New guy here to show my grafts!

[lamonsta]

Hello to everyone. I am new to the forum and wanted to show my current grafts. I have a lot of mixed grafts in pots of pereskiopsis. I started grafting a couple years ago. I was inspired by another forum member, Hanazono. I came across a post of some cool grafts. I had started raising seedlings and quickly bought 7 pereskiopsis cuttings on ebay. I waited on the seedling to mature to a safe handling size for my clumsy fingers. Meanwhile I divided the peres at a crazy rate. It loves the Louisiana weather! Soon my 7 became hundreds, and now thousands. I made normal mistakes and still do but success is assumed now. I like to experiment and those fail a lot but the tried and true methods offer great success. I started with San Pedro, Peruvian Torch, and Bolivian Torch as that was how I got into cacti anyway. I quickly got bored with them as they are not flashy until eaten or flowering. I am now getting into various others and wont stop ever now, I am seriously hooked!

[lamonsta]

Had to come back and correct the picture uploading issue. Was taking to long to upload so I only put a few up, but you get the gist. Mostly the same types just done over and over. I will buy cacti at the store to take the pups for grafting. I plant as many seeds as I have room for. Problem with the seedlings is that I do not like cutting them. At first I did not care but now I want to just let them do their thing. I have found a few odd balls this way. Right now they are not very happy with me as they are stuck inside until warmer temps. Lots of sadness until then..

[lamonsta]

Wanted to drop in and show everyone what I am working on for the upcoming Spring grow. I have a lot of Pereskiopsis stock ready and more than enough seedlings to top them all. I was planting the peres in 1-3 gallon pots in bunches but that was not cutting it. I bought some garden potting bins and just filled with a 50% soil, 25% perlite, 25% vermiculate mixture. Once I had enough growing where I could top them and populate whole containers the numbers took off! When you want to remove them to use for smaller pots or whatever you just let them go dry, then starting at the edge using a spatula pry them out. I was producing 900 six inch cuttings a month this way this past summer. I recently came up with a way to safely cover those tricky grafts that seem to fall or dislodge when trying to use the plastic and clothespin method. I use a coin wrap and just clothespin that at the base and cover the top in plastic. This way there is nothing touching it.

I know it is not a cactus but I included pics of my 2 year old Ephedra Sinica. She had a twin but recently my daughter's cat ate it! I included pics that I took after I discovered what she did.

[snarfie]

Wow you do have a pretty big collection. I only have succesfully grafted about 12 cacti, but pereskiopsis seems to be easy to graft on.

[lamonsta]

Yes, the Pereskiopsis is very good to learn on. I have started using other stocks and have found that the success rate is lower. But I tend to cut corners a lot being lazy and whatnot. I bought some of the moon cacti that were grafted to Hylocereus. I degrafted the Gymnocalycium so that I would get pups for multiplying. I am building up a little bit of that now but have a ways to go to reach desired results with it. I also have some Opuntia stock I collected from native cacti on my hikes. They have been poor performers so far as they are dwarf and do not grow fast. Time will tell if I will continue to use them.

[snarfie]

Slow growers aren't always bad, because they will keep the scion looking normal, instead of bloated.

[toadstar]

That is adorable. How's it been growing? Any updates?

[arjuneol]

Sorry to dig up an old post but your grafts are amazing.
For a while I had been wondering why no one grafts a gymnocalycium mihanovichii over a pereskiopsis [I was thinking maybe because of skinny stocks with less surface for photosynthesis. But why not use it over short term?].

Everyone seems to stick them to tricos and hylocereus. I dont have a steady supply of hylocererus so wanted to do something with the spare pereskiopsis and gymno pups lying around.
I did try with three varieties of Opuntia and one of them seemed to work out for me.

Your post has made me happy. Thanks... I'm definitely trying pereskiopsis-moon cactus grafts this weekend.