a pointless lament

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 2:11 pm

Seed raising corollary of Murphy's Law:

The most desirable, unusual and hard to find species are also the ones with low germination.

For example: out of 15 Neolloydia matehualensis seeds, two seedlings. Ancistrocactus brevihamatus pallidus: 2. Echinomastus hispidus: 2. Maihuenia patagonica: 1. Austrocactus bertinii: 1.

It puts me on pins and needles, for years. It's a completely different enterprise, nursing one tiny plant to adulthood. It's not like starting out with 15 seedlings and getting 1 to flowering size.

peterb

RobR · Post by **RobR** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:18 pm

I feel your pain Peter. I have a little better luck on the ancistro. I got some seed from Sul Ross about 3 yrs ago. 8 or so plants are flowering, should get at least 100 seed.

iann · Post by **iann** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:23 pm

I think the law is actually that the more care and attention you lavish on a pot of seeds, the worse it will do

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 5:07 pm

well, we could come up with a whole list of seed raising laws. I like your reality as a general law (the success of seedlings is inversely proportional to the care lavished on them). I still think my corollary is a good stand alone rule as well.

Rob, cool to hear someone is actively raising flowering plants of pallidus apart from the Sul Ross crew.

peterb

Post by **daiv** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 5:58 pm

Peter,
Then you have guys like me who kill "easy" species from seed.

Maybe, I should get the realy "hard" ones and find out that I'm good with those!

DWDogwood · Post by **DWDogwood** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 4:04 am

OK now I'm intrigued, who is Sul Ross?
At any rate, it's sad when I get two out of a hundred of something I really want, but conversely, when I get 40 of something tough or scarce, I wonder how I'm going to care for them all.
8 is a perfect number.

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:02 am

Sul Ross University, in Alpine, Texas. Part of the Texas university system, home to Del Weniger, years ago, and A. Michael Powell and Martin Terry these days, cactus researchers extraordinaire. They are the primary stewards of A. brevihamatus var. pallidus, or were until quite recently.

peterb

MildBill · Post by **MildBill** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:35 am

Yes, Peter, I think Sul Ross is sort of like the cactus Vatican. They also have a wonderful cactus garden and greenhouse.

How were you able to get seeds from them? Several years ago I bought one of their plants from CDRI. It is a brevahamatus X pallidus and at ten years old is a very nice specimen. I have crossed it back with a true brevahamatus and now have a pot full of year old seedlings from that cross.

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:02 pm

Bill, I got the seeds from Mesa Garden. They started offering it a couple years ago, I think.

peterb