Print

[spractral]

Hey,

I'm curious; does anyone have experience groing stock such as pereskiopsis or selenicereus from seed? I'm wondering because it would be a much cheaper (I'm assuming) option than having cuttings shipped out.

Do they take a long time to grow? I figure they shouldn't.... Does anyone know a decent cheap place to order?


Ok, hope everyone is doing well.

[OfCows]

...in case you miss my reply in the Shoutbox - https://www.living-rocks.com/pereskiopsis.htm has a bit of info.

[Auxin]

I dont know if you'll be able to find Pereskiopsis seed anywhere, the cultigen people normally use for grafting doesnt produce seed.
Other than that, sure you can grow stock from seed but it takes a few years.
I've grown Harrisia jusbertii and some Opuntias from seed, it'll be several years before your grafting. Or one year if you grow an opuntia seedling just to make one graft, I've seen people do that.
If you get Pereskiopsis clones you can then use them to grow seed grown Hylocereus, Harrisia, Selenicereus, Trichocereus, etc. stock very fast. Thats basically what I'd do. You can grow a Trichocereus 12-18" tall in a year on pereskiopsis before growth stalls and you have to degraft and H. jusbertii would likely grow faster. I've even seen people stick a trichocereus seedling on pereskiopsis and after it grew 5" graft a button on top of the trichocereus while it still had 6 productive months left on the pereskiopsis.

[GoodEarth]

Removed by user

[Auxin]

I suggest you read Teo’s small book of grafting cacti written by one of the moderators over at the shaman-australis forums, it'll help in getting started with grafting.

I've seen 1 day old seedlings successfully grafted to Pereskiopsis, with that stock as long as you can maintain humidity you only need to wait until theyre big enough for you to handle.
If you get a good join on a Trich to Peres graft, by 1 year it'll be big enough to go on to its own roots. With Trichocereus, when they are in hot weather, you can just grow them like tomatoes. Literally, I grow mine in tomato potting soil with sand and feed them tomato fertilizer and water every other day in summer, they grow like mad. I did see one guy, tho, he got a desirable Trich clone, grafted little pups or areoles to Peres and when they were done growing chopped the stems up into 1" disks and grafted those to 6" sections of another Trich to sort of mass produce the clone.
Its Lophs you'll be regrafting to H. jusbertii, however, look at pictures of Lophs grafted to Peres. You can let the main head grow while cutting off the pups it forms and grafting those to H. jusbertii. From one Loph seedling, after 12-16 months, you can have one big flowering head nearing the size of a tennis ball ready to put on its own roots and a whole row of H. jusbertii with grape to golf ball size buttons grafted on top.

2 Likes OfCows and GoodEarth like this.

[GoodEarth]

Removed by user

[Inyan]

Hey,

I'm curious; does anyone have experience groing stock such as pereskiopsis or selenicereus from seed? I'm wondering because it would be a much cheaper (I'm assuming) option than having cuttings shipped out.

Do they take a long time to grow? I figure they shouldn't.... Does anyone know a decent cheap place to order?


Ok, hope everyone is doing well.

Selenicereus seed can be found at Koehres and for under 90 euro for 10,000 seed you really can't beat that if your plan on growing a lot of stock fast.

Sure, graft some of your stock to other stock cacti if you want to speed up a certain stock you wish to play with.

I frequently graft Trichocereus to Pereskiopsis as it grows much faster when grafted to Pereskiopsis. I then turn around and often use those same Trichocereus to graft other cacti on them.

Humidity is easy to maintain so long as one wraps the graft with parafilm. You can literally toss your graft across the room after grafting with parafilm and you have no reason to worry about your graft not taking other than if it actually gets smashed flat.

I've read a lot about grafting and to be honest, many make it out to be much more detailed and hard to understand than I think the subject really is.

I try to explain grafting simple and fast in this video. Grafting cacti seedlings should be explained easy enough that even a young child could do it successfully after 5 minutes or less of instruction. If my video above doesn't make things absolutely clear, perhaps I need to go back to the drawing board and find a young child to teach via video and then post that.

Anyone have any young children that are interested in learning to graft?

[spractral]

Very interesting stuff...


So it seems the best way to accumulate stock is to either just get a good bit of pereskiopsis and propagate it and/or grow out selenicereus and use that also....

Yes, the parafilm seems to be key.... I can't imagine being able to graft smaller scions without a ton of hassle without it.

How often do you feed your pereskiopsis or selenicereus? High on nitrogen?

[Inyan]

Very interesting stuff...


So it seems the best way to accumulate stock is to either just get a good bit of pereskiopsis and propagate it and/or grow out selenicereus and use that also....

Yes, the parafilm seems to be key.... I can't imagine being able to graft smaller scions without a ton of hassle without it.

How often do you feed your pereskiopsis or selenicereus? High on nitrogen?

I honestly don't think you could purposely kill Pereskiopsis by overfeeding it. With that being said, I put all of my stock plants to include Trichocereus stock in a soil mixed with composted cow manure, blood meal, bone meal, and soak that soil in fish emulsion mixed with soluble miracle grow at least once a month. I will warn you, some Trichocereus cultivars can't handle that and will form black spots if you treat them this way. The T. bridgesii and hybrids thereof are the most prone to this that I have dealt with.

[Auxin]

...I honestly don't think you could purposely kill Pereskiopsis by overfeeding it....

I made a serendipitous discovery that way, once. At the time I was in the habit of making my grow fertilizer as a super strong batch which I then diluted as needed to whatever strength I wanted. The concentrate (15-30-15 + micros) was 3 times as potent as I would feed any plant. At the time I had a graft of that short clumping TBM type that I had started from the tiniest pup, it was finishing its first 'pickle' and I thought it would pup soon. Well one day when distracted I saw my TBM-pereskiopsis graft needed water and I just drenched the pot. Three hours later I realized I saturated it with the concentrate! I was tempted to wash out the soil but I knew Pereskiopsis could cope with alot so I just waited. An explosion of growth ensued, it reverted from the 'penis tip' growth of the clumping TBM and put out more viable areoles! I waited and when that stem was about to terminate again I drenched it with the concentrate again and it reverted to putting out areoles again. I did that one more time and I ended up with this monster 25 cm long clumping TBM stem. You can clearly see where I super-fertilized it each time:

Pereskiopsis loves fertilizer!

2 Likes MeanGreen and Inyan like this.

[Inyan]

...I honestly don't think you could purposely kill Pereskiopsis by overfeeding it....

I made a serendipitous discovery that way, once. At the time I was in the habit of making my grow fertilizer as a super strong batch which I then diluted as needed to whatever strength I wanted. The concentrate (15-30-15 + micros) was 3 times as potent as I would feed any plant. At the time I had a graft of that short clumping TBM type that I had started from the tiniest pup, it was finishing its first 'pickle' and I thought it would pup soon. Well one day when distracted I saw my TBM-pereskiopsis graft needed water and I just drenched the pot. Three hours later I realized I saturated it with the concentrate! I was tempted to wash out the soil but I knew Pereskiopsis could cope with alot so I just waited. An explosion of growth ensued, it reverted from the 'penis tip' growth of the clumping TBM and put out more viable areoles! I waited and when that stem was about to terminate again I drenched it with the concentrate again and it reverted to putting out areoles again. I did that one more time and I ended up with this monster 25 cm long clumping TBM stem. You can clearly see where I super-fertilized it each time:

Pereskiopsis loves fertilizer!

Very good point Auxin. And your post brought forth another important fact... heat and humidity also play an important part in making T. bridgesii cultivars prone to black rot. In combination with heavy fertilizer and a hot humid environment this becomes worse. There is often more than one variable at play when it comes to things such as this.

I often grow my grafted seedlings for months at a time in highly concentrated fertilizer + water in a hot humid green house.

[spractral]

Very interesting accidental experiment Auxin.... So I am tempted now to water my scop X teres grafted on peres with some strongish nutrients... I gave it a bit of nutrient about days or so ago and shortly after the peres dropped a leaf or 2 and started yellowing a bit... I thought that may have been from the nutrients but, as it was only about 3 days since I unpacked it from the mail, I think it may have actually just been a delayed stress response...


Another interesting thing I have noticed is that same plant is getting purplish hues on or near the aeroles ... I am thinking that may be from so much humidity and sun? It is not rotting at all so I'm not concerned about it but it sure looks cool.

I don't think I have even hit my peres or selnicereus with nutes yet so I think I'l do that now. Also going to start keeping a journal as I have so many plans going aside from the cacti that it is slipping past my memory a bit... About to go plant /transplant some baby heavenly blue seeds/seedlings  into the woods behind my house giving them some trees to wind around.


Do you see the pereskiopsis growing back all or most of their leaves if you give them a good bit of time? Most of them have started to re grow their leaves starting from the top.... Also, what do you do when you have a selenicereus that has roots growing out of the side of it?

I will take some pictures in a bit after I get done with what I need to do .

[Auxin]

The leaf drop is probably water or physical stress from shipping. I've grown Peres for years and only three things make them drop leaves: 1) the soil drying out 2) physical damage 3) being a graft stock for over 6-8 months (thats why you see so many pictures of Lophophora lollipops). Once they drop leaves they will not produce leaves from those areoles again, but new growth will have leaves.
The purpleing is likely from more light than theyre used to. You can tell how much light they were getting from leaf shape and thickness as well as spines. In low light, like under fluoros or thick shade cloth, the leaves will be long and skinny and delicate and the stem will have glochids but no, or very small, spines. In full sunlight the leaves will be basically round with pointed ends, thick, tough, and may be covered in 'peach fuzz' and abnormally painful 2-4.5 cm spines will grow.
Transition low-light grown plants to more light carefully and dont try to transition too far if you need to keep those leaves. Or at least I never got skinny leaves adapted to full sun. Grow your stock plants in light not too much weaker than you intend to keep the grafted plants in.
Its only old sun-grown plants I've seen flower (although I dont think theyre self fertile).

[Solipsis]

It shouldn't really be expensive to trade with someone for peres cuttings, or selenicereus grandiflorus cuttings if you can find them.

Actually sent from here in the netherlands it may even be cheaper in bubble envelope (cause letter mail) than a domestic package.. but not entirely sure on the weight..

I believe selenicereus grandiflorus can also easily be grown from seed.

I don't think it's critical to lose leaves on peres from shipping.. it grows like a weed regardless.

@ grafts with peres: I am actually trying it with leaving a shoot on the peres, to get more photosynthesis from it, at least for a while..  Also my theory is that it may offer a boost to the scion when you actually start pruning the peres shoots.

[Inyan]

It shouldn't really be expensive to trade with someone for peres cuttings, or selenicereus grandiflorus cuttings if you can find them.

Actually sent from here in the netherlands it may even be cheaper in bubble envelope (cause letter mail) than a domestic package.. but not entirely sure on the weight..

I believe selenicereus grandiflorus can also easily be grown from seed.

I don't think it's critical to lose leaves on peres from shipping.. it grows like a weed regardless.

@ grafts with peres: I am actually trying it with leaving a shoot on the peres, to get more photosynthesis from it, at least for a while..  Also my theory is that it may offer a boost to the scion when you actually start pruning the peres shoots.

When you leave the side shoots on Pereskiopsis the tendency is for the stock to redirect energy into that side shoot that is actually genetically the stock. I've actually had scions that were of appreciable size dry up and die when side shoots were allowed to grow fo a long period of time. You can definitely get by with it for a short period of time. Speaking from experience, even multiple grafted specimens on a single Pereskiopsis will often result in just a few scions doing well and one scion may completely stall.