Having just started with all this botany rigamarole, I thought it would be cool to see what was happening while my seeds were first germinating. Enter SeedThru gel... a clear gel, ostensibly made from clay, specifically designed as a growing medium. I decided to test it out with a small batch of seeds (KGC x Icaro) and see how it goes. Most of them popped yesterday.
Looking at how clean the newborn cacti were sitting there in the Gel, I decided to see if I could get away with grafting one (Note: I do not expect this to succeed). So I topped a pere and put a small divet in the cut with a sterile pin... After rinsing the seedling, I cut just the tiniest bit off the root side and dropped it in. I tried to set up an (approx feather weight) apparatus to hold it down, but it just kept tipping over... so I'm just going to leave it and see what happens.
Anyway, thought the community might find this interesting, so I took a couple pictures. We'll see how it goes...