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[modern]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=859ql-80-Ws

So 2 months ago I randomly grafted a few mammillaria onto peppers just to have some 'click bait' footage/images but did graft them in with intent without any real expectation of success...

Having seen minimal success that it 'took' due to swollen base I did another graft using an astrophytum onto another pepper plant. The original graft seems to have failed HOWEVER the astrophytum actually has a lot of growth at the base either a pup or some sort of chimera growth. Still updating however very cool to see VERY distant plants take.


This is something someone commented on an older video and will attempt this since I find these grafts quite interesting. I've suggested a few grafts in the past and not sure if anyone has attempted them. But there area a few interesting possibilities that have a MUCH high chance of success then this did.

Pat The Plant
1 month ago
I would like to see you graft one onto a tobacco seedling and another on a Portulaca grandiflora. "DNA studies show that Portulacaceae possibly cannot be separated from Cactaceae because it lacks autoapomorphies; Cactaceae however presents areoles which are not present as such in Portulacaceae." Neotropikey As you replied to another comment, flowering plants are probably not best for grafting onto, as they are putting everything into the flowers.

[modern]

update on the 'chimera'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AetHRTEzIqc

[Endophyte]

"DNA studies show that Portulacaceae possibly cannot be separated from Cactaceae because it lacks autoapomorphies; Cactaceae however presents areoles which are not present as such in Portulacaceae."

Unless areoles are just adaxial identity surfaces with pronounced and enlarged trichomes and glands, which makes sense.
The rib morphology could even just be a controlled form of fasciation, which is why cacti are more prone to it (crested growth).

I expect that cross-family grafting may succeed in areas that would surprise us, the issue is that people who assume they know things don't tend to test their assumptions (DK effect) and so overestimate the quality of their knowledge.

It's funny how often something that can't, won't and don't work actually does but people just aren't making the effort or give up far too easily.

Only through experimentation and observation can we actually learn things, the rest is just faith based.
We need people who try things like cross-species grafting, who actually challenge and test their assumptions and then share their results.

It really is the only way we gain meaningful knowledge.
Thank you for sharing this.

[modern]

There is actually an update to this... so it has done NOTHING for the past few months but recently there is a little but of new growth. This is far from successful and I wouldn't call this dead but not really alive. Its a zombie basically.

https://youtu.be/41U2deEATLA

[Endophyte]

I wonder if the application of growth promoting auxin like hormones would cause more to happen here?

[Greenmystery]

I hope your graft does start to grow🤞🏻
That'll be amazing
Compared to Trichocereus I've noted the couple Atrophytum grafts I've done are really slow

[modern]

I hope your graft does start to grow🤞🏻
That'll be amazing
Compared to Trichocereus I've noted the couple Atrophytum grafts I've done are really slow

It died a week or two after the update video. Well the stock died and when I cut there was no graftable material.

[Endophyte]

I was reading a paper about grafting and hormones it mentioned that with grafts there is always a layer of tissue that dies and tissue adjacent to it that becomes callus tissue and then re-differentiates into vascular tissue at the graft union.  The idea with grafting is to minimize the amount of tissue that becomes necrotic between the layers of callus so as to promote rapid union and recovery.

This implies that grafting can also potentially involve callus to callus contact, which can supply limited nutrition without vascular tissue differentiating and directly supplying the scion with a flow of nutrients the way it does ordinary meristems.

I believe that the graft of the cactus to the pepper was a callus to callus situation that was able to provide enough nutrients to keep the scion alive without any vascular contact or differentiation taking place, but that without the establishment of the nutrient flow from vascular tissue the scions growth cannot be supported by the stock.

It might even be the case that a more direct graft could fail more rapidly and the reason it faded rather than just popped off might be the callus to callus nature of the graft. If the stock had been a cactus the hormones of the scion would be able to help initiate a new vascular connection to the stock, but the plants here are so different that they are not compatible as differentiated plant tissues but do not appear to be incompatible as callus tissues.

Or so I suspect.

[modern]

Someone else suggested it may be similar situation to galls. I've not researched it enough but new to me.

[Endophyte]

Someone else suggested it may be similar situation to galls..

They could be right.

A lot of it comes down to compatibility, two species that can grow as mixed in-vitro cultures together without a zone of inhibition are more likely to be graft compatible or at least not immediately incompatible.

If I recall properly a gall is a formation where an organism interfaces with a host plant to form a specialized cyst-like structure composed of callus-like tissue, so the suggestion that cross species grafting is gall-like seems valid to me.

There is a cancer-like element as well, where a scion is like-unto a foreign tissue that is part of yet not part of the original organism that obtains energy and sends chemical signals through the host. The host meristem typically is able to monitor the entire plant via various network like chemical systems. In my experiments plants even detect and reject, in many cases, fruit that is not pollinated by the proper plant. People have used hormones to prevent this type of tissue rejection and get certain hybrids to work more often with Ipomoea batatas as an example.

The need of the meristem to communicate back and forth with the cells via multiple signaling pathways is likely the primary reason that grafting success is almost entirely limited to plants of the same families. Gall formations involve special hormones, in many cases, to keep the tissues alive and prevent rejection by the host. It isn't entirely different than the situation with organ transplants and needing medication to prevent rejection with our own species. We even graft pig parts to humans successfully using this type of treatment.

Since protoplast fusion hybrids of plants in distinct families are known, it may even be possible to directly perform meristem to meristem grafts or initial transplant grafts with initials being the active special cells in a meristem that monitor the plant. A chimera is a mixed meristem plant and there should be some fairly simple ways to induce them with the right methods and tools. A bit of callus tissue from one cactus or plant might be carefully excised and placed in the meristem region of another plant with a potential chance to induce a chimeral meristem. A crested plant with a long meristem might be far easier to work with in this regard. I've had no success with the single meristem to meristem graft I tried recently but want to try again later when the weather is more plant friendly outside.