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ninja cat 09
A paranoid android



Registered: 10/11/09
Posts: 4,170
Loc: Mexico
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I wanted to give an update: so far only one of the grafts from my first attempt has survived, it's an Astrophytum Asterias that's larger than the ones on their own roots, but not too much yet, the unknown seedling is dying off.

In the second container, all but one are doing great! They've reached the point where they're showing new growth and seem healthy:

There's one Asterias that's showing really great growth, this is probably because I got lucky and perfectly aligned the vascular rings, although I don't discard genetics. It's easily 50% larger than any other Asterias hypocotyl graft I have made:

Finally, here's the one that's having trouble, I suspect it might be because I didn't properly align the vascular rings, but I doubt it's that because it's been slowly detaching itself from it's root stock. I also believe it might have been because I cut the root stock too high, as evidenced by the extremely tiny thorn growing out the side of the base of the root stock (very similar to other thorns on opuntia seedlings). I might be overthinking it a bit when the cause might just be fungus, but don't see any fuzziness or sliminess on the scion.

Other seedlings that are more misaligned don't show this type of decomposition, as is evidenced by a graft which is happily growing along with a pretty considerable offset (I wasn't able to capture it very well on camera, it's more noticeable in person, it´s the graft that's to the right in the middle). This, however, doesn't mean that the failed graft's vascular ring is properly aligned or that the graft in the picture is misaligned:

Here's where the advantage of hypocotyl grafting looks obvious, not even a pachanoi would have such a developed root system at such a young age and the graft won't be noticeable once the scion is larger. I'm hoping that with some more water and space this little guy will grow a little faster than he has so far. If he does, this would be a great way of keeping lophophora which look like they're on their own roots without a lot of special care.
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bw86
Doesn't play well with others


Registered: 11/12/06
Posts: 5,937
Loc: 7b
Last seen: 1 day, 1 hour
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Great post mate 
a true asset to the community
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ninja cat 09
A paranoid android



Registered: 10/11/09
Posts: 4,170
Loc: Mexico
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Re: Hypocotyl grafting? [Re: bw86]
#26606590 - 04/16/20 08:03 PM (3 years, 9 months ago) |
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Thanks a bunch mate! I'm hoping I'll be able to iron out the difficulties of the method and post a tek once I've got it down
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ninja cat 09
A paranoid android



Registered: 10/11/09
Posts: 4,170
Loc: Mexico
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I have some opuntia seeds sitting in wet soil, waiting to sprout. I wonder why they're taking so long this time? Maybe it's that I got the seeds from another variety of opuntia. I have some baby loph diffusa waiting to be tested on. I also have an excess of pachanoi and peruvianis seedlings laying around I might as well experiment on.
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