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[Radium]

I bet you'd get more pups if you could just increase the amount of direct sun per day. Maybe put them up on the rooftop garden while you're still in your current apartment?

I'm afraid to lose the pub to the naughty crows if I place them on rooftop.
I will be moving out of here (or precisely speaking, thrown out from my own legally owned place by gov), and will get a new place with a sunny balcony.
My current balcony doesn't get much sun.
I hope to get a better one.
I visited an apartment which had 12 cubic meters of sunny personal backyard, but the indoors was like hell, and we couldn't tolerate living there (only 2 cubic meters for kitchen, 1 cubic meter for toilet, and 2.5 meters room height)

[nobody]

Hmm, too bad, here we only have this obscure Indian powder product labelled "Root growth hormone", and no indication of the ingredients.
And lanolin is not available here.
Can I use vaseline or veggy oil instead?

A water based lubricant would work better than Vaseline or oil. KY Jelly or something like that.

nobody

1 Like Radium likes this.

[kykeion]

BAP works, but can cause too much growth.  I have a cactus that was treated with BAP on a single areole.  A pup was produced from the point, however this pup then proceeded to produce six or seven pups of its own before it was even an inch in length. It looked kinda cool, but the entire growth has stalled and not grown any bigger.

lanolin is often used because the BAP will not dissolve in water, but will dissolve in fats/oils.  I think lanolin is preferred because of its viscosity, is not petroleum based, and its stability before breaking down.  A similar compound can be created using beeswax and olive oil (some ratio info HERE)

Both BAP and lanolin can be purchased online. I doubt BAP is available at local stores.

Coconut milk is another option that is fairly popular anecdotally, but I don't know if its effectiveness has been proven, and I have not tried it myself.  Basically water down a can of coconut milk at least 50:50 with water, and feed it to your cactus during regular watering.  I don't think multiple applications are necessary.

[Radium]

Yeah lanolin is non-polar, and thus needs to be substituted with a non-polar, like wax, vaseline, paraffin, oil etc.
What's wrong with petroleum-based stuff?

I have two questions:

• What is coconut milk? the natural liquid found inside the coconut?
  
• My only pupping is growing RAPIDLY! it's now almost 3 inches long.
   Is it a good idea to cut it from the mother plant, and try to root it at this time? to let new puppings grow on the mother plant?

[Mangrove]

Coconut water is the liquid in a coconut when you harvest it. Coconut milk is a thick white liquid made from the moist white pulp in the coconut and has a higher concentration of nutrients, electrolytes, n' whatnot than coconut water.

With regards to your pup, I would highly recommend that you do not remove it from the mother plant. The rapid growth signifies that the cactus is diverting nutrients from the cutting to help grow the pup (a pup on my bridgesii appeared two months ago  and is now ~6-7 inches high and still growing strong). The nutrient-rich stock is propelling your pup to new heights far faster than it would ever have a hope of reaching if it's mama wasn't so nurturing and separating the two would be a grave error IMO.

I could say many many many many things about why petroleum products are terrible to use around plants, the main one being that many are toxic to plants and may kill them if ingested. To encourage more pupping, I would suggest increasing access to water, increasing sun exposure, and fertilizing the soil with Miracle Grow and a coconut milk dilution as mentioned before sound like good ways to help encourage further pupping.

However, I wouldn't try to get as many pups to sprout as possible as soon as possible as rash and impatient actions and intentions tend to be the leading cause of premature plant death. I'd suggest you tend to the cactus as you have before, watering occasionally, to help support the growth of the pup that has already emerged. I would rather have one pup shooting up like a Saturn V rocket than have a dozen pups sprinkled around the cutting growing as slow as lophs do.

Hope these tidbits of advice help,
-Sherdan1

2 Likes happyconcacti and Radium like this.

[New Wisdom]

Yeah, if you were to try to cut that off it would mostly likely die before it rooted because of how small it is.  You want a pup to be at least 6" tall (prefferably 12") before attempting to root. Otherwise it'll take a VERY long time to root and grow extremely slow, or it will just die because it didn't have the energy to make a root system. 

My advice, just let it do it's thing. Give it some more light and nutrients and it'll most likely pup again.

[Radium]

I will have a balcony with full direct sun in 2 weeks.
So the spiny fellas will love it.
But generally, is it a good idea to cut puppings (+12 inches) and plant them in soil?
Because I want to increase the number of my total independent plants ASAP.
And this rooted headless mother looks like a suitable baby maker.

[kykeion]

Yes, removing and rooting pups is a good way to propagate, however since your mother is a stump you will eventually exhaust its ability to produce pups since it is limited in the amount of light it can photosynthesize and it will eventually run out of areoles to produce pups from.

[Auxin]

Piss
Seriously, low sodium organic hippie pee diluted to 1/10th strength [ok, it doesnt have to be organic or hippie, you could milk a stoner for pee or something, but it should be low sodium]
Works as good as miracle grow for inducing basal pupping in trichs, IME.
Particularly on bridgesii.

1 Like kykeion likes this.

[New Wisdom]

kykeion,

Cacti can pup more than once from the same areole.  Even after you cut it off. I've had cacti pup 3 or 4 times fromt he same areole even though I keep cutting them off.  Granted they were globulars and not columnars. Idk if it's the same with both, but I assume it is. They can pup from spots that don't even have areoles as well, like the core.  So you don't really have to worry that much about exhausting it's ability to pup, but after a while it will get woody and not photosynthesize as well.

1 Like kykeion likes this.

[New Wisdom]

One more thing to add, the established root system is just as important as the mature stock.  So even if it's not photosynthesizing well the established root system will give it a huge boost.  I've seen ugly woody stocks that were only 4" tall, but had huge root systems throw pups that hit 12" in 6 months. 

[Radium]

Okay I poured some pisss on its soil, plus a splash on its skin.
Now I will wait and watch.

1 Like happyconcacti likes this.

[kykeion]

Cacti can pup more than once from the same areole.
They can pup from spots that don't even have areoles as well, like the core. 

Good to know. 
I know they can also pup in the root/stem transition area as well, and least in seed grown plants since this area is going to have areoles in a cutting.