Etiolated Copiapoa

[abhikjha]

Hi guys, recently purchased a Copiapoa Hypogaea (lizard skin). It was in perfect globular look. However, the moment I potted it and watered it, etiolation started to happen. I was just amazed with the speed of etiolation (within few days).

We have a monsoon season here in Mumbai, so all my plants are inside on a South facing window and on dryer side. I have stopped watering all of them except few grafted ones. I guess since we have plenty of heat and humidity and no sunlight, this could have resulted in etiolation.

My question is can I do something about it? It's a small plant so don't want to do any surgery on this. Can it reverse itself once we get good sunlight? I was of the opinion that it hates direct sunlight and prefers heat and bright indirect light. This is the only plant which has started etiolating.

Cheers
Abhik

[abhikjha]

Posted this question to a facebook group and one of the replies I got is this could have been caused by combination of these factors - low light, high heat, watering with liquid fertilizer.. high heat would have triggered the plant to search for the light and watering with fertilizer would have accelerated the growth..it makes sense! Any counter views? What can I do to correct it?

[thomasn]

That sounds right to me.

I had this happen to Epithelantha micromeris when I moved from Arizona to New York. The etiolated part didn't recover its shape, instead, when it put it in full sun again, and carefully watered over a few years, only the new growth grew into a globular, ball shape on top of the etiolated part. Eventually, the globular new part was good enough shape that I cut the top and re-rooted.