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Written by MS Smith!
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Friday, 21 December 2001 |
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Page 4 of 6
Transplanting
Once your seedlings have grown to about a half inch to an inch you might want to consider transplanting them to a new container with fresh soil. Let the soil first dry out a little. It is best that the soil is not fully wet, but also not fully dry, at which point it might harden up and encase the roots, causing the young rootlets to tear off when removing from the soil. Many species have their best growth in a relatively root bound environment so it is recommended that the cacti be little more than one inch away from the containers edges. Some cacti, especially those with tuberous roots such as Ariocarpus and Turbinicarpus also love to dive deep into the soil so be sure to provide them with adequately deep containers.
Once the seedlings are transplanted to new containers and on their way to maturity, it is time to start testing out their natural sunlight capabilities. As with all cacti, young or mature, a sudden move from shade or partial sun to full sun is not recommended. Such a sudden shift in environments can cause the plant to get unsightly sunburn marks. It is best to slowly move them into more sunlight over the period of a couple weeks, taking care to watch for browning or reddening over. Immediately move the plant back into more shade if this occurs. And remember, though your cacti received strong artificial light indoors they still might not be capable of handing a rapid shift to strong natural light.
Grafting Your Seedlings
Now that your seedlings are large enough you might want to consider grafting. Grafting is an excellent method for increasing the growth rate of many of the clumping cacti, but is typically not done with columnar cacti. It is also used to propagate species since a graft will reach maturity quicker, thereby setting off many “pups” that can then be taken and grafted themselves. The principle here is to use a fast growing columnar species as a base plant and graft a slower growing clumping species onto it.
Start by selecting a nice columnar cactus for a base that is at least 4 inches tall, such as a Trichocereus pachanoi or Myrtillocactus geometrizans. If the two cores do not match in size it is very important that you at least cause them to connect at some point.
Now simply use a very sharp and sterile non-serrated knife to cleanly slice the base cactus horizontally, being careful not to saw through the plant. It's important that at this point you trim the edges of the base plant at a 45 degree angle all the way around while leaving a flat area equal to, or a little larger, than the diameter of the scion. This is important so that as the scion grows it can basically “roll down” over the edge of the base plant during its active growth. If you don't cut the edges it is very possible that the scions outward and downward growing pressure will cause it to pop off the base plant.
When you slice the scion plant be sure that it is cut very cleanly and without having to apply much pressure. Such pressure may cause bruising of the seedling or young plant which may in time become infected. Place this cut cacti directly on top of the center core of the base plant, or slightly off center if the cores are of unequal diameter. My own way of ensuring the graft is to use two rubber bands wrapped around the base of the pot of the columnar and over the top of the graft, each rubber band being at right angles to each other. This can at times be very difficult so it is very important that you take your time applying the rubber bands, being very careful that they are loose enough so as not to apply undue pressure on the graft and cause it to burst open at the sides, thereby effectively ruining the young plant.
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