I tried to cross these two plants: A. senile aureum and A senile "spotted" (this was the name of the seedling I bought years ago, maybe a cross with asterias?)
The seeds produced by spotted had poor results, very weak plants, pale yellow, soft, hard to graft, no one survived.
The seeds produced by aureum are better: own roots plants died but some grafted ones are still alive, but very very very slow growing (on peresk!!!), all are variegated.
I have poor experience with such crosses, I don't know if it would be better to retry (I have some other seeds from last year) and graft the seedlings just after germinatoin, o maybe it is a bad cross and it would be better to think about something else.
Any suggestion?
Pics of aureum, spotted and the largest seedling (10 months old!!!)
nice work. if you get results, you should continue this way! remember the pure line breeding technique if possible, to obtain better results! =)
Hello :),
Second plant is not pure A.senile, as you wrote "spotted" ;D, its definatelly hybrid already (definatelly something x A.asterias), something similar here
http://www.cactus-art.biz/schede/ASTROPHYTUM/Astrophytum_hybrids/Astrophytum_hybrid_SENAU-AS/Astrophytum_hybrid_SENAU-AS.htm
http://www.cactus-art.biz/schede/ASTROPHYTUM/Astrophytum_hybrids/Astrophytum_hybrid_SEN-AS_rosa/astrophytum_hybrid_SEN-AS_rosa.htm
So your final grafted hybrid is: = A.senile x A.hybrid(?SEN-AS?).