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I came into possession of this little Yavia grafted neatly onto an Astrophytum.

This is the first Yavia I have ever owned, but I have dozens of Astrophytum.

I want to keep it as naturally shaped as possible because I don't like the look of grafted plants which blow up and swell when grafted.

At the same time, I would like to encourage it to pup in the future.

I just wanted to share. If you have any advice or feedback, I would appreciate that too.

Congrats on the acquisition!

Keeping a natural appearance is difficult with grafted plants however astrophytum is a slower stock so you have a good chance of the Yavia retaining natural characteristics.
Grafted plants regardless of stock generally produce pups in time, the addition of fertiliser during the growing season can help induce pups.
All the best!

Keeping low growing "earth cacti" that retract into the ground in the dry season looking typical on their own roots in a pot cultivation is difficult, let alone on a graft where they grow more freely.

http://lophophora.blogspot.com/2009/04/ ... tures.html

I had this one that flowered in the past but then dried on the graft and am now trying to root an offset somebody gave me.

What species was yours grafted on?

Trichocereus spachianus. It even appeared to set fruit, but as I only had one plant there was nothing in them.


But later in the year just dried up on the graft.

Dang. I've had that happen before. It usually seems to happen in the winter. I think the stock shrinks differently from the scion.

That was the conclusion I have come too Aloinopsis, differential shrinkage of stock and scion as we dry the plants off in winter breaking the union. Mammillaria luethyi is also notorious for doing this. Some advocate giving just a little water in winter to stop it happening, but don't know if it works. It's annoying when it happens since the stock is usually quite healthy, but the point of union has calloused over and the scion dried out.

My hunch is that the grafting stock matters a lot in those situations. I would imagine stock with slower metabolism like Astrophytum would have less of a shrinkage difference in winter than stock with a faster metabolism, like Pereskiopsis.

But I couldn't prove that, it's just what my gut is telling me.