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[sporehead]

I've had these pere for months. They started as maybe 30. They have been divided a few times but not recently. I thought I'd let them get a bit bigger before doing cuttings again. Some have grown, some are slow, some are yellowing. Before these 4" pots, they were all in 3 separate gallon pots. They were put in these pots as I thought they might grow faster. Nope! Why so slow? Why yellowing? What can I do to make them grow out of control?

These are a few of the cacti seedlings. There are a few other containers with other species. All are growing rather slowly. When I grew from seed a few years ago, they were equally slow. What gives? I've seen other seedlings of this age that are bigger, fatter, and have more spines. I was planning on grafting but the pere are slow and these never seem to grow. I haven't grown any cacti from seed to maturity yet. They all stay sort of small. Tips anyone?

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[Us.Two]

Nice collection, but what kind of lighting are they getting? What type of soil are you using and how often do you water/feed them?  Whats the temp like? 

[Us.Two]

Also how old are the seedling?  Because they tend to grow really slow no matter what you do.  It looks like there's a ton of perlite in the seedling soil and I've done best with most of my soil mix being actual soil and not too much inert growing media (perlite, vermiculite, etc.)

[Us.Two]

My apologies for spamming your thread but I'd say, without anything other than pics to go off of, that you're issue is lack of lighting, root space, and possibly lack of watering.  I say this because the plants are extremely light compared to a pere grown outdoors in full sun, and the leaves are slightly elongated without have that fat part in the middle.

[sporehead]

Soil medium is sand, potting soil and more perlite, a third each. The pere are watered 2-3 times a week. Lighting is 8 full spectrum spiral cfl bulbs. I think I fed them only once, with fish fertilizer. The seedlings in the picture were started in march. There are some older ones elsewhere, about the same size. Those were started in February I think.

[New Wisdom]

To me the seedlings look like they don't have enough water. When they're that small I keep the soil constantly wet and give them lots of artificial light. Then once they get to about .5" I will put them outside in the hot sun.  They really love light and heat once they mature just a little bit.

With the perskiopsis it's hard to say.  I know that when I was putting vinegar in my water my peres started getting yellowish and the leaves were falling off. The skin was also getting cracked.  I can't really tell what's going on with your peres though.   It almost looks like the smaller ones aren't getting enough water though. Also not enough light will cause them to be unhealthy like that sometimes.

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[sporehead]

I spray the seedling soil when it gets to this point. It's usually half wet. Should it be very wet then? Maybe the lights aren't enough for them? For the peres, I water them a few times a week. I thought about transplanting them to one plant per 4" but they would be all over the place if I did. How do you care for your pere? Soil mix, water, light etc. How often does that allow for cuttings?

[Us.Two]

I spray the seedling soil when it gets to this point. It's usually half wet. Should it be very wet then? Maybe the lights aren't enough for them? For the peres, I water them a few times a week. I thought about transplanting them to one plant per 4" but they would be all over the place if I did. How do you care for your pere? Soil mix, water, light etc. How often does that allow for cuttings?

Pereskiopsis can be grown in water so I'd say water em every other day.  And I'd bet my entire plant collection on the fact that they need more root space, pure soil (no less than 80% soil in your mix), and a ton of sunlight.  I just sold 10 or so or I'd show you a pic of a few.  Mine used to look like that when I was using cfls AND a metal halide lamp.  Remember that they  love sunlight and since they grow so fast a lot of nitrogen will be needed to keep up with foliar growth.  If you put em outside immediately they WILL BURN, so slowly get em accustomed to the sun and move em to bigger pots or the ground and you'll see good pere growth in no time.

This guy gets full sun for about 11 hours a day and I made a bed especially for my Pereskiopsis.   The one guy with two skinny parts on him looks like that because I did a little experiment with gibberellic acid lol

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[Us.Two]

Same goes for your Trichocereus seedlings with the soil, I'd say no less than 80% of the substrate should be soil. 

I've never heard of watering plants with vinegar though, that's new.  We're you trying to lower the pH?

[New Wisdom]

For the seedlings you'll want to completely saturate the soil when you do water. Just spraying the top usually isn't enough to get down to the roots. I like soaking the pots in water till the soil saturates, but then again the pots I use are small and easy to handle. I keep them prettymuch constantly wet  and in high humidity for the first few months and then I take them out of humidity and keep watering everyday.  After about 6 months i switch to watering once a week and usually repot them around this point. Trich seedlings will typically be around 1-2" here for me.  Then once I repot them and put them outside they will start growing 1-5" per year depending on species.

I put my peres in extremely rich soil with a bit of pumice and coir in it. I water them everyday if I remember and fertilize with 20-20-20 once a week. I've found they don't grow to their full potential in full sun, but if it's artificial light they love lots of it.

I was putting vingegar in the water in very small amounts to stop buildup of salts

1 Like LIBERTYNY likes this.

[Us.Two]

Interesting, I'll have to do some research on that since using tap water can cause that salt build up.  Are you sure you're talking about pereskiopsis not likin a lot of sunlight?   Because the fastest growth I've ever gotten was from full sun, in ground, daily watering with a diluted organic fert.

[New Wisdom]

I can't do in ground, so I cannot speak on that.  Here we have extremely hot and sunny summers that will burn the living shit out of most plants without some shade cloth, but the winters are extremely wet and cold (sub-0 temps f.)  So full sun here results in slower growing, but WAY thicker and wider leaved pereskiopsis. If I put them behind shade cloth they grow faster, but are a bit smaller and brighter green.   The fastest growing I have are under artificial lighting though. I've gotten plants to grow 1" per week or more with lots of ferts, water, and T5 flourescent lighting. 

Everyone has to find what works best in their climate and conditions.

By the way, the vinegar thing ended up stunting all my plants so I only do it like once every other month now with less vinegar in the water.  I've heard of lots of people doing it with good benefit when they water with tap water. But you cannot use too much.

1 Like Chicsa likes this.

[Us.Two]

Very true.  That's what happened to my Pereskiopsis back when I used fluorescent and metal halide lighting but the extra growth was partially due to etiolation and they ended up with weaker, thinner stems and leaves.  But hey, if you never intend to take them out of those conditions that works just fine And since the skin isn't so thick it makes grafting a tad easier.  I prefer mine to be battled hardened outside because I've  gotten the most scion growth from them that way. Also, with the indoor grown scion and rootstock combo I saw a lot of etiolation from my scion due to the lack of light. 

[New Wisdom]

I get the best scion growth on the huge, fatty peres as well, but they grow a lot slower themselves.  Every year I will usually put about 25 or so outside to grow huge like that and graft new seedlings on them and bring them inside during the winter. '

Edit: I wanted to add to the part I crossed out.  The super fat peres, once brought inside, actually grow faster than the skinnier ones, but when they're out in the full sun they grow a bit slower.

[Us.Two]

Nice, I may have to give that a shot here soon to get some extra growth.  I was wrong in stating that the full sun guys grow faster, they do growth exponentially when under artificial lighting they're just thinner and weaker than the outdoor guys.  I've never been a fan of etiolation but if you're trying to pump out root stock indoor is the way to go. 

I got a bit off topic hahah.  Yeah op, you should give them more root space because 4" pots aren't gonna cut it.  You'd do better to put like 4 of em together in a 1 gallon pot as opposed to separate 4 inchers.  You could also bump up your lighting a little and start watering them more.  They're not like normal cacti, they LOVE agua & nutes.