant.


My secret is experience.
There happens to be a lot of inaccurate information being shared online about Trichocereus cacti.

Those are some lovely looking snozzcumbers you've got there.

A few more

OK. But that still doesn't explain why they are so big at 6 months. I've been growing cacti for years and i've never had one get that big in just 6 months.

What are you feeding them? Growing medium? Lighting?

May I ask what this species is? I totally have 0 clue about cacti ...

Maybe gonna start soon too, so it seems that Peyote can be left out, but what is this one?

Looks like the one that Pete666 also uses ;o

I'll try to put it succinctly.

If growing in shade with barely any fertilizer and water doesn't work for things like capsicums why would it work for cacti?

So no grafting is done? Only lots of light and fertilizer?

I don't graft.

It is all in the limiting factors.
Light, nutrients, temp, water, pH, air etc.

I give them a lot of light and feed them but I do not actually give them excess fertilizer, I use a constant dilute solution of 20:20:20 at nearly every watering and I water often and heavily. The concentration of fertilizer is not high enough to harm microbial life despite being synthetic, which after all even organic nutrients produce the same cations as synthetics and can cause problems in excess. Plants respond better to a constant low concentration than they do intermittent strong concentrations of fertilizer with some exceptions due to buffering abilities of mediums with high ion exchange capacity which maintain a constant level of bioavailable nutrients even with periodic feedings. Nevertheless I don't provide an excess of nutrients which would cause salinity which is adverse to cacti.

So called hard grown plants aren't healthy nor strong, it's like trying to raise an animal and starving them to make them healthier and stronger. It doesn't work. Overfeeding and underfeeding both harm plants.

I recall seeing a collection in 2006 that wasn't growing much at all and I asked the owner what they used to feed the plants... they reported that they didn't feed the plants! Nitrogen is a limiting factor for Trichocereus, just like it is for Opuntia!

Your plants look healthy 0_o. What kind of genetics do you have there? Do you put them outside in the summer?

These have only seen artificial light.
They are too young to have seen the sun.

They are all hybrids and so exhibit heterosis.
Pure species just don't grow nearly as well.

Very nice man.

I still can't wrap my head around how well and fast you're able (and seem to consistently) grow cacti...

What is the 20/20/20 fertilizer you use? What is your soil mix? What kind of lights are they under?


I'm still stuck on my seedlings more or less not growing at all ( except a few that I have grafted) . They basically just pop, grow a tiny bit and then seem to stop. I do fertilize them but I haven't found something that seems to do the trick.. Seems like I should be looking for a light , water soluble (and thus readily available) fertilizer...

Its sounds like you have a good handle on growing seedlings.

I'm used to propagating by cutting. Never germinated Tricho seeds before.

Do you propagate by cuttings too?

Seed must be a great way to get a lot of plants fast and experiment with new genetics.

What makes you think that 20:20:20 synthetic fert dont harm microbial life?
Such conc of phosphorus can easily kill microbial life in the soil, do you use pH +/- ?
And its synthetic too its water soluble which is instantly available to the plant its not broken down like organics, so be carefull of salt build up, check PPM, EC (runoff water). The cacti is beautifull and healthy because its being grown like a veggie in a nursery (if you know what i mean), flush the soil before you cut it down.

What is your soil im curious? Is it peatmoss based? Are there wood chips? Maybe its kinda acidic soil?

Good job!

Even with 20:20:20 concentration is everything.
Organics break down into the same cations as synthetics, a dilute concentration of synthetics is largely similar to the breakdown of organics, however many organics can cause identical problems to those found with over application of synthetics, the issue isn't the origin but rather the amount. Excess is bad. 20:20:20 is the same as 1:1:1 if you dilute it, or even 0.1:0.1:0.1.

The potting mix is based on composted forest products, but has coir and topsoil and paving grit as well. It has carbon, the C:N ratio is always important for living media.