I am trying to improve my success with rooting Opuntias and larger Euphorbias. I want to use a heating mat with a dome over the potted cuttings. The dome would have allowance for some end to end ventilation and topside also. I am curious if anyone has had any similar success with this idea ?? I inte...

I talked with Dyna Grow about their products and improving the success of rooting succulents and cactus. They strongly suggested that once a cutting is made immediately place the cutting in a liquid rooting hormone or apply a gel based hormone and immediately place them in the rooting medium. It mak...

I am trying to find what's the ideal relative humidity range for most Opuntia ???

Stay away from uncured, undried bark especially Pine, spruce and hemlock since they contain a high concentration of tannins which in nature are growth inhibitors. Coconut peat naturally has a very high absorption capacity and can be a very bad thing for general cactus use unless used extremely spari...

Good success but I am looking to improve on this since this process for me literally is so slow that I can only root a small amount at a time. I am hopeful that building a framework around the potted cuttings and partially vented on the top for a LED grow light will help accelerate the rooting proce...

I've used 20% over my greenhouse here in Connecticut and done very well. The mesh size although is larger than that of insect screening material that you talk of so it could be in the 30-40% range. The challenge if your going to use it and need to overlap it to cover the exposed area is that wind ca...

I was wondering if anyone has any experience using heating mats for accelerating rootings especially for Euphorbias and Opuntias ?? I am also considering creating a plastic sheeting tent around my rooting table to hold some of the heat back. Part of the end walls would have some sort of adjustable v...

That's pretty compelling info that I didn't know about especially in the 4000k range. Obviously the energy available is twice that of a 6500k bulb. My challenge has been to keep heat buildup low and optimize my energy usage. Ct. has the third highest electrical rates in the US and the rates migrate ...

The Aphid is a sucking/chewing insect. From the photo the tissue damage and the pattern of many many dimpled (concave) marks on the foliage certainly points to that type of insect. The aphid leaves behind sap or wet spots which can attract other insects as well as molds/fungus as secondary invaders....

I am upgrading my T5 HO lighting in my Grow room and am actively switching at least 50% of the T5 High output fluorescent bulbs with higher lumen rated LED bulbs. Because of the significant weather seasons we have in the Northeast I am forced to keep the desert plants indoors for @ 7 months and 5 ou...

This being a tall growing succulent and my plant nearing 42" tall, I am considering how to best harvest/trim the multiple rooted plants as carefully as possible to promote clean new growth. I would think it best to try and cut them back as close to the previous seasons growth segment if possibl...

I have several 3-4' tall Euphorbia trigonas that I need to cut back soon. Are there any unusual challenges with them. I figured to get harvest nothing less than 10-12" cuttings. My winter growroom maintains 73-75 daytime and 71-68 at night. I have been using a coarse cactus soil mix and I can't...

I have attached a couple of pics to help with identification of this euphorbia. Any Ideas ???

For my abundant Opuntias and Euphorbias is there an ideal rooting mixture such as Desert sand, Pumice, Perlite, Clean topsoil or constituents that are the chosen best for successful rooting ? Right now I am running about 50/50 with rooting success, meaning healthy dense roots versus sparse short len...

I am ready to harvest Opuntia pads for next years plants but have noticed that I average 1 in 5 pads with a vigorous root system while the others have nearly nothing for root development. I use several heat propagation mats with dedicated tstats. Is this the norm ? Would using rooting hormone increa...