It will root by itself. If i leave them on the ground they root voluntarily. If you take the cut end and stick it in a bucket of sandy loam it will root pretty fast also. (i have never used rooting hormone for cactus) Good luck! 
She wonāt go.
Iāll keep it there until it rots.
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You want it a little warm also. If it is outside in the winter it might root too slow and die.
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Well spring is right around the corner so I decided to get my pile up and cooking, started a little more than a week ago. This years compost is going to be super charged with extra goodies added to the mix . I just got done turning it twice now and sandwich layered : kelp, crab, neem, alfalfa ,and azomite canāt wait to see what this wonderful mix is going to bring to the plants!
Oops forgot to mention Bokashi bran inoculated with EM1!
See my posts 13/14 of this thread on how I go about doing it all.
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compost update
Colorado in my area just received about 5-6 inches of snow itās currently 28 degrees out side and the pile is cooking at about 140. Keeping the violume at 3 cubic feet or more
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cacti are easy. thatās called a ānopaleā or ānopalā in spanish i think.
let a picked leaf form a ācallousā or scar tissue where itās broken off, by just air drying, like in a shed.
takes maybe a month?
place the stem/butt/bottom end in some well-draining (ā¦uhhā¦like in the desertā¦) soil.
low/no nutrients too.
NO WATER for the FIRST MONTH
maybe keep out of blistering sun too?
remember these mfāers root themselves naturally when animals or weather or gravity take them off, over time spreading outwards. i love it when plants invade. especially a certain weed.
cannabis.sequoia
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hereās my experience(failure teaches too):
critical mass for thermophilic compost is about a cubic yard, meter. tiny piles simply canāt hold heat.
for what its worth, the pallets are great, need wire for rodent/pest issues, can dry out in hot arid summer. i use a 3-sided bin, 4āh x 4āw, made from OSB/plywood, with 1" air holes drilled randomly.
it will hold 2 yards max., and holds heat/moisture better for me.
shit (manure). itās one of the few things that are still free for the taking, and happens to be fān great for soil. i take loads of horse stable wood chip bedding & manure, use it for maybe 1/2 my compost or as a groundcover/mulch. by the time i get it thereās no foul odor, just spring rain, actinomycetes & mycofriends. and i have chickens. the bacteria alone is worth it.
green:brown:dirt ratio/layers thereās 8 billion human assholes roughly, & a few more opinions, & the same goes for compost. ideally i use a 4" brown layer, 6" green layer, 1-2" shit/foodwaster layer, 1/2-1" real dirt. repeat layers until youāre high. 
AIR poke big vent holes all through the SoB. weāre breeding microbes here. turn it every 2-4 days, 5-7 times total, minimum. let it sit & cool down for 3-4 months. ideally let it sit for 1-3 years, the older the better. seriously. the young compost makes fine amendment but rough potting mix. the aged stuff is like wine & just crack candy for worms. my worm casts came out hot & burned my plants the first few times. 
bokashi is the small scale apartment dweller & cool climate option, neither are for me in my situation, but iām trying a lactobacillus ferment recipe from bokashicomposting.com
actively aerated compost awww yyeeah baby. i have seen a low cost co-op set-up utilizing an electric leaf-blower on a cycle-timer, blowing through 4" perforated drain pipe(styrene), and this in a big bin for a school in new york. instead of the powered version iād like to use a diy windmill and turn the blower shaft directly. a leaf blower is excessive airflow but very cheap & effective.
passive air-flow is something like 1-2% of the capacity of these things.
vertical stack digesters have been used, economizing on heat movement, etc.
iāve reread Rodaleās āComplete Book of Compostingā many times. wanna read about dutch garbage trains? the first discoveries of beneficial fungi & whatnot?
terra prieta/bio-char itās a hole that had a fire and garbage in it millenia ago. and itās good. charcoal is massive carbony surface area, providing shelter to f*ckloads of microbes.
so throw some decent clean charcoal in when you can. orchid growers use it as a buffer in their medium.
crazy side note: i think my first surprisingly healthy weed was in an orchid mix. and recently i disovered orchid bark really helps my soil mix because my vermicompost has a pH of 8.5.
(orchid mix being a happy 5ish pH.)
things to not do, ever ANIMAL brains. yep. apparently āprionsā evil protein chunks causing mad-cow-disease and irresponsible voting. can not be composted out.
iāve been stacking these layers of shit here & now iām high so until next time, happy dirt making
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You mean, big is good!
Meet my compost pile!
99
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youād be surprised at what else is apparently allowed to roam free here, so the āgrass is always greenerā on the other side, right? tempted to make a joke at the expense of our southern neighborās refugees, but alas, my ancestry fled the home of the vikings with good reason apparently.
that first taste of 115F & 7% humidity with 5x ground-level ozone & power-rationing might calm your winter blues. āthe city of treesā is actually fed by un-repaired water-mains, not our two beloved polluted rivers.
whew.
heheh
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"egggggxcellent, smithersā¦ "
i like the intimidation value of the castle-like structure. imposing. like a crusaderās paranoid composter with arrow-turrets
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We are all immigrants on a planet we do not own.
I love where I live. The weather is what it is. Each season brings change and completes the cycle.
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Release the oil, lol., their ramming the compost, lol.
99%
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fair enough, but some of us need more elbow-room than others & all that. youāre right.
I like compost talk, its slightly elevated from bathroom talk.
99%
oh man. donāt get me startedā¦ i have a tail-bone injury that is the basis of my medical cannabis use. good advice: donāt get drunk at the company party & bring champagne flutes out to the homeless outside, because youāll just get drunker & fall on your ass & end up with life-long nerve damage. not kidding.
felt like Che Guevara then, not now.
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apparently Growmau5 had a fall off a ladder that makes us 2 that i know of
I used to be in construction.
You really arenāt a roofer until you taken a fall!
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if i listed my medical issues itās like a royal title with honorsā¦ibs,ptsd,etc.wtf.
i grew up around it(my dad was GC & union big-shop plumber)ā¦glad i know it, but i avoided it as a career. somewhere after my visit on top deck of 36fl hi-rise with a bare wire, i became very afraid of heightsā¦ but was a fearless tree-monkey kid. sucks. even watching video of a repairman on a 1100ā tower antenna makes me panic bad enough to not continue. thanks dad! lol
glad we could joke. i gotta forage.
ttyl