New Seedling And Cuts Listed! Plus Random Updates

I just listed new seedlings and cuttings in the store. There are more seedlings coming. They just need to grow a little bit bigger. That includes both crosses that are listed already and some that have not been listed yet. There are more mutants than ever this year. I will be listing more of those too as I sort through them over the season. As usual, a lot of seed came from Will Tomlinson of Oakland Cactus Co. A lot also from Misplant and a few from other random sources.

There is an issue on the store pages with the photos not being available full size. I probably will not be able to fix this until sometime in May. I’m going on a trip about the 26th apr. to the 2nd of may, so I will not be shipping for that period. New cuttings listed include King Tubby, Gordita, Espiritu Cabra and Verity. I auctioned off a few last winter, otherwise, this is the first time most of those are offered. There is also one cut of a Variegated SS02 x Baker 5452 I’m calling Gold Vein. I get a few variegated cactus every year, but really only two have turned out interesting enough to consider propagating. Usually there is just a small amount of variegation. Some other new cultivars are coming as soon as this fall, both as rooted plants and cuttings.

I also listed some bargain bin lots of small cuttings and pups for the first time. I’m going to try to get in the habit of setting aside pups of named clones and random interesting seedling offcuts for these sorts of “genetics over cosmetics” grab bag offerings. I’ve also listed some rooted cacti, including some killer crested seedlings. I have things listed in categories now, Seedling babies, Team Wachuma varieties, Other cuts, and Cactus with roots.

As this batch of seedlings go on offer, I’m gearing up to plant the next round by making charcoal, mixing flat soil and planning a shade house. The last two years, I sprouted them under a tree in pretty heavy shade around may to june. I’ve had terrible problems with moss and am guessing the spores are just drifting under the lids down there in that foresty environment. This year, they’re coming up the hill in the open, on tables, under heavy shade. It is all quite the learning process. The good news is I had easier sowing, better germination and better growth with last year’s refinements. I have made a lot of expensive mistakes over the years, but learn useful lessones every time. I have a bunch of seeds ready to go and Will has more for me. I will probably keep planting and growing seedlings for the forseeable future, as long as people keep buying them.

Growing and sorting through a lot of seedlings is part of my cactus breeding master plan. I already have a pretty good population of flat sided cacti for the blocky cactus breeding effort. I’ve also got a number of plants growing that tend to express as four ribbed, in order to breed toward stabilizing that trait. A bunch of good stuff is flowering this season, at least TPM, SS02, King Tubby, Gordita, Stubbs, Juul’s Giant, a huge epic aussie type scopulicola and some other seedlings of scop x juuls. I think I’ve learned a bit about how to get them to the flowering stage more quickly. By fall, I will have seed in hand of some intriguing crosses. I should just get more and more flowering cactus from here out. If I have extra seed, I will sell some of it. More on flowering and making crosses at some point soon.

Stubbs flowering abundantly this year.

Rib Division Tek is going pretty well. I have a page dedicated to that project, with all the info currently up to date. What it is down to now is timing and if possible, tweaking rooting and pupping time. In every other way, it works. It would just be useful if it worked faster. The riblets seem a bit more hesitant to root than larger cuttings. I may be seeing a difference in those that were soaked in both willow tea and water, vs. those that were just bedded in a flat of soil mix. They did not root in the solution, but I think they are rooting faster now. Unfortunately, I mixed the batches that were in plain water and willow tea together, so I won’t have any data on that difference.. More on that project coming this season.

I’m still very interested in setting up larger scale experiments on treating cuts with different things. If I can find about 6 to 10 feet of PC, I will be retesting the stuff I tested before, sulfur, lime and cinnamon and also adding some new materials and eventually mixes of multiple materials if I find enough things that work. This will involve treating them all at the same time in a challenging (dampish) environment where one might expect a few problems. Once they are cured I will leave them outside in the rain for at least a month or two. After all that, I may also root them to see if there is any noticeable difference. To have much confidence in the results will require a reasonable sample size, thus the 10 feet. lets make that 10 to 20 feet. If anyone local to Northern California can help with that, drop me an email. I want the cuts to come from the same plant or planting at the same time and preferably, even similar ages of growth.

One more project I hope to work on this year is inducing pupping at random points on a column. I have some ideas about how to do this based on observations and conversations. Having a reasonably reliable way to induce pups could be very useful in cactus propagation and who knows where else.

In the meantime, I am still saving money to buy land. Buy lots of cactus, so I can get someplace to put these plants in the ground and do my other horticultural research and development projects. 🌵 💚

Left to right, God Seed, Stubbs, King Tubby, Architect and The Pet