Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Discuss repotting, soil, lighting, fertilizing, watering, etc. in this category.
Mooly
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Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

I have a recently acquired a small Gymnocalycium that was repotted early in the month (July) and watered a few days later. I've noticed today that the surface is slightly 'soft' and looks to be very slightly wrinkled... or at least beginning to have a suspicion of wrinkling. The softness is uniform over the whole plant as are the first signs of wrinkling. The cactus is in flower with two blooms out and half a dozen more 'possibles'.

Does this sound like it needs water, or is it normal.
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adetheproducer
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by adetheproducer »

As long as its been in the new pot more than a week give it a drink. It should firm up in a day or so. If it stays wrinkled you might have a problem. Add a picture so we can see whats going on.
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Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

Here we go. Its been in the pot for over 2.5 weeks now but was watered after a few days. The wrinkling seems to have suddenly occurred tbh, perhaps coinciding with the second bloom which only appeared a couple of days ago.
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Steve Johnson
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Steve Johnson »

Mooly wrote:I have a recently acquired a small Gymnocalycium that was repotted early in the month (July) and watered a few days later. I've noticed today that the surface is slightly 'soft' and looks to be very slightly wrinkled... or at least beginning to have a suspicion of wrinkling. The softness is uniform over the whole plant as are the first signs of wrinkling. The cactus is in flower with two blooms out and half a dozen more 'possibles'.

Does this sound like it needs water, or is it normal.
Not normal. Whenever cacti are repotted in the growing season, they should be left alone for 1-2 weeks (IMO 2 is preferable) before they get their first watering. You may have watered too soon, and if that's the case it would be reasonable to suspect that your Gymno's roots have rotted. Unfortunately root rot can (and often will) spread surprisingly fast, perhaps even before you have enough time to do anything about the situation.

I archive all my cactus photos, including the occasionally catastrophic growing mistakes I make. Since they're useful teaching tools, hopefully the following experience will be helpful.

I did really well with a Copiapoa hypogaea I got in 2011. That is, until a bad mistake finally caught up with me 2 years later. This before-and-after pic tells the sad story. Here's the hypogaea right before its regular watering on August 7 2013. I had been around the plant long enough to know that something didn't look right when I noticed a small spot of wrinkling I'd never seen before. That was the day after watering. 5 days later, the hypogaea was already past the point of no return:

Image

In your case your best course of action will be to immediately unpot the Gymno and have a good look at the roots. If they look healthy, I can guide you from there. However, if they have rot, you'll need to see whether or not there's enough healthy roots left to cut out the rotten part of the root ball.

By the way, I have a couple of suggestions for you:

1. Having some basic info on where you live makes it easier to provide useful recommendations coming from other forum members. Simply click on the "User Control Panel" link, click on the Profile tab, then in the Edit profile window type your location in the Location text box. Hit the "submit" button, and you'll be good to go.

2. Take a really good look at what your cacti are growing in. Let me know what it is, and we'll discuss further. This goes right along with point #1 -- depending on where you live, I may or may not be able to provide recommendations you can actually use.
If you just want photos without all the blather, please visit my Flickr gallery.
My location: Los Angeles, CA (Zone 10b)
Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

Thanks for the quick reply Steve. Location is northern England. The compost is a mix of course gravel and premixed cactus compost (have several other cacti in the same stuff all doing well). The wrinkling on this one is very uniform over the whole surface, no one spot looks different to another. I'm just looking at your picture. Wow, five days. I'd swear that 24 hours ago this one was not like this. It has been in the sun today, which has been a rare commodity this year.
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Steve Johnson
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Steve Johnson »

Mooly wrote:Thanks for the quick reply Steve. Location is northern England. The compost is a mix of course gravel and premixed cactus compost (have several other cacti in the same stuff all doing well). The wrinkling on this one is very uniform over the whole surface, no one spot looks different to another. I'm just looking at your picture. Wow, five days. I'd swear that 24 hours ago this one was not like this. It has been in the sun today, which has been a rare commodity this year.
I'm glad to be of at least some help here.

While I'd hate to say for sure that your Gymno has packed it in, if I were you I'd unpot it now and remove all doubt re. what is going on. I have to remind myself that "compost" doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to those of us living in the US. Our premixed cactus compost is horrible stuff loaded with plant wastes that are guaranteed to kill a lot of cacti sooner or later. If yours is actually soil with a minimal amount of plant material, it may be fine. Ian is one of our veteran members, and he has recommnded John Innes #2 in the past. Whether or not it's the same stuff these days I don't know. Hopefully he'll chime in. If Tesco cat litter is still produced as a calcined clay, it may be better than the coarse sand you're using in your mix. Wish you could get horticultural-grade pumice, although it's hard to find outside of North America.
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Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

adetheproducer wrote: As long as its been in the new pot more than a week give it a drink. It should firm up in a day or so. If it stays wrinkled you might have a problem. Add a picture so we can see whats going on.
Well folks, fingers crossed and I think it is good news. It was getting late last night and so thinking it all through... and how it was uniformly wrinkled and soft... and wondering if it could be rot in light of what I read... I had a little prod around the base after clearing the gravel aside and it was all firm. I took the plunge, or rather the cactus did, and I gave it a good slow drink to saturate the compost. I really wondered if this morning would see a mound of shrivelled jelly but the good news is the wrinkles have gone and its all noticeably firmer. I wouldn't have believed it could have shown signs of water deprivation so quickly and also recover so fast.

Many thanks to you both... I'm learning a lot here.
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iann
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by iann »

It didn't look pretty, but is much better now. Clearly has working roots. Don't push your luck though. Wait for it to dry out before watering again, especially since there isn't much sun in the forecast for this week.
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Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

Thanks Ian, yes I will do that. I counted up and its 'only' 18 days since I last watered it after repotting. Not sure if this will work or not but I've weighed the pot on some digital scales before watering yesterday and now again today when its a true drained reading and so I can perhaps gauge now how quickly it dries out. 306grms now, 246grms before the water. I'm beginning to realise that some cacti are more thirsty than others. Perhaps the blooms are a potential consumer of liquid together with evaporation.

So, fingers crossed.
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by iann »

Interesting approach. However (there's always a but, isn't there), when all the water from the soil has gone into the plant it will weigh exactly the same but it will be time to water again :lol: In a few years it might weigh an awful lot more! So all you're measuring is evaporation, which should be quite low in a plastic pot with top dressing. Of course when the pant is thoroughly dessicated again, it might weigh less :)

I judge by hand. The absolute weight of a pot varies enormously, but dry pots feel top heavy to me. It isn't an exact science though. Even if all the pots were the same size and the soil mix always identical then the plants themselves would still vary.
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Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

Yep, there is always but. Thank you :thumbup: I was hazily thinking initially that it could be a guide to when the bulk of the moisture has gone...

I'll keep tabs on it over the next few weeks as an experiment in progress and see where it leads. Its now at 304 grms down 2 in the last 7 or 8 hours but today has been cool and wet.

What has surprised me is how quickly it showed signs of stress. As a newbie to cactus I would have thought it could have gone weeks being dry if it had to. So learning all the while.
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Steve Johnson
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Steve Johnson »

Mooly wrote:So learning all the while.
I've had to learn a lot too. I went through my first 20 years of cactus growing (badly for the most part) long before we had access to the online resources I could've used back then. I started my first collection when I was 12 in 1970, so here's the catalog of mistakes I made over the entire time:

1. Too much soil and not enough coarse mineral in the mix. Hard for cactus roots to grow well without good drainage and proper aeration in the mix.

2. Not knowing all the species of cacti I wanted to keep. While watering schedules may be fine to a certain extent, over-reliance on it will kill plants that clearly need to ask for water before they get it.

3. Terracotta pots. When the roots of your cacti and/or succulents have to compete with porous clay for water, the long-term results won't be good.

4. Hard water. Bicarbonates (primarily Calcium bicarbonate) build up in the pot over time, and plants being watered with hard water will eventually suffer. Rainwater is the best if you can use it all the time. Unfortunately that's not an option for many, and acidifying my tapwater with vinegar has made a huge difference in the growing quality of my cacti. (Large-scale growers use stronger acids, although they have to be handled with great care. 5% vinegar suits me fine because it does the job, and it's safe for home use.)

5. Fertilizer -- I foolishly assumed that cacti do perfectly well without it. Not true, although I won't go into a discussion on fertilizers here. You'll find plenty on that (maybe too much?) elsewhere on the forum.

When I began building my current collection in 2011, I fell right into the same "old school" mistakes I made years ago. If it weren't for the forum, I'm pretty sure that most of the cacti I enjoy today would've been dead or dying by now. The Internet is full of crappy advice on how to grow cacti, so for those of us who've been lucky enough to find it, I'll say that you're coming to the right place.

Best of luck and happy growing! :)
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jp29
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by jp29 »

Excellent post Steve. =D>

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Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

It is a good read, thanks. Rainwater, now that I am using, and we get plenty, probably 30 to 40 inches a year. Looks like rain all day today too, no sun, not cacti weather.
Mooly
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Re: Is this in need of water ? or is this normal.

Post by Mooly »

The plot thickens. I think I have a cactus that doesn't like to much sun because I've noticed the same pattern of wrinkling and also definite softening again after it has spent a day in the sunshine. Today has been blue skies (cool air temp of 16C or so at the most), very much like when I first posted in fact, and the same pattern has emerged if not quite as pronounced. I shall not be plying it with water this time though. Our summer has been so cool and cloudy so far that I wonder if its just not acclimatised to a bit sun when it does appear. Very odd. It seems like it might be happier on the window ledge where it gets morning sun only and full shade from around 1pm.
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