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Category: Why? | Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:20 am

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Almost everybody has seen a grafted cactus somewhere in the store. The most famous one is the Gymnocalycium mihanovichii cv. 'Hibotan' or Ruby Ball, the one that looks like a red lollipop. That special hybrid has no chlorophyll so it has to be grafted or it will die. It uses the stock to process sunlight and the roots to get water and nutrition.

In other cases, why graft cactus seedlings?

Here are 5 different reasons:

1. The climate you live in can not give that specific genus or species the heat, sun or humidity that it need for the root to thrive.
2. You want some really slow growing species to grow and flower very fast.
3. Some species produce many pops when they are grafted and that is one way to make real clones of that plant.
4. There are species that are really difficult in the beginning after they have germinated. To prevent that all dies (as usually) you can graft.
5. You want to jump ahead five years and de-graft the plants when they are big enough.

My reason is the last one. I want to jump ahead with some of my seedlings and save five years of growing time. When it's big enough I de-graft it (cut it of the stock and re-root it).

For a nursery it is essential to grow big plants in short time and then sell them.

For me it's just time-saving.



Last edited: Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:17 pm

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