Lophophora's Peyote

Any cacti grower can help :rofl: I was just gifted the ones in that photo. Does the squishy thing still work or not?

:green_heart: :seedling:

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It depends how close you want to get to those spikes with your fingers.

Some columnar cacti have a tough inner core so the squishability of the flesh will be far less noticable.

If the medium is dry, the cactus should be fine with a drink. There are exceptions to every rule, but cacti are generally pretty forgiving.

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No, the truth is that I do not know how it lasted so long with me :grin: I know cactus very little, Other people here will be able to help you more than I can…

the less I look at it and the less I worry about it is when I see it that it is better, when I start to move it from place, to water it often as if it were a plant it gets ugly, they are very easy to grow is a cactus can endure a lot without water, always better without water than with a lot of water.

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One day I forgot it inside a grow tent, off 4 months, when I found it it was all 100% white and stretched like a stick up. I put it out in the sun and at 2 months it was fine already.

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Time to wrap it up

The end of the outdoor peyote season is nigh. This morning was 2°C (35.6°F). A part of me is tempted to see how long they will survive but the other part says we had a good outdoor run.

Looks like something or some things took a couple cursory bites out of one the cacti but otherwise they are doing great.

What a filthy hypocrite I am, these cacti have been wet for weeks and look no worse for wear. One pot is even showing moss growing on the soil.

Perhaps there are no wrong answers… To be more precise there are many wrong answers as confirmed by all the cacti I have killed.

Live and learn I guess.

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Beautiful cactus brother, Tell me something, those cacti come from seeds? Take a long time to germinate are they easy? or do you separate them from a mother? I want to get a a little son out of mine, he has 12 sons, but the truth is that I am afraid of damaging it.

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Yes, those cacti were from seed.

This is a valid concern. I’ve always used a sharp kitchen knife or razor, and wiped down the blade with alcohol or lysol in between cuts. All it takes is a steady hand and a firm resolve.

I’m always more worried for the cutting than the mother, cuttings can take a while to root and grow. The already rooted mother will callous pretty quickly and keep on growing.

I’ve over fed/watered peyote and had them split. I had a bird fly in through my chimney, land on a cactus and pick at it with it’s claws while freaking out the way a bird does when it finds it’s way into the house. I’ve had neighbourhood squirrels take a bite out of the cacti. In all of these instances the cactus grew out all the damage within a year. Now you could never even tell.

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We really care more than we should, they are very resistant and many times when you try to take care of them a lot it hurts them even more, when I forget about it is when it gets :grin: nicer … Thank you very much mate, I will try to get some sapling, that many people ask me for one and I do not take it out of fear, but I want to get a sapling to share it.

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Beautiful! Is that a Peruvian torch? @Murciano207

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No, Trichocereus pachanoi

Little spines… 1-3 mm

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I bought seeds for that some years ago, but something else germinated

They’re not in their best shape, been a bit neglected.

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Trichocereus Peruvianis have spines very long…

70-100 mm

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I thought I was buying what you have!
Love the look of them.

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Peruvian Torch
image

image

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Yes I got that instead!
Either that or a hybrid, I definitely ordered trichocereus pachanoi, and that’s what it said on the pack of seeds.

But also got me some Lophophora caespitose seeds from the same nursery but they all look like williamsii because none of them threw out extra heads.

Great deals I got from that nursery!! :rofl:

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https://www.shaman-australis.com.au/shop/trichocereus_peruvianus_cacti_cp_565.php

20 types here…

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I don’t think caespitosa is a legitimate subspecies/genus/taxinomy (I’m not a botanist, work with me here), but rather a genetic fluke akin to variegated cacti.

This is just my observation after germinating many, many seeds over the years. I’ve had some seedlings start pupping right away, where other seedlings of the same batch grew big and bold never a pup to be seen.

Even self-pollenated seeds from an eager pupping parent have shown no more propensity to split than those of seeds from a non-pupping plant. Be aware we are talking sample sizes of 10-15, this certainly isn’t based on conclusive science (I’m not a statistician either so cut me some slack).

What I can say is that in terms of genetic freaks caespitosa cacti tend to survive much better than variegated cacti. The latter being prone to dying young due to lack of chlorophyll (presumably). If you get lucky and find a pink and yellow seedling you want to keep, better graft it right away.

This is the end of my public service announcement.

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Check out this link which confirms my biases and opinions.

Hey what do you know, I looked something up!

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Very interesting, I just skimmed through it, will have a more thorough read later.
But what I could gather from my diagonal reading is that caespitose behaviour can be triggered by grafting, depending on the rootstock. That’s something I need to explore further.

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