A Truly Rare Cactus Borne In My Collection - Pediocactus Knowltonii Crest !

? Pediocactus Knowltonii Crest ?

** UPDATE *** 3/3/14

THIS PLANT MAY IN FACT HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED WRONG. POSSIBLE ID
Echinocactus Grusonii Variant Alba Inermis Crest

I planted the seed for this plant about 5 years ago, the germination rate was terrible from 20 seeds a single seedling germinated. I grafted the seedling to Hylocereus and after a few weeks I knew I had a special plant;

I have done a fairly extensive search of the web and spoken to everyone I know in the cacti industry and I can't find another plant in a collection anywhere, it could possibly be a truly unique plant. Over the last few years it has grown well;

About 1.5 years ago I did a semi degraft and potted the plant up to grow on it's own roots with the assistance of the Hylocereus whilst is establishes itself;

Before De-graft

Today

Today I took the knife out and have cut this plant up in an attempt to propagate this beauty and one day distribute it out to the cacti community :) I will post up some pics later on. 

Soccer Ball Loph

Soccer Ball Loph

The photographs really don't do this plant justice, it is even bigger in person that is looks in these photo graphs. I can't remember how old this plant is now but it has been grafted on this stock since it was one month old.

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Lophophora in flower !!

Today Lophophora are flowering !!

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The beginning of a small project ! Trichocereus Life Cycle

Many Trichocereus and other interesting columnar cacti in my collection are in the the very early stages of flower production. Over the next few weeks I plan to document the flowering cycle of Trichocereus Pachanoi and Peruvianus species plants, from the very beginning tiny flower buds to the massive open developed flowers, to pollination (cross), and finally all going well the development of the seed pods and resulting seeds.

Here are a few pics to get me motivated before I begin tomorrow

Trichocereus SP

Trichocereus SP

    

Potting up the De Grafts

Today I finished off the de-grafted Astrophytum by potting them up in 120mm and 150mm Square plastic pots. The soil mix is 80% inorganic and 20% organic material and is topped with 10mm red Scoria. 

Winter Update.

Winter is finally over and its time for some serious growth and propagation this season :)
A few pics from over winter.

Ariocarpus Hybrids

Ariocarpus Retusus

Lophocereus Schotii Monstrose

Nice looking Tricho Peruvianus

Lophophora 

Trichocereus Peruvianus Hybrid (TPM X SS02) Crest

Re-potting some Ariocarpus Seedlings

Ariocarpus Retusus seedlings from 2010. Several different forms of field collected seeds all mixed together. One of the plants appears to be variegated and is glowing a little bit slower which is characteristic of the trait. All appear to be healthy and are growing well for plants that are just on 2 years old, I think the growth rate has been about average for the species.

First two trays:

A few of the bigger ones, you can see the variegated seedling in the bottom right corner.

Variegated seedling:

Two FREAKS; Trichocereus Peruvianus Monstrose Crests

Both plants are the result of a cross between Trichocereus Peruvianus Monstrose (Mother) X Sacred Succulents SS02 (Father). I only received 6 seeds from this cross and 4 germinated all of them are either crest or very strange monstrose growth.

Lophophora (SP)

Thought I would share some pictures from my collection of the species Lophophora. I have a fairly diverse collection nearly entirely existing of seed grown plants, a good portion of which I have grafted to various stocks. For Lophophora I generally use columnar cacti stocks such as Trichocereus and Cereus but also use Pereskiopsis and very rarely Hylocereus/Selenicereus.

I have been grafting cactus for the last 6 years and during this time have found a few tips and tricks, I plan on posting a how-to grafting guide over the next few weeks. In the meanwhile enjoy these.