16 January 2008
Bumper seedling update
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti; Propagation .
Things are progressing at a tremendous rate - as you can see, my Astrophytum myriostigma seedlings have now got juvenile spines (which of course will be hardly, if at all, present on the adult plants), and clearly defined tiny ribs. This photo reminds me of a self-set A. myriostigma seedling that I found growing in my huge pot of Heliocereus at the far end of the greenhouse - it was the four-sided “quadricostata” cultivar, but perished at about two years old. I forget why.
Also doing well are my Frailea angelesii seedlings.
Admittedly, a large number of these have already given up. I sowed two pots of approximately thirty seeds each, and while a lot germinated, a lot of those damped off quite swiftly, leaving me with about a dozen or so seedlings. These two are the most advanced.
Then there’s the Gasteria pulchra babies. As has been pointed out to me, it can be a bit of a shock seeing how quickly seedlings of leaf succulents develop in comparison with young cacti.
These little fellows have nearly doubled in size since they put in their first appearance - and germination, after a long period of inactivity, has picked up; I now have 9 seedlings out of 15 seeds.
And finally, for now, here are the same Turbinicarpus polaskii seedlings photographed just a few days back.
Many of them now have the feathered spines that characterise one of their juvenile phases - for plants that as adults can be pretty slow-growing the seedlings seem to be both robust and quite quick to develop. Of course all that will probably change!
As I said in one of my first posts about seed-raising, this is my first attempt using artificial lights and ziplock bags to maintain a sealed, moist, environment, and I’m delighted with the results so far.