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Egon_Spengler
Ever lurkin never workin



Registered: 04/02/22
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Re: Loph Growers Unite! [Re: hazyhorse] 2
#28098463 - 12/15/22 09:31 AM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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One of my outdoor babies is flashing her first bud. This’ll be P4F1.
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Lipa Kreepa
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Quote:
Egon_Spengler said:

One of my outdoor babies is flashing her first bud. This’ll be P4F1.
Looks awesome Egon! Super happy and healthy looking
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Feroxx
Master of the Green Fist


Registered: 09/18/17
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[image] [/image]
mine has some dried fruits on it, seems like seed count is gonna be low, many years back i used to have 20 and a few per fruit
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Egon_Spengler
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Re: Loph Growers Unite! [Re: Feroxx]
#28099558 - 12/15/22 08:24 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Beautiful plant.
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Lipa Kreepa
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Here’s some shots of one of my L.fricii. Sadly, this guy had root mealies really bad, a few weeks after this bloom session I discovered them :/ so right now he’s in ICU, bare root on a paper towel. Every so often I go in and rinse off the roots in case there’s any left. I spotted a small cluster of them recently and since the last rinse (knock on wood), I haven’t seen any more. Still hesitant to replant just yet though. Had two gorgeous rounds of blooms, shortly after I bought him and got him planted up. The T5 was definitely appreciated (wish I could say the same for other species of plants! ) and those flowers were pretty epic. Other than that, I’ve only had caesp flowers in my small garden, and although they’re attractive and welcomed too, they just lack the badassery of this fricii. My caesp blooms have always been rather small… but fortunately before this guy was dug up and sent into cactus icu, I utilized some of his pollen and fertilized a caesp flower into fruit… which got me some seed! My last few cactus seed runs have been terrible and all ended in failure, so I’ll probably save these guys until I get the hang of it again  
-------------------- LOVE LIFE AND LIVE IT HARD! 'Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me.' "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" -- Vonnegut A monkey w/out his jungle is just an inmate-- lipa
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Lipa Kreepa
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A few more pics…






Here’s a little caespitosa bloom that’s mostly white, with a pinkish tinge going on. Once they get to a point where they flower, it doesn’t take long for them to keep flowering several times in the growing season. It’s a cool species (or maybe subspecies ) and I hope I can use it for making more fruit in the days to come. I figure if I either do a straight cross (when both are blooming at the same time and I use a paintbrush to do some ‘bee-work’… or I do more of a sperm bank method, where the collected pollen is stored on a paint brush in the fridge… I don’t think the later has worked for me yet. But I typically try and save pollen anyways to keep trying. Hopefully one day, I hear dessicating the pollen and deep freezing it can be a good approach for some species of plants, yet idk about lophs 



   
Edited by Lipa Kreepa (12/18/22 02:53 PM)
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Egon_Spengler
Ever lurkin never workin



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Hey friends, any idea what would cause fruit to abort early?
Previously they had been plump and pink and I had high hopes for them. (See below from two weeks ago or so)

But they never grew to the long pink chili pepper shape, and now they’ve begun to dry and shrivel noticeably, turn pale. So I don’t think I’ll get any seeds. They’re smaller now than even the fruit that gave me one single solitary seed earlier this fall. Here they are now:

If pollination was successful enough to start fruiting, why would they stop? Any tips on what I’m doing wrong, or need to adjust? Is it possible that they’re just too young, and at 18mos old or whatever, being grafted has tricked them into false-flowering when they’re not really mature enough to follow through with fertilization/fruit production?
—-
In other news. I just manually self-pollinated P1F12 or something. But I’m really beginning to feel it doesn’t matter. 
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Lipa Kreepa
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I’ve had this happen once or twice. A fruit seemed to form but was empty inside :/ it’s a roll of the dice sometimes I suppose. Nice lophs bro
-------------------- LOVE LIFE AND LIVE IT HARD! 'Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me.' "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" -- Vonnegut A monkey w/out his jungle is just an inmate-- lipa
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zaros
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Isn't the Williamsii self fertile though so no guarantee of cross pollination?
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Lipa Kreepa
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Re: Loph Growers Unite! [Re: zaros]
#28109928 - 12/23/22 01:10 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
zaros said: Isn't the Williamsii self fertile though so no guarantee of cross pollination?
I’m no expert but as far as I know, an individual loph flower can’t fertilize itself. Now a neighboring flower, perhaps on the same plant, could potentially cause a success pollination. I’ve have several caesp heads that all came from one seedling that was grafted. It turned into several grafts, on different stocks… and I did get a fruit with seed from these one time. But all the rest of the flowers just dried and died, even with paintbrushes and actual bees. So my guess is that they can’t do it alone, unless it’s from a separate flower or neighboring plant. It’s always a gamble, I hope my attempts at cross pollination is indeed a success. As far as I know lophs can reproduce between species from just simple pollination of their flowers. Anyone else confirm or deny this?
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hummingbird

Registered: 06/29/14
Posts: 2,134
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Most Williamsii are self fertile, I think I've heard some of the southern localities aren't IIRC. I've definitely gotten seeds from a single flower I've pollinated on a few of mine.
Egon I'm not sure why those fruits aborted. If I had to guess though, it could maybe be either a temperature or nutrient thing. I have pollinated flowers that never grew a fruit at all, but haven't had one abort...
Maybe they aren't aborted and the cactus just didn't push them out all the way, and you'll still get seeds. The fruits don't last that long before they start to shrivel and dry. Have you pulled one out to check yet?
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Egon_Spengler
Ever lurkin never workin



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Quote:
hummingbird said: Most Williamsii are self fertile, I think I've heard some of the southern localities aren't IIRC. I've definitely gotten seeds from a single flower I've pollinated on a few of mine.
Yeah, that’s consistent with what I’ve read. While a few sources disagree, the consensus seems to be that most (not all) are self-fertile. Some that aren’t (ie: self-sterile), require crossing within the same species/locality only. And some but very few are hybridizable through crossing outside of species/locality, regardless of whether they’re self-fertile or not. Self-fertility does not seem to be exclusive in any types. Which is to say, there are none I’ve read about that are confirmed to only be self fertile. In nature there is no benefit to being unable to accept pollen from neighboring plants who flower at the same time. But there is a benefit to being able to reproduce alone, in the sad event that there’s no pollen available from nearby neighbors. But self-sterility on the other hand, requires the mingling with neighbors.
Quote:
Egon I'm not sure why those fruits aborted. If I had to guess though, it could maybe be either a temperature or nutrient thing. I have pollinated flowers that never grew a fruit at all, but haven't had one abort...
Maybe they aren't aborted and the cactus just didn't push them out all the way, and you'll still get seeds. The fruits don't last that long before they start to shrivel and dry. Have you pulled one out to check yet?
Temperature would surprise me if it were the culprit, but nutrients could be a problem. I asked specifically about the possibility that grafting was an issue, because it seems like the pereskiopsis rootstock may be very efficient at transferring the correct amount of water and nutes for accelerated vegetative growth, and even crazy amounts of flowering, but perhaps not so great at the nute requirements for fertile fruiting. Since they’re grafted, the cactus soil blend (while rockier and more mineral than regular potting soil blends) is suited to the stock, and is not quite as rocky/mineral as I would use for a loph on its own roots. So I’m wondering if there’s just an imbalance in the food it’s getting.
I have attempted over the 18mos or whatever that they’ve been grafted to supplement thier feeding small occasional amounts of liquid Succulent fertilizer. But this blend is known to be primarily urea, and I’m now thinking there’s a good chance it is only good for vegetative growth. It’s known to cause lots of pupping, and you can see that I’ve got that going on for sure.
Up to this point I’d been considering that perhaps these plants were self-sterile and that no amount of manual pollinating would ever do it. And that may still be the case. But I did have the short window where three plants bloomed at once and I hosted a mad orgy-type free for all pollen swap where all flowers received and donated pollen to all other flowers. And following that cross-pollenization party (which in theory should solve the problem of self-sterility), since I got teased with tiny fruit that appear to have given up, I suspect now that nutrition is a more likely culprit.
The aborted fruit are two-treee weeks old now, and within the range I think should be ready to harvest (under normal healthy circumstances). I haven’t tried harvesting either of them yet, but I will do so here shortly. To be frank, I’m not expecting anything but a minuscule husk, they’re so small at this point, there’s no way they’re hiding anything in that fluff. These guys are smaller than the tiny fruit that I took macro-Lens shots of a while back.
I need to re-read The Stone-Eaters and see if I can figure out a way to supplement whatever they’re missing, or pull back in whatever they’re getting too much of (probably nitrogen). I’ve got a bunch of PC Tricho grafting stock I’ve been cultivating that are about the right size now to receive these scions. I think I’m gonna plan on making the degraft/re-graft a priority this spring. Maybe the PC can do a better job of regulating what these girls need than the pere. Eventually I’ll grow some out on their own roots alone.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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hummingbird

Registered: 06/29/14
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I did a little bit of research on cactus fruit aborting and found this study- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11258-007-9269-x
It's mostly focused on an opuntia species, but likley somewhat applicable to other cactus too. It sounds like they aren't exactly sure the cause, but it seems mostly to do with incompatible donor pollen and nutrients.
I've found that cactus really like K and Ca, if you are giving lots of N, Ca is extra important. I usually try to keep N levels pretty low in lophs and trichs. I can't remember who/what turned me onto phosphorus acid (potassium phosphite), but that seems to be a good fertilizer for P and K on top of being a pretty safe/non toxic and effective fungicide. I may have recommended that to you already, I've been talking about it a lot since it saved a few of my lophs with fungal issues recently.
My loph soil mix is high mineral, but I'll occasionally feed them with a tiny bit of soy aminos for N with a small amount of calmag added for better uptake. Humic and fulvic acid as well, and a little kelp extract and micronutrient mix every once in awhile. I know pereskiopsis likes a little more organic matter in it's soil, which it sounds like you already know and have that going on. I'd say P, Ca, and K levels are super important for fruit and flower production(micronutrients too)...so maybe try to get a little more of those to them. High levels of N can mess with fruit and flower production in most plant species too, so maybe dial back a little on that as well.
I'm still hoping you get at least a few seeds out of those fruits. The fruits I get last only a couple weeks at most from when they first show up before they start to die back/dry. Trichocereus makes a better longer lasting grafting stock, but I've seen flower/seed factory mom lophs grafted onto pere too.
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Lipa Kreepa
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My apologies guys. I’m definitely not an expert when it comes to loph blooms. Looks like most Willy’s are indeed self fertile. I’ve never worked w a straight williamsii bloom, only caesp… albeit they seem to be pretty closely related. Good info in here. Now I’m questioning whether my fricii x caesp cross was indeed a success I had another fruit from just caesp flowers. I may have to grow them side by side to see if there’s any difference in time. Either way, i was super happy to just yield some seeds. It had always been a personal plant goal for me coming up.
Merry Christmas everyone
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mud1
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Sorry if this is the wrong place to post, but can someone help me out with a rotting loph "emergency"?
I made a thread here too https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/28114609
but basically there's brownish bacterial rot at the bottom of a LW whose rootstock was rotting. I cut the rootstock out completely but the rot keeps coming back. Anything I can do to save it? It's a really beautiful one...
Thanks in advance!
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HurricaneBreeze



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Re: Loph Growers Unite! [Re: mud1] 2
#28118346 - 12/31/22 02:54 AM (1 year, 28 days ago) |
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hi

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MycoBrainz
Mycotic



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They need more gypsum.
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Ratatoskr
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about to start 50 seeds i was gifted. leap frog foxfarm soil 50/50 with perlite was what he said he used to start his.
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Fungus Gnat


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Re: Loph Growers Unite! [Re: Ratatoskr]
#28130890 - 01/08/23 03:05 PM (1 year, 20 days ago) |
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Good luck, Ratatoskr! I started ~60 seeds about 10 days ago, it's exciting to watch these little guys grow!
A lot of my seedlings are turning a bit yellowish/orange, does anyone know if this looks symptomatic of too much light? I've got a household LED about a foot above them but they are also by a window that gets filtered light.
 My journal is here if anyone wants to critique my methods: Lophophora JournalHappy growing!
Edited by Fungus Gnat (01/08/23 03:05 PM)
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CactiChris
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Few quick shots before watering. Bigger ones started from seed 5 years ago.
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