Good idea or bad idea?

[keith]

" I'll keep it in shade until the head gets some roots going. Please let me know either way."

I keep cuttings out of too much sunlight until they have roots or they dry out too fast. I'm going to cut a over tall Mammillaria albicans next Spring and I'll keep the middle section Like 7george says to get more cactus plus the seeds of this species are super small and that makes them a bit trickier to grow , for me at least.

Root tone helps maybe I use it.

[Steve Johnson]

I keep cuttings out of too much sunlight until they have roots or they dry out too fast...Root tone helps maybe I use it.

That does make sense, and I won't have a problem keeping the head shaded while it roots (or at least tries to). I'l try a rooting hormone powder as well, although Rootone isn't the only game in town these days -- check out the selection on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rooting+horm ... _sb_noss_2

Before I do the chop-chop next year, I'll research the various products to see if there's one in particular that stands out from the rest. Or maybe they're all the same -- any thoughts on this, Mike?

Thanks, Keith!

[MikeInOz]

Before I do the chop-chop next year, I'll research the various products to see if there's one in particular that stands out from the rest. Or maybe they're all the same -- any thoughts on this, Mike?

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that auxins for succulents have close to no effect on rooting. I have never bothered. I do use sulphur to dust large cuts. The trick is to properly season the cut. I normally sit the plant upside down in an airy shed until the wound is quite hard and the plant body dehydrated a bit then sit in a styrofoam cutting box on dry sand with a touch of humus in a warm slightly shaded spot. Lightly misting now and then seems to stimulate rooting, then when the roots have broken, a good soak followed by complete drying and repeat the cycle. I find it's good to let the plant root in the box for a whole season before lifting.

[Steve Johnson]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that auxins for succulents have close to no effect on rooting. I have never bothered. I do use sulphur to dust large cuts. The trick is to properly season the cut. I normally sit the plant upside down in an airy shed until the wound is quite hard and the plant body dehydrated a bit then sit in a styrofoam cutting box on dry sand with a touch of humus in a warm slightly shaded spot. Lightly misting now and then seems to stimulate rooting, then when the roots have broken, a good soak followed by complete drying and repeat the cycle. I find it's good to let the plant root in the box for a whole season before lifting.

Completely forgot about this until I saw your response...

In July 2013, I purchased an Echinocereus pectinatus 'Coahuila' from CoronaCactus Nursery that lost its roots in the 2014 growing season. From February 2015, step 1 -- cut out the dead roots:



Step 2 -- keep cutting until I saw nothing but healthy green tissue, then apply a layer of sulfur powder to the cut:



After the cut was well and truly dry, I blew off the excess sulfur powder as it formed a callus -- give it a month, and here's what I saw:



Looking at the photo on the right, I wonder if those were new root stubs forming from the vascular bundle already. Given my very limited growing space, the plant didn't interest me enough to keep, so I gave it to a local grower and used the spot for something else. Anyway, I've always been skeptical of the idea that rooting hormone does anything for cacti, so I'll stick with sulfur powder when I cut the Mamm. perezdelarosae. If I decided to keep the Echinocereus, I know myself well enough to tell you that I wouldn't have had the patience to let it sit in the pot without constantly checking for new roots. However, going by what you said about your approach, it'll encourage me to be patient.

Thanks, Mike!

[keith]

Unhealthy plants don't have the best success rate for rooting cuttings. The Echinocereus looked so-so to me. Also I always trim off the lowest spines by the cut on these wide cuts because the center shrinks in and pulls the center of the cut away from the sand you're trying to root to.

You don't need rootone I think the fungicide in in does more good than the hormone. If it doesn't have fungicide don't buy it. I've had my jar of it forever so no idea how it is sold now in CA. A quick search is Rootone F is different now than rootone ?

Propagation:Rooting Hormone Danger? - Dave's Garden
https://davesgarden.com › community › forums
Jun 30, 2004 — Rootone F™ contains Thiram which is a fungicide and Thiram is toxic. You need to be careful so you do not come in contact with (or breathe in) ...

[Steve Johnson]

Unhealthy plants don't have the best success rate for rooting cuttings. The Echinocereus looked so-so to me.

Yeah, that was my fault...

When I starting putting my pumice and granite gravel mix together in early 2012, I was getting decomposed granite (DG, not to be confused with DE!) from La Canada Rustic Stone in Pasadena. Definitely a southwest US thing -- it's used extensiveley for landscaping in that part of the country, so I was buying it by the shovelful. Only problem is that I had to sift out a lot of "play sand" fines. 60% of it got thrown away, yielding 40% usable gravel. I made the mistake of assuming that dry sifting would be enough -- what I didn't realize at the time was that fines clinging to the gravel would wash down into the mix and turn into a brick after repeated watering and drying out. The situation was worse in some pots than it was in others, but it was bad enough to cost me a few cacti that simply couldn't root again after I cleaned up the mix with a lot of thorough rinsing. What you just said confirms what I instinctively thought -- not worth spending the time to find out if the Echinocereus was ever going to root.

Okay, lesson learned, and every other cactus that went from "dirty" to clean soil-less mix in 2015/2016 responded marvelously to the change. Compared to the medium Mike is using to root cuttings, I'll take a different approach -- clean soil-less mix is one possibility, although maybe not the best. Here are a couple of others:

• When I purchased some cacti at Sunset Nursery in 2019, I also got a bag of pumice. Average grain size is about 3 mm., and more uniform than the pumice I had been getting at the California Cactus Center in 2011/2012. I haven't started using what's in the bag yet, but I will -- my thought is that I'll have a better chance of success for rooting the perezedelarosae's head in straight pumice.

• Don't know if this qualifies as humus under Mike's definition, but here's a sample of the "custom" mix I still have coming from the CCC in 2011:
  
  
  
  Use it as-is, or throw away the rocks and big chunks of organic material first? Either way, I can add a little bit of it to the pumice from Sunset Nursery if that would be helpful

Mike's approach to occasional misting/watering as he described is something I would definitely follow. Something else he said is invaluable -- "I find it's good to let the plant root in the box for a whole season before lifting." Only difference is that I'll be trying to root the perezdelarosae's head in a pot (glazed ceramic, of course!). If it successfully roots, I'll repot the plant with soil-less pumice-granite gravel mix (and 10% zeolite added per Mike's recommendation) in the 2023 growing season. Since I now have a good, well-detailed game plan for next spring, I can be patient!

You don't need rootone I think the fungicide in in does more good than the hormone. If it doesn't have fungicide don't buy it...A quick search is Rootone F is different now than rootone ?

Propagation:Rooting Hormone Danger? - Dave's Garden
https://davesgarden.com › community › forums
Jun 30, 2004 — Rootone F™ contains Thiram which is a fungicide and Thiram is toxic. You need to be careful so you do not come in contact with (or breathe in) ...

Thanks for the caution on Thiram -- and an excellent argument in favor of using good old-fashioned sulfur powder to treat freshly exposed tissues after cutting.

[Steve Johnson]

What a difference 10 days make...

You saw it on 9/1, so here's the perezdelarosae today:



Great, now the head is going sideways! Also, some interesting behavior -- the plant seems to be chasing the afternoon sun as its angle continues to move lower. However, I still don't see any urgency to doing the chop-chop before spring. (Whatever doubts I had about the need for it are long gone!)

The perezdelarosae has a remarkably long blooming period -- this year, its first buds were detected in January (totally normal), and it didn't stop flowering until mid-April (also normal, at least with mine). Would there be a problem if I cut the head while it's still flowering? If the answer is "no", timing is up to whether or not March will be warm enough to bring the collection out of dormancy. If the answer is "yes", I'll wait until the plant is done blooming for the year. What say you, Mike?

[MikeInOz]

You have a pretty long growing season in LA, (I presume) probably similar to mine so you can wait for the flowers to finish. But even if you don't I can't see much of a problem. I found the flowers usually slow down and dry up once the roots are cut off.

[Steve Johnson]

You have a pretty long growing season in LA, (I presume) probably similar to mine so you can wait for the flowers to finish. But even if you don't I can't see much of a problem. I found the flowers usually slow down and dry up once the roots are cut off.

Excellent -- many thanks to you and Keith for your guidance!