Attempts at growing Mesembs in the tropics

[montir]

Hi Mmcavall, I am so glad read your posting. I have similar climate condition. I live in Indonesia and has tropical climate. I only had two season. They are rainy and sunny. The hottest day around 39^C and the coolest 18^C. I am starting like mesembs and cactus special for lithops. It is really hard for find best suit system for growing it. For now I had couple cactus, lithops and sowing seed last couple week. I had lot of question. I wish you can help me to answer it.
!. What is the best mixture soil?
2. How often I need watering? Is that any identity showing if it over watering or under watering?
3. Is the mesembs and cactus had same deal with light consumption. I read your post. You put they are in greenhouse and put sliver shade. However I am not really understand about extra white paper and more layer silver shade.
4. in couple weeks I am coming seed. Most of them are lithops. Could you can give me suggestion the best way for sowing.
Thanks

[mmcavall]

Hi Mmcavall, I am so glad read your posting. I have similar climate condition. I live in Indonesia and has tropical climate. I only had two season. They are rainy and sunny. The hottest day around 39^C and the coolest 18^C. I am starting like mesembs and cactus special for lithops. It is really hard for find best suit system for growing it. For now I had couple cactus, lithops and sowing seed last couple week. I had lot of question. I wish you can help me to answer it.
!. What is the best mixture soil?
2. How often I need watering? Is that any identity showing if it over watering or under watering?
3. Is the mesembs and cactus had same deal with light consumption. I read your post. You put they are in greenhouse and put sliver shade. However I am not really understand about extra white paper and more layer silver shade.
4. in couple weeks I am coming seed. Most of them are lithops. Could you can give me suggestion the best way for sowing.
Thanks

Hello, Montir,
You may like to read my thread "So I decided to sow", where I describe my attempts to germinate some seeds, including Mesembs.
https://cactiguide.com/forum/viewtopic. ... +I+decided

Generally speaking, you should follow the general advices given elsewhere in the forum, as if you were in a cold climate:
- use a substrate composed of pure grit or at least very little soil. It is very important that the mix is well aerated. Do not use sand. Use small grit particles (previously washed). You can add little pieces of washed charcoal, crushed brick, etc. Avoid soil, and above all, avoid organic matter.
- Put the seeds on the substrate, do not try to bury them, just let them fall over the substrate. Water it from bellow until water reaches the surface by capillarity. Let the water drain out of the pot. Close the pots and wait for about 7 days to see the sprouts. About 7 to 10 days after sprouting you must open the pots, since Mesembs don’t like to be closed in wet atmosphere.
- Put the pots with the small seedlings in a well aerated and well illuminated position, avoiding direct sun, but do not shade them too much. Now you will spray them daily with water. You want the mix to dry out a little, but you don’t want to let the plants too long without water. As the weeks pass, you can increase the interval between waterings.
In my first batch with Mesembs, I was afraid to kill them with water, so when they grew a little I started to let them dry for 15 days. Now I don’t think this is necessary. I water my Mesembs (lightly) almost every night. With your young seedlings, you may spray twice a day, and as they grow up, once a day, and them once each two days, etc…
As you are in a hot and humid place like me:
1. Do not let the pots closed for too long after germination
2. Do not let the pots closed under direct sun
3. Do not water the plants when the substrate is wet and/or when it is raining (avoid watering during those rainy weeks we have). If the mix is dry, but you know it will rain for the next 5 days, don’t water the plants. Wait until the rainy days pass, then water your plants.
4. Provide good ventilation. This is very important.
They are very strong plants, you will have success.
About the extra layers of shade cloths: the sun here is too strong, so I use a very light shade cloth over the entire greenhouse, and extra covering on some plants. I read in the forum that Mesembs can cook under direct sun. I discovered that they love to grow under polypropylene roof. It breaks the sunlight, so you don’t have the harmful sunrays, but still having good light, You may try this kind of roof to grow your seedlings under.
Hope I helped you.

[montir]

Thanks for your reply Mmcavall
I had read your thread “So I decided to sow”. However I did not find the conclusion of the best substrate for mesembs and the weather like us. I was planning to use 80% pumice and 20% vermiculite. Do you think it will work for me?
About the watering. Do you say in cold climate the are watering every night? I am confusing about watering. I need to wait until the substrate dry and no weather cast say rain. That’s time for me watering, is that right?

[mmcavall]

Sorry if I was not clear. I do water spray my Mesembs every night (and I'm not in cold climate). I think I am the only one that do that. It is something that works for me in my conditions. My mix is very well draining and that watering is so light that by the midle of the following day, the mix is completely dry again.
With Mesembs, since very early is good to let the mix dry out between waterings (cacti, for example, can stay in wet mix for the whole first year of their lives). The pots will remain wet while they are closed. About ten days after germination you will open the pots. Observe. When the surface begin to dry, give a light spray. Let it begin to dry again, and then spray again. You cant let them dry completely in the first days. But permanent humidity is bad, too.
When it is raining, wet atmosphere, the mix will not dry out. So it is not a good idea to water Mesembs seedlings in a rainy season.

I have never tried pumice but I think it will work fine. Vermiculite can hold water for too long, may not be the best for the plants.

I recomend you to separate the seeds in several pots, so you can change a little the mix in each pots and see the results. When you have many pots of the same species, you can give more or less sun, more or less water to one or other pot, so you can learn with your own plants how to proceed.

You have to give a try, there is no universal recipe, so you have to do little experiments.

[mmcavall]

I'm kind of disappointed with my Mesembs. They are alive. And that's it. Some bloom here and there, mostly the Faucarias, Delosperma crassum, Glottyphyllum pygmaeum and one Pleiospilos. And that's it. They indeed look like living stones: they don't grow. A leaf pair per year is not very exciting for me. Compared to cacti they are very slow. Sometimes I have the impression they are slowly dying. Or is it normal? Are they that slow?

[DesertSun]

I only have about a handful of these and they do seem to go incredibly slow for me also. I don't know if this is the normal, as I do not have experience in their cultivation and only bought some to try my hand on them. I'm interested to know what other members say on the matter.

[mmcavall]

I only have about a handful of these and they do seem to go incredibly slow for me also. I don't know if this is the normal, as I do not have experience in their cultivation and only bought some to try my hand on them. I'm interested to know what other members say on the matter.

Thank you for taking part in this discussion. Maybe I am too anxious to grow them. I see beauty in my little Conophytum , for example, it is undoubtedly an amazing plant, but I wonder if anything will happen there... apparently it is stoped. and someday I will have to make a decision because of limited space...maybe my climate is not adequate, I am not sure.

[keith]

Hi mmcavall, My attempts at mesembs in California with a Mediterranean climate has been fairly successful. Conophytums are dormant now or going dormant and lithops are waking up from dormancy. Lithops grow like cactus here and conophytums are like some of the native plants around here going dormant quickly as it warms up ( 80F peak temperatures with 50F for night lows) and the sun is up longer every day. I have lost a few conophytums so in my limited experience they seem trickier than Lithops and the same difficultly as some tricky cactus I try and grow. They don't like water in dormancy and don't like strong sunlight in dormancy. they like bright sunlight in Winter which is not a problem here , Winter is our best season IMO. We had a lot of rain this past winter and I kept the cono's out for some of the rain but not all of it. they swelled up fast this was after they flowered. I am thinking they maybe windowsill plants in other climates ? Or greenhouse but not a hothouse greenhouse like cactus like. unsure of this though ?

The Conophytums don't seem to like heat like cactus or lithops or even tomato plants. More like Dudleyas which grow around here but also go dead dormant during Summer.

[mmcavall]

Thanks Keith. Curiously my single Cono does not look like have gone dormant . We are ending the hot season here and I have watered it (and Argyroderma, and Lapidaria, etc) very frequently . Maybe I should have let they sleep?
I really don't see differences from winter to summer in my Mesembs except for Monilaria. But the climate does change. The Pachypodium, for example, clearly went dormant in winter. They loose their leaves. My Mesembs seem to don't care about the calendar...and this does not mean that they grow all year round. They just don't do anything all year round. I agree , now that you mentioned: maybe it is too hot for them.

[Aiko]

A one time watering at the end of summer is never a bad idea. I am sure it helps a few plants to get out of summer dormancy. But just wait for signs of growth for further waterings.

[mmcavall]

A one time watering at the end of summer is never a bad idea. I am sure it helps a few plants to get out of summer dormancy. But just wait for signs of growth for further waterings.

Thank you, Aiko. I indeed noticed that many of them are putting new leaves. So can it be the end-of-summer-spliting?
Should I hold waterings?

Yesterday I discovered that there are ants eating my Mesembs. I will post more about that soon.

[mmcavall]

So here a picture of a Nananthus wilmaniae eaten by ants:

IMG_20190418_120413636-768x1024.jpg (134.87 KiB) Viewed 5139 times

But, thanks to the ants, I have to move all Mesembs from a corner to another. And while doing that I re-considered my complains about my Mesembs.

They are slow, but they are neat. The ones that put of only one leaf pair per year are, well, species that only put one leaf pair per year...no reason to want a Pleiospilos with four leaf pairs...so for now they do still have place in my collection.