Growing Pereskiopsis

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DaveW
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by DaveW »

If you can't produce Pereskiopsis stocks quickly enough for seedling grafting just obtain one of the hybrid Christmas Cacti and use them as in the video below:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuj5b9xTg2U
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ragamala
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by ragamala »

DaveW wrote:If you can't produce Pereskiopsis stocks quickly enough for seedling grafting just obtain one of the hybrid Christmas Cacti and use them as in the video below:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuj5b9xTg2U
Thanks for the tip, Dave. As a result of which I have started a trial this morning!

Have you done this yourself? I am finding a potential problem in that I am worried the central vein in the Xmas cactus pads are somewhat smaller from my clones than I would like.

As an alternative to Pereskiopsis I had also considered using Epiphyllum hybrid seedlings for grafts. I appreciate a lot of folk would want to speed up their growth by grafting onto Opuntia or whatever, but I am guessing this is because people are in a rush to see flowering, my problem is that I sowed some Epiphyllum and they are growing at an alarming rate as 1 year olds and I will have to dispose of some if I don't find a better use. Given their growth rate compared with slow cacti I wouldn't have ruled them out as grafting stock, although I don't find anything on the internet to encourage me. Do you have experience? Or anyone else?
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by BruceM »

That's a good idea Dave. I have seen people use Christmas Cacti before, it seems quite divided, people either do great or fail. Perhaps down to individual skill. My concern is I doubt it would last very long with the types of Scopulicola crosses I plan to graft on them.

Found this - [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuj5b9x ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
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DaveW
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by DaveW »

Not yet, I bought a cheap Christmas Cactus to try it a few months ago and an raising some seed so hope to do so soon. A friend I told about it last year did it since he he had a Christmas Cactus at the time and said it worked OK. The principle with all grafting is the vascular bundles on the scion must contact some on the stock or it will not grow very well, if at all.

With small seedlings that can often mean setting them off centre on the stock rather than placing them centrally if the seedling is small and the vascular ring on the stock is large, meaning you miss them altogether. This video shows a method of grafting tubercles onto Opuntia's, though the same can be done with seedlings that are about the same size. Note the staggered arrangement on the pad since the vascular bundle "ring" is not a circle on an Opuntia pad as on round cacti, but a long thin oval and you need the seedling/tubercle directly on this vascular ring for a satisfactory graft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA3ZIjHGKZ0

Note the importance of the vascular rings crossing or coinciding in these links for a proper graft, even if it means setting the scion slightly off centre to do it. If you click on pictures in the first link they will enlarge.

http://www.kadasgardens.com/grafting2.html

http://pereskiopsis.com/cactus-grafting-guide/

Some other tips on grafting:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPe6qCEG3mc

http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtop ... 2&start=15

These stocks seem to last a few years Bruce and get the scions up to a reasonable size to graft onto more robust stocks. Neither Pereskiopsis or Schlumbergera's are robust enough to be permanent stocks like Trichocereus, Echinopsis etc and will often start to deteriorate after two to three years and the scions growth slow down. They are merely used to push seedlings on fast so they are large enough to either re-graft on larger more permanent stocks later, or root down.
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daniel82
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by daniel82 »

I have made a few grafts on to christmas cacti joints in the past. I only do it if I need to try and save a failing seedling or a small offset from a rotted plant. It works well, but I don't keep things on grafts long. I take them and reroot as soon as I think they are capable. It is convenient as I have couple of those plants around anyway and there's always spare pieces to use.
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by BruceM »

I know the stocks won't last more than 2 - 3 years, especially grafting such columnar types. But I have seen 1 - 2 feet of Tricho on a Pereskiopsis. Never seen anything larger than a golf ball on a Christmas Cactus cutting.
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DaveW
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by DaveW »

I have not seen scions quite that large on Pereskiopis Bruce. However the reverse applies, the longer a stock is under the scion say a Cereus or Trichocereus, meaning more photosynthesizing tissue below it and more vigorous root system, the quicker the scion grows.

I once saw a picture of a clump of Pseudolobivia 12 inches across produced in a few years when grafted on the top of a 6 ft high Cereus growing with free root run planted in a bed. We seldom do "High Grafting" in the UK, maybe we neither have the room or stocks. The only problem, at least initially is the scions can grow completely out of character through being pushed on so rapidly. However as scions get larger they do tend to revert more to character, if you can call anything overlarge for the species in habitat, in character.

Somebody once did give us a slide show talk showing a collection, I think it was in Holland, where a lady grew all her Sulcorebutia's grafted on Cerei stocks about 3ft-4ft high and they had become clumps as big as soup plates balanced on top of the stock. Quite out of character of course, but blooming their heads off. It would be an ideal way for a nurseryman to produce propagation material though since they produced dozens of offsets that could have been rooted down and sold.
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BruceM
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by BruceM »

I full agree with you Dave, I have seen the high grafting on the BCSS forum some years back. I have trichos already for future stock. The seedlings that will be grafted onto the Pereskiopsis are mostly going to be used for future grafting of small pups etc.

I have sent you a picture of a Pere which is 3 - 4 inches, so you can use that for scale, you will see how large the tricho is. I won't post it openly as I don't remember who the picture belongs to (not here). So I can't ask them for permission, it comes from a closed group.
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ragamala
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by ragamala »

Thanks to the references to grafting onto Xmas cacti, I experimented soon after reading Dave's post and video link.

Out of ten attempted grafts, half failed, probably due to my clumsiness in aftertreatment of the pan, the scions falling off after a day or two. Five survived and grew. The interesting thing is that they grew before the stock had rooted. Only in the last couple of days has rooting been evident.

I attach a couple of pictures of the grafts, one of Echinocereus apachensis, one of Thelocephala napina, chosen only because I had a few seedlings available for trying this method.

I also attach pictures of seedlings left in their seed trays.

As can be seen, although the grafted seedlings have grown they have not done better than their ungrafted friends. For some reason the E. apachensis is showing more spine colour.

This may change now the stocks are rooting. But my preliminary verdict is that I would not graft onto Xmas cactus again without doing this on to already well-rooted pads, as there seems little advantage in the short term.

If I am inclined to graft seedlings I will probably stick to Pereskiopsis.
eapachensis1.jpg


eapachensis2.jpg
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tnapina2.jpg
tnapina1.jpg
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KarlR
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Re: Growing Pereskiopsis

Post by KarlR »

My attempts on Christmas cacti have been somewhat mixed as well. For seedlings I think Pereskiopsis is clearly superior in terms of growth rate and how easily the scions take.

What I like about Christmas cacti as stock is that you only need one or two mature plants to take offsets from, in stead of having a tray of Pereskiopsis at the ready if you intend to graft more than one or two seedlings. They are also much easier to work with and there are no pesky spines to deal with. They are also more frost tolerant I believe, though I can't say that for sure.

But as for speed of growth I am not all that impressed. I would currently mainly consider Aztekium/Strombocactus/Blossfeldia as good candidates for Christmas cacti. These grow very slowly in the first few years at least (strombos usually grow well after two or three years), but seeds are plentiful and germinate readily. The large amount of seedlings you get means that Christmas cacti are probably a more efficient choice for grafting stock than Pereskiopsis. One mature Schlumbergera can easily give you dozens of nice fresh leaves, whereas the same amount of Pereskiopsis in full growth take a lot of space.

And you can always re-graft on a Pereskiopsis later on to speed up growth.

Forgot to add photo. These were grafted in February or March I think it was. The Blossfeldias have done well, while the Aztekium and the Strombo have done ok. They were all grafted on unrooted cuttings. I found the success rate to be about 50-50 but, as mentioned above, with plentiful seeds of these genera and plentiful cuttings it's not a big issue with a 50% success rate.
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