Let's take a look at the following numbers: Daytime high 45C/113F Overnight low 20C/68F Okay, overnight lows well below 75F indicate that you don't have a summer dormancy problem. Davide, were your Arios growing on their own roots grown from seed by a nursery, or were they collected in the wild? Kn...

ohugal wrote: ↑Fri Sep 08, 2023 11:52 am They went into summer dormancy perhaps… but that doesn’t explain why it’s not happening to other genera. What else do you have growing?

I grow Turbinicarpus, astrophytum, geohintonia, copiapoa... several species!

Dear friends, I'm trying to understand why my ariocarpus are dying this year (and the other cacti aren't). Before understanding the growing cause I am trying to classify the type of pathology they have. It seems as if they were "boiled" but I would like to rule out that it is some type of ...

Thanks, unfortunately I think your guess is correct. I came back after 20 days from the holydays (august is the hotter month in Italy) and i found the plants very healthy. Two days ago i watered my plants and after the third day some ario showed typical sign of "boiling". I guess the high ...

Just out of curiousity ( I have never grown cacti in a greenhouse) , under such conditions as described above, wouldn’t it be better to just have a roof of some sort with sunscreening? Then there would be no problems with stagnant air and overheating? What do you mean by "roof of some sort wit...

Thank you so much for your replies Today morning at 10.30 AM i measured the lux of light outside (73k) and inside (26k) the green house reaching 44 °C. The green house (pls see the pic) has unique entrance and two window side always opened. There is no airflow, I'm going to add it right now. next i ...

Dear growers, I need your impression on the following problem. In the last two months i lost several ariocarpus plants probably for the wrong shading cloth used. I live in a particular spot (near ROME) where during the night the humidity/temperature in the greenhouse reaches 100%/20 °C and during th...

Great, thank you so much for taking the time. I'll let you know the results!

ohugal wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 12:03 pm I went through the lapillus page on wikipedia and didn’t see anything on the water/air retention capabilities. Does anyone know? Perhaps there is a way to test it?

Here is described (second page).

Let me know if you'd like to use the mix I'm recommending. If you do, I'll ask Mike a couple of followup questions. Sure, i want try your "soil recipe". So there will be no organic component? Lapilli is just naturally small grained scoria. I use scoria crushed to the size of pumice I buy ...

Dear all, i need your suggestion to provide more "space" at some crested grafted plants. The idea would be to cut the plant at the ends leaving a grafted central piece. I've never done this type of operation before and I'd like to know if somebody had already done it and could suggest how ...

5% coal -- do you mean charcoal? From Better Homes and Gardens Australia yes exactly, I mean charcoal. Coconut fiber = coir, and I believe you're using ground coir as your soil component. Not sure why you're using it in the mix for cacti that are less than 30 years old. It causes more problems than...

Dear friends, my soil mix is composed by:

20% zeolite
40% lapillus
20% dolomite
5% coal
10% coconut fiber soil
5% fine gravel

For older plant (>30 years) i usually replace organic component with fine gravel.

Hi Davide, Before I do the recipe calculations, I just wanted to make sure that we're talking about the Ferty 3 you'll want to use: Ferty_3_guaranteed_analysis01.jpg One thing I did notice is that the ratio of Ammonium N to Nitrate N is about 2-1, and the ratio of my FloraMicro-FloraBloom plus Ammo...

What he's basically saying is that cacti are just like all other plants in terms of their P requirements for optimal growth. If they're not flowering normally (or not flowering at all) because the P is too high, this is a symptom of other problems we may not even know about until years have passed ...