BCSS - Forum

Some seeds germinated without doing anything special. But germination rate is low, i will scarify them.

Well done. I have sowed it many times and always had zero germination.

I have been lucky enough to see it in habitat, and mature plants are wonderful balls with white spines..

Quite remarkable and lucky! I have tried for three years to get the seeds to germinate to no avail.
Have tried some glycol if acid[well it sounds like that!] still nothing.

Roger Ferryman sowed hundreds of seeds he had collected in habitat of P. umadeave in the UK over the years and whatever he did he told me he got poor germination. However he was posted to South Africa for a couple of years and the same seed set there came up freely. Obviously something to do with climate, but we have never been able to work out what the difference was.

FWIW I had germination in 2017 from seed bought from Koehres (portion of 10). By winter I had two seedlings remaining. How many originally germinated in total I don't know. But I lost them by the start of this spring.....

I have still some seeds to sow, i will not graft them so anyone has an idea how to treat the seedlings?
Let them grow in the bag or take them out of the bag?

Pictures I have seen look nice. Its on my wanted list but I suspect will not be easy to find then?

Presumably it is more likely to be found grafted in the Uk / EU ..?

thanks

Good going. Should be plain sailing (relatively!) from now on.

I've sown these a number of times and on a couple of occasions got good germination, where good means approaching half the seed germinating. Subjectively, it seems like cool/cold nights and warm (not sure if that's very warm or not very warm at all, but definitely not very hot) days are the solution but I've not been able to reproduce it reliably and usually think I'm doing well to get any sprouts at all.

I don't know if it is usually found grafted, since it doesn't usually germinate in the first place. Seedlings that do germinate are a decent size and grow reasonably well, if not exactly fast. I think they need fairly strong sun, but good ventilation, to do well. I've had some scorch and it sets them back years. Possibly also cool nights, I find they grow strongly at this time of year.

As Ralph says nice plants in habitat, but it must be 30 or more years since I saw one much larger than tennis ball size in the UK and have not even seen them as large as tennis balls for many years, grafted or not. (New Cactus Lexicon gives body up to 40 x 10-25cm). Possibly somebody has one?

RMF picture.
Some of the true Pyrrhocacti don't like transplanting and are often lost when seedlings are pricked out. Obviously nobody transplants or pricks them out in habitat, they grow where they were sown, so maybe a good idea not to prick them out any earlier than you need to.

Not much need for pricking out when you're lucky to get one seedling in a pot

This is my largest one, not quite as big as a tennis ball. Slightly marked from mites a couple of years back. Ironically, another plant that got away almost scot free from the mites then got scorched and is still not a pretty sight.