CactiGuide.com

Hi everyone. This is my first post after reading a lot of information on these amazing forums, so first of all, thank you all for sharing your knowledge!

On June 1st I have sown a about a hundred seeds of what I think was a Ferocactus acanthodes (I received the fruit as a gift, so I can't tell for sure). I used the baggy method, but since it was my first time, I forgot to press the seeds into the soil mix. As a result, many of the seedlings have grown horizontally instead of vertically.

I took the picture below (sorry for the bad image quality, it was quite hard to do it through the humid bag). I planned to leave the seeds in the bag for a few more months, but given their growing direction, what would you say will be the best option? I would estimate that the seedlings are about 1 cm in length. I would love to receive your advice on the best course of action.

Thank you in advance,
Yuval

In my experience they will stabilise themselves over time. If you feel like intervening, you could open the bag and put a thin layer of grit on top of the soil, and spend some time rearranging the seedlings so they point upwards, but that comes with the risk of damaging them and letting a bunch of spores of potentially harmful organisms (fungi, mosses, etc) inside the bag.

The elongated shape may also indicate that they could handle a little bit more light than they have been getting, but be careful, they are easily scorched at these early stages.

Thank you eulaspiegel for your reply. I followed your suggestion and decided to not open the bag for now and just hope that they will correct themselves over time. I live in an apartment with a south facing balcony, and the seeds were located on a shelf with plenty of indirect sunlight but no direct sunlight. I moved them to a new location where they are located under a shade net which receives direct sunlight for about 3 hours each day, on top of the indirect sunlight. I hope they won't get scorched under these conditions. Attached is a photo of my current setup with all the seeds I have recently sown.