Print

[Frog Pajamas]

It appears that a recent batch of seeds has produced an albino t. Werdermannius. I was googling to see how typical this is, and it sounds like it must be grafted to live since it doesn't have chlorophyll. Can someone confirm that it needs to be grafted and recommend the best cactus type to graft an approximately 10 day old seedling to? I plan to hit up Home Depot for the grafting stock.

Thanks!

3 Likes Seed Collector, MadPlanter and fairdinkumseeds like this.

[New Wisdom]

I have gotten quite a few of these. They are very rare (unless you sow thousands of seeds like me)  You need to graft it ASAP. I can send you a pereskiopsis plant if you want. Home depot wont have any grafting stock suitable for seedling grafting most likely (unless they have dragon fruit) 

Here's a couple of the albino's i've grafted recently. First one is a Trichocereus boliviensis, second is an Astrophytum ornatum, and the third is an Echinocereus pentalophus x scheeri

4 Likes Frog Pajamas, fairdinkumseeds, ONandONandON and LIBERTYNY like this.

[hereje]

Sorry for digging up this old thread but last summer i was doing experiments with sodium azide and it produced many kinds of chlorophyll mutations in clovers including albino, yellow, white yellow, yellow green, white green,  mutated leaves, and mutated stems

i have read that natural chance of an albino mutation in chlorophyl is about 1/2000 - in my experiemnt i noticed albino chlorophyll mutations at rates between 0.2%-0.45% (1/500-1/225) and an overall mutation rate of about 2%

If your wanting albinos and other odd cacti might be worth your effort to try some sodium azide or the safer and more common mutagen ethylmethylenesulphate (ems) both are pretty cheap from sigma aldrich and 1gram of either will last through hundreds of thousands of seeds

3 Likes fairdinkumseeds, ONandONandON and LIBERTYNY like this.

[Rife]

What are your methods for applying the chemicals? Very interesting! Might have to make some albino Jourdaniana

[hereje]

As this is a very old thread i will pm you with the method i used so we dont keep bumping

Correction: the correct name for the "safer" mutagen is
Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[happyconcacti]

As this is a very old thread i will pm you with the method i used so we dont keep bumping

It's really OK to keep bumping this thread. Might as well keep all the information in on place so other people can reference it as well.

Hcc

2 Likes Ian Morris and LIBERTYNY like this.

[hereje]

I have only used sodium azide by the way but id probly try the exact method with ems and i only have done this on clover seeds because it was what i had in bulk at the time

I measure out exactly 400ml of distilled water
Remove 1ml from the flask so i have 399ml (as accurat as i can get at home)
I weigh out 1gram of sodium azide powder and mix with water

roughly 400ml of a 0.25% concentration
(Acording to genetics labs this is a good concentration)

I mechanically scarify seeds (nail file)
I soak seeds in distilled water for 10hours, then dry off with paper towel
i soak seeds in sodium azide solution for 6hours in a test tube (shake every hour)
Pour remaining solution back into your sodium azide solution bottle (its reusable)
Rinse seeds 8-10 times in distilled water (dispose of rinse water each time)
Dry seeds on paper towel and place in seed trays for germination

Sodium azide is very harmful so dont get it on your skin although you would have to eat close to an entire gram to be fatal its still worth using caution because of its mutagen effect

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[ONandONandON]

Hello, how did your grafting go Frog Pajamas? iam going to try grafting for the first time soon.
i ordered some seeds from the misplant website, and the icarosDNA seeds had some albinos!

Any helpful tips would be greatly appreciated.. i have periskiopsis and from what i've read:

-with a sterile razor blade, cut the periskiopsis stem to look like this: /O\
-with a sterile razor blade, cut the seedling at the base.
-place seedling cutting directly onto periskiopsis cutting, lining up centers.
-place in dark couple days, and keep humid.
(Options to keep humidity smear with vasoline, Or cover with saran wrap)

If there is anything wrong with this process or any improvements please let me know,

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.