graft help

taliesin · Post by **taliesin** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:43 pm

I picked this up today and I believe this is a gymno mihanovitchii. As you can see, it has young so my first question is, do I take the young off the plant or leave on? Secondly, would it be better to remove the cacti altogether from the graft come spring, or just shorten it?, it doesn't seem all that sturdy. I am not inclined to do it now, as templegate john said when I asked about the cristate mammillaria that was grafted earlier, which I bought earlier in the month, I was running out of time to do this task then, but was successful I am pleased to say.

Bill in SC · Post by **Bill in SC** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:13 pm

That would be a G. stenopleurum as it has pink flowers.
You could degraft it next spring easily enough. You could leave the pups on or remove them, your preferrence..
Bill in SC

taliesin · Post by **taliesin** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:15 pm

thanks for that Bill, advice much appreciated but in the listing on here, stenopleurum has white flowers and mihanovitchii has pink...confused, any one else? I also wonder, looking at pics, whether it is a mihanovitchii var. nishiki?

nicked this one...sorry

PinkNailPolish · Post by **PinkNailPolish** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:06 am

Those poor grafted cacti. I saw a ton of those at Target today. I understand the reason for the one's without chlorophyll. But why do that to the other ones.

Post by **daiv** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:51 am

I think I might be to blame. I may well have those Gymno's mis-labled. What do you think Bill?

As for the graft question. A lot of times you can get plants to grow faster and produce more offsets by grafting. So even if the plant can live on its own, sometimes they are grafted for speed of growing and propogation.

templegatejohn · Post by **templegatejohn** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:01 am

Hi Taliesin, in England most of those cacti are Gymnocalycium mihanovichi 'Hibotan' If you take it off the graft it will die because it has no chlorophyl in its body. The best thing to do is shorten the graft. I do not know why they put them on such long grafts. They make them look like lollipops.

John

taliesin · Post by **taliesin** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:56 am

Thank you for that John. I can not understand why either...I have some older books and looking at their size of grafting stock, it looks to be about three inches tall.

templegatejohn · Post by **templegatejohn** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:02 pm

Hi Taliesin (I just love that signature name, King Arthur and all that. All my grandchildren are boys. If a girl comes along I will fight tooth and nail to get her called Taliesin). Back to cacti. If you do decide to 'behead' the Gymno leave the base of the graft in the pot and you should soon have some offshoots to root for your own grafting stock.

The reason I say this is that 'Hibotan' is fairly short lived for a cactus and it would be an idea to graft one or two of your 'pups' to have a continuation of plants.

As far as taking the offsets from the main plant you pays your money and takes your choice. I would certainly try to graft one or two like I said but personally I would leave most of the offshoots on the plant, but that is just my preference.

John