Melocactus seeds
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:55 pm
Hi all
Does anyone have any experience growing Melocacti from seed? I picked up a nice M. matazanus weekend before last and it had some fruit. Are the seeds ready once the fruit pops up through the cephalium? I tugged on one and it came out with no resistance as if it wasn't even attached to the plant anymore. So I went ahead and picked them all. Plus I decided to clean up the cephalium and plucked out all the old dryed flowers with a tweezers. Low and behold they were attached to dryed fruits with plenty of seeds visable!
Do they need to go through freeze and thaw cycles, should they be scarified or any of the other elaborate preparation some seeds need? I've heard that bottom heat helps. I'm thinking of buying one of those heat mats from a greenhouse supply. Are they a worthy investment?
One of the reasons I'm asking all this is because a friend sent me some M. matazanus seeds and they haven't germinated so far. It's been like 3 weeks. I would like to do better with my batch.
Here's my M. matazanus
http://www.tucson-gardener.com/graphics ... azanus.jpg
Franj
Does anyone have any experience growing Melocacti from seed? I picked up a nice M. matazanus weekend before last and it had some fruit. Are the seeds ready once the fruit pops up through the cephalium? I tugged on one and it came out with no resistance as if it wasn't even attached to the plant anymore. So I went ahead and picked them all. Plus I decided to clean up the cephalium and plucked out all the old dryed flowers with a tweezers. Low and behold they were attached to dryed fruits with plenty of seeds visable!
Do they need to go through freeze and thaw cycles, should they be scarified or any of the other elaborate preparation some seeds need? I've heard that bottom heat helps. I'm thinking of buying one of those heat mats from a greenhouse supply. Are they a worthy investment?
One of the reasons I'm asking all this is because a friend sent me some M. matazanus seeds and they haven't germinated so far. It's been like 3 weeks. I would like to do better with my batch.
Here's my M. matazanus
http://www.tucson-gardener.com/graphics ... azanus.jpg
Franj