54 replies to this topic

[Hippie3]

Been busy today playing cactus surgeon. Took a cutting off of my pereskiopsis and Grafted a peyote seedling onto the mother.
This is basically the same as Una's method
http://www.mycotopia...html?1075572189
Here's how I did it.
First, The Materials:

Rubbing Alcohol
Rooting Hormone (preferably with fungicide)
Sharp! Razor Blade
"Q" tips
Forceps or Tweezers
And of course your grafting stock and seedlings
I also have a spare pot prepared to accept the cutting I'll make from the pereskiopsis.

Here I'm swabbing the pereskiopsis around the area where I'll be making the cut.

LIGHTLY grasping the upper portion of the plant with the forceps I make the cut straight through the stem. A sharp razor blade will slice through with very little pressure making a clean cut.

Apply rooting hormone to the cutting. I also removed several of the bottom leaves (not pictured)to expose more bare stem before potting. I apply the hormone powder to all the cut surfaces on the cutting. DO NOT apply hormone powder to the piece you'll be grafting on.

Here's the cutting all potted and hopefully happy.
NOW TO THE GRAFTING
I removed the seedling from the container. Normally you can cut the seedling in half to get two scions to graft with. In my case I had only one piece of pereskiopsis ready to accept a graft. I cut the seedling just above the point where it turned from green to white and only used the green portion. Again a sharp razor blade is a must.

With the forceps; I positioned the scion on the grafting stock, cut to cut. I lightly pressed downward on the scion with my finger to make a good seal between the two. The juice from the pereskiopsis is all that is needed to hold the peyote scion in place.

Another shot of the scion in place

Then off to a lil humidity tent I fashioned from a wastepaper basket, 4 mil plastic sheeting and lots of "southern-grade" bonding adhesive (duct tape)

And finally one last parting shot

(NOTE: I don't know if this is helpful in anyway, but I'm a fungicide nut. I used my trusty water and Neem oil mix to lightly mist the plants and the inside of the tent)
Peace
-AoA

[Fungusaurus]

I finally found time to graft my cactus seedlings(L.williamsii,T.pachanoi,T.peuvianus and T.werdemannianus)


onto Pereskiopsis velutina stocks.

Seeds germinated a month ago and Peresk cuttings were made at the same time, now they had rooted for sure and had fresh growth in the top. I made a test grafting some months ago to see if I could do this. Heres a pic of my first grafting, these 2 pics of it is 7weeks old.

And here is what it looks like now after 7 weeks in 400w hps light.


Ar last, some pics of todays work:
(not best quality, the hps light fucks with it/me)


One needs a steady hand and surgical precision to work with those tiny seedlings, a new clean scalpel is used to make the cuts, and the finished braftings are placed in a humid environment, in this case a plastic box with semi transparent plastic bag over it.
I'll update this once a month or so, wish me luck.
:cacti:

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[rocketman]

Beautiful pics :) thanks for sharing. Im looking forward to more updates.

[Hippie3]

how did you do the pere graft anyway ?

[Fungusaurus]

I germinate cactus seeds(can be a bit tricky) and make peresk cuttings at the same time(very easy). After 3-5weeks the seedlings are big enough to graft and the peresk cuttings have rooted and showing new growth in the top.
Heres some graphic that may shed some light on the grafting procedure. Its made by nikodemus19 from thenook forums, and I use it without permission instead of drawing something exactly similar myself, cuz im lazy :shy:.

after the seedlings are grafted onto the peresk stocks, one have to be very carefull with them cuz the tiny seedling bits falls off if you fart. That first grafting i made wich is pictured above, was one out of three, one of them contaminated, the other was destroyed by me beeing a bit clumsy. But after 2-3 weeks they should be decently attached to the stock

[Hippie3]

anything put on the cut interface, antibiotic or sticky?

[Fungusaurus]

Hey nice pictorial above hip3.
As it says in it, the juices from the cuts on the grafting stock and the seedling is enough to stick them together.
The only preservative I use is when germinating seeds. Its a food-grade preservative containing sodium benzoate http://en.wikipedia....Sodium_benzoate
When cactus seeds germinate, they are easily contaminated by molds and using a SB solution has worked fine for me, just mist them with the solution.

hm, I forgot to cut off the top areoles on my new graftings, this is to be done so all the growing power goes to the seedling scion on the top. If not cut off, the grafting stock will just shoot new branches from the top areoles. Guess I have to do this now but it will be a nerve wrecking operation to cut them now with the small scions on top. Maybe I'll wait a week so the scions may be better connected to the stocks.

[Fungusaurus]

Here is another great guide:
http://web.archive.o...\grafting_cacti

hm they dont cut off top areoles, guess I'll cut em off on half of my grafts to see what works out best

[Fungusaurus]

Cap: I havent tried all possible tek's for germinating cactus seeds, but the SB is somthing that works for me. Everytime I tried with out SB, I lost almost every seedling to molds.

[Fungusaurus]

Btw, it has come to my attention that when grafting, the alkaloid content is lowered(while still on grafting-stock). One must cut off the grafting, root it, and let it build up alkaloids on its own roots. Does anyone know anything about this? How long time does it take for a grafted cutting to build alkaloids after being rooted on its own? Experiences, refs?

[Fungusaurus]

Nook'ed the question and found some answers.

Q:

when Trich and lophs are grafted they eventually needs to be cut off and grow on their own roots to build normal alkloid levels. Can anyone confirm this and tell me how long it takes before alkaloid levels are normal?

A's:

I know there once was a publication about this and they showed that this is not true. Even the rootstock contains a little mescaline after some while.

I think the reason that alkaloids appear to be less present in grafted specimens is because of the age of most cacti tested. They need to develop into maturity before certain chemicals are produced. Also, there is the issue of grafted cacti tending to be more pumped up with water and having a lower percentage of alkaloids when consumed fresh. Some vets have proven that when these factors are taken into account, there is virtually no distinguishable difference between grafted cacti and those on their own roots.

Alkaloid content in general is primarily determined by genes and facilitated by the environmental factors that directly or indirectly affect alkaloid biosynthesis. It is presumably a chemical process carried out presumably by protein enzymes with various mineral cofactors. If the plant contains the genes for alkaloid X and all of the building blocks for both the alkaloid and the bio-machinery (enzymes) needed to do the chore product and the equipment the plant needs to produce alkaloid, then in theory the plant will produce alkaloids as is coded for. Enzymatic pathways are perceptually complex, though they seem to proceed one step at a time.

So much bizarre anecdote and data seems to exist for alkaloids in cacti, single specimens have apparently shown themselves chemically inconsistent and the only thing that seems clear is that what is happening is not clear.

I would suspect that in the right conditions some grafted plants produce alkaloids at a rate that matches their growth in terms of over all turnaround, exceptions seem almost certain as well. I'd expect to see conflicting data from any initial research into the topic.

It seems, though, that the older the cactus, the higher the alkaloid content, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to let em root and grow on their own for a while.

[Fungusaurus]

update time...better late than never.

Well the grafting project didnt turn out as well as expected, but at least theres alittle something to show and tell. Out of 24 grafting attempts only 5 survived. The other 19 was lost in the first few weeks after grafting.

Some because of clumsiness :eusa_wall(them seedlings are small and fragile), some because i read somewhere that 2days after grafting the surfaces are healed and grown together and can be removed from humid environment(so i did and most of them simply dried out or were pushed off the graftingstocks by the zap in the pereskiopsis - because i watered them right after the grafting - this should be done 1 or 2 days before grafting so the pereskiopsis is maximum hydrated as written in several guides).

After i grafted i also read that usually the top 3-4 leaves are cut off the stock to prevent branches to grow out from the leaves bases so all growth is transferred to the grafted seedling. I attempted this on some of them wich resulted in total dehydration and dead seedlings. If this is to be done I guess it must be done in time before grafting for the cut wounds to heal and possibly best in a humid environment so the grafting stocks dont dehydrate.

Out of the 5 survivors, only one of them was perfectly connected to the grafting stock and started growing rapidly ammidiately. Here it is, its a EDIT: T.peruvianus

It has one sibling survivor, alive , but no growth, the stock keeps shooting new branches wich i cut off as they come.
It looks exactly like this EDIT: pachanoi of wich 2 survived but no particular growth yet.

A single peyote survived and is beginning to show signs of growth. Here you can also see how a branch is beginning to shoot, they do it all the time, damned branches!

here you can see the EDIT: peruvian torch survivor from above, next to the pereskiopsis wich lost their seedling grafts and just grew on their own.


I repotted them all today - something I should have done long time ago, I admit I have neglected the project and this post, I accept cyber kicks in my balls and ass :headbang: :puke:
I have too much shit going at once.

Btw my first grafting ever, EDIT:a T.peruvianus, of wich i posted pics of in the first post in this thread now looks like this:

:eusa_danc
On the other side of it, it grew out off one of its ribs, maybe someone inhere knows why this happens? inconsistent watering maybe?


At least I am better prepared to my next grafting attempt now, I have plenty of pereskiopsis and cactus seedlings so it might give it a try soon again.

Hope you enjoy :)

~~Fungusaurus

[loochypooch]

Hey Fungusaurus are those Pachanoi Hybrids? You called them Pachanois, but they appear to have too many spines. They spine arrangement looks exactly like some Pachanoi-x-Peruvianus Hybrids I have...

http://mycotopia.net...39&d=1149629485
http://mycotopia.net...53&d=1149631930

[Fungusaurus]

no dude i wrote the wrong name :eusa_wall dammit kick my ass, they are both peruvianus, I never wrote the name on the big grafting in the bottom - it is a peruvianus. It only said peruvianus on the package of the new ones - dunno what hybrids they are.
I'll edit right away.

[Hippie3]

damn painful learning curve there eh
still
one is better than zero

[cheech]

my only attempt so far at grafting lopho seedlings to pereskiopsis ended in failure for my 4 seedlings. my clumbsiness was the biggest problem. i may try one of those lighted magnifiers to aid my precision. i have a lopho that may flower this season so there may be some seeds to give it another go soon.
my current grafting experiment using plants grown from seed and about 3 cm across is going great. one lopho was grafted to an unrooted san pedro, the other to a myrtillo cactus. the myrtillo graft has increased it's diameter from 3.2 to 3.5 cm and has gained considerable thickness (height) in the 6 weeks it's been joined. it's overall color has gotten much greener. the san pedro graft has greened up, but not to the extent of the other. it's growth, while readily noticable to me is less. once the pedro is well rooted i expect the lopho to catch up quickly. i've been building my stock of pereskiopsis so i'll be well prepared. i plan to try some t. peruvianus seedlings also.

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[Fungusaurus]

Nice graftings cheech226

damn painful learning curve there eh
still
one is better than zero

True enough hip, but id say it was more disapointment than pain, pain is my ghost brother anyway ;)
I still expect the 4 other survivors to grow up though, and I got lots of experience from my failures so im much better prepared for next attempt so overall not that bad.

Btw any1 tried grafting on Hylocereus? They are used for massproduction grafting. I bought some Astrophytum myrostigma grafted on Hylocereus stocks for a very small price in the fall.

I severed the Astrophytum from the Hylocereus, rooted the Astro and repotted the Hylo to try and get some new Hylocereus stocks and attempt grafting on them. They seem to grow very fast when they get going.

Look how roots are shoting from the pups


:cacti:

[Fungusaurus]

Btw some nice links imo, to Hylocereus and grafting

http://www.lapshin.o...N30/hasan-e.htm

Hylocereus: Highly recommended stocks for very fast growth and well suited for grafting seedlings or very small young offsets. Sometimes considered a temporary stock for many species unless grown in warmer climates where it has very better longevity in porous soil. If you have a cooler climate, Selenicereus grandiflorus is a better choice for fast scion growth. Whether you use Hylocereus or Selenicereus, best results come from single fully rooted cuttings which are cut to a height of 6 cm to 8 cm. If branching side shoots develop near the base of the grafting stock, let them grow no longer than 6 cm to 8 cm before removing them to use as new cuttings. Any side shoots which start to grow closer to the graft should be removed immediately.

From http://www.sphosting...ting_stock.html

[cheech]

Nice graftings cheech226

thanks fs! i did learn quite a bit from my initial failures too. i'm stunned by how fast slow growing (in nature) cactus will grow when grafted. i've aquired 3 more buttons that i'm going to grow for a year on their roots, then graft those too. the bottom (rooted) part of the buttons i grafted are both putting out pups, one each so far.
have you ever seen a lopho just begin to flower? i'm curious what to look for. i'm hoping my largest button (still on it's roots) will flower so i can start seedlings this season.

i have a few hylo's and i may give them a try as stock for some buttons too.
thanks for the nice pics.
thanks to you too, hip, for the pereskiopsis grafting pictorial.