Seedlings on seedlings.

[danskibsted]

Last year I got around 50% success with this method.
Now it is time to try again. This time with larger harrisia plants (1 year old seedlings).



Fingers crossed
Dan

[Carlo & Daniele]

nice work Dan! keep us updated! are you keeping them in the greenhouse or in the propagator?

[danskibsted]

Thank you Daniele.
I keep them inside my propagator untill next spring. For the next weeks they will be stored inside a humid box.
Dan

[danskibsted]

Here is a picture of some of the plants from last year. They are around 11 months old now:



Dan

[Carlo & Daniele]

good results Dan!

[robinast]

Beautiful plants, Dan! Which Harrisia species the rootstock is?

[danskibsted]

thank you (: they are grafted on harrisia jusbertii.
dan

[robinast]

H. jusbertii? The seedlings seem to have longe spines then than adult specimen.

[danskibsted]

You are right, the spines are long on the seedlings. I have seen this before when I grow jusbertii from seed.
I grew some jusbertii seeds 4 years ago. This year I used the plants for grafting. They give very strong growth - they seem to have more power than rooted cuttings.
Dan

[robinast]

They give very strong growth - they seem to have more power than rooted cuttings.

Sounds interesting... I also have some seedlings of H. jusbertii growing - but still so young that they are spineless.

[andrea.a]

Spineless? I had seeds from different sources, but seedlings were all very spiny even when only 5 mm tall!
Andrea.

[robinast]

Oh, but my seedlings only start to form areoles - a few days after germinating... 

[danskibsted]

This method appear to me more difficult than I thought. After a lot of experiments, I'm finally starting to see good results:

Seedlings on 1 year old harrisia jusbertii:


Seedlings on 1 months old harrisia jusbertii, trichocereus pachanoi and cereus peruvianus:


Dan

[Carlo & Daniele]

very good job Dan! keep it up!

[Karlet]

Congratulations for the good job you're doing! Can I ask what is the best procedure you found?

[danskibsted]

I do it pretty much as Simon describes in the start of this thread.
I found that controling the humidity is very important, so the stocks does not rot or dehydrate.
Good luck!
Dan

[Karlet]

Very interesting Dan, I hope you've found the best solution! I wonder if you've cut all the roots of the stock or did you leave them?

[danskibsted]

I leave the roots.
The seedlings are very young, so the roots are very small and fragile.
Dan

[robinast]

For years ago, I've tried this method - but with a small amount of seedlings and, unfortunately, with not that good results. At that time I had a heavy spider mite infestation and as I was not able to get rid of them quickly enough, I finally lost all the tiny grafted plants.
Well, but today I made an another atempt. As I have quite a lot of Geohintonia mexicana seedlings, I will not be especially sad if I'll fail. I grafted 20 Geohintonia seedlings onto Harrisia pomanensis and 12 onto Opuntia humifusa seedlings. I'll keep you informed here how it will turn out.

Geohintonia mexicana seedlings...



... on their own roots, replanted today,



... on the Opuntia humifusa seedlings, grafted and potted today and



... on the Harrisia pomanensis seedlings, also grafted and potted today.

[danskibsted]

Amazing work!
I have had very good results with this method this year. I must make some update pictures soon.
Keep us updated!
Dan