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G'day Wayne,

I think it seems your cardenasium is 4~5 years old.
It will reach to my size within 10 years, which feels quite quick for our age.

I believe your cactus will be a good mature plant because it has already shown an evidence.
Spines newly grown from top are very long and all spines will be this size soon.

Frank

Hanazono wrote: ↑Mon Jul 09, 2018 6:31 am I think it seems your cardenasium is 4~5 years old.

And a G'Day to you too Frank... I hope you are doing well...

Let me ask you something. It's not that I have any doubt of you, or your ability to gauge the age of a Gymno, but I felt like if you knew how long I've had it, you might change your mind about old that you thought it was.

I bought this Cactus within the last month and it is only about 48mm wide. I beg your pardon for not having arranged the picture with something in it for scale so that you could better judge its size. It really is quite small. So now, knowing its size, do you still think it's four or five years old.

One thing I've noticed in the last couple of years, is that Cactus Growers (and sellers, at least those here in the U. S.) have the tendency these days to sell them at younger ages than they used to. Every one of the last half a dozen or so cactus that I have bought have come in 2 inch pots where 4-6 years ago, they came in a 4-inch pot and were proportionally bigger.

A tendency that I very much regret!

G'day Wayne,

I did not estimate the age by size.
You put on a coin for the comparison of the cactus' size but I could not remember the actual size of the coin.
I visited USA several times but it was longtime ago.

Your cactus is just about turning the shape of spines.
Short spines located lower part are for juvenile and long ones come out from the top are matured spines.
I think spegazzinii related species turn the spine when they are 4~5 years old.

Body size of seedlings are varied normally and it is hard to tell the possible age.

Frank

Hi Frank

Then that's the way I'll treat it ... as if it were 4-5 year old. Thanks much for the information. I consider it to be very useful.

Hanazono wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 4:03 am You put on a coin for the comparison of the cactus' size but I could not remember the actual size of the coin.

That's a quarter dollar coin, it's 2.3 cm in diameter.

Thanks Spence for reminding me that I HAD put a coin in the pot for scale. i don't know how I forgot that I put a quarter in it before I shot the picture. well, yes I do ... it's old age I guess ... Age Activated, Accelerated, Attention Ddeficit disorder AAAADD

at any rate, a U.S. quarter is about 24.2mm wide, which is half the width of the cactus in the picture ... which would make the cactus 42mm wide at the time that it was taken.

I just used a ruler to measure a quarter - should have googled it, it's 24.26mm, to be precise.

greenknight wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:53 am 24.26mm, to be precise.

Ha, ha, ha, ha

6 100ths of a mm is scarcely significant... unless we're in a machine shop speaking of precision equipment tolerances!

But I thank you kindly Spence for the precision correction... I DO like to be correct (and precise) when I speak to the public...

.06mm isn't significant, my point was that you were correct. I was off by more than a mm... close enough for government work, as my dad used to say.

I bought seeds of 6 species related G. spegazzinii and sowed on 16th November 2003.
The germination rate was not significant but some of them have still been alive.
The photo is one of them, G. spegazzinii v armatum sp nova which was written on the name tag.
A young seedling was grafted on a Hylocereus stock and degrafted in 2005 with a short vascular bundle of the stock.

The current size is 14 cm in diameter and 20 cm tall.
Although it is mid of winter, it has pushed new spines out.

Hanazono wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 10:52 pm Although it is mid of winter...

Hi Frank

Your profile says that your location is South Australia. That covers nearly a million square kilometers. In the interest of asking you what the weather is like in your part of the country, I wonder if I might ask you to refine your location just a little bit. Like maybe to the nearest 100,000 square kilometers. Are you Inland or on the coastal regions.

If it seems to you as if I am being too nosey, please just ignore this posting. I do not mean to pry into things that you feel are no one else's business. It's just that if I ask about the weather where you are, a million square kilometers is just a little too vague. I'm not asking for your mailing address, just a little closer idea of the area that you live in so that asking "how is the weather" is Meaningful.

So this is the real reason why I write at all...
Hi Frank, how is the weather where you are?

G'day Wayne,

I live in Marion, a suburb of Adelaide, 20 minutes drive to south from the city centre.
Adelaide is the capital of South Australia.

Yes South Australia is quite large, 1.5 times of Texas.
The total population of South Australia is just 1.7 millions and 1.3 millions people live in Adelaide.
People live in the coastal regions mainly and outback is empty.

Frank

Hi Frank

Glad I wasn't being too nosey. That was interesting detail regarding South Australia, but the whole point behind my asking for detail about where you lived was that so it would be meaningful when I asked "how's the weather"...

I I have learned that quite a few people are interested in this kind of thing So how's the weather where you are?

G'day Wayne,

I could not find a good information but you can open and see the website shown below.

Frank


http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/forecasts/adelaide.shtml

Cool, but not too cold. nice winter weather. Thanks for the interesting information.