Gone to Seed by Stephen Cooley

Transcription

1 It seems that everyone who has been infected with the Cactus & Succulent bug eventually displays the most common symptom: an irresistible urge to acquire more plants. The first indications of this difficulty usually occur when you visit your first Show and Sale. Surely your companions noticed the warning signs, but alas, they too were infected. These symptoms can continue for quite some time but at some point we try to increase our collection without opening our pocket books. Who hasn t tried sticking a Beavertail pad or a Jade Plant stem into a pot or pulling off a pup from an Echinopsis? These are good ways to satisfy your need, but, there is another that can provide even more satisfaction seeds. I am always a bit surprised at the lack of enthusiasm for growing succulents from seed. I have to remind myself that our hobby is not the same as one that grows vegetables or cottage gardens. Those hobbies typically require a knowledge of seed rearing in order to acquire the plants you need, ours does not. In our hobby, the seed is primarily grown by nurseries as well as by those guys that seem to know more about succulents than any earthly person should (I m convinced that some of them are not from this world). However, this does not mean that you can t try it yourself. It s not always as easy as sticking a Hens-andChicks offset into a pot, but it is often more rewarding. Vegetative propagation (not using seeds) certainly has its value. Cuttings, offsets, and even grafting are commonly done at home (another vegetative method is tissue culture, but this is usually not feasible for the amateur, though it is possible). These methods are good if you want to increase your numbers of a certain species or variety. If you have a hybrid Echinopsis that everyone adores, you can root offsets and spread it around 11 week old Didymaotus (be careful of patented plants, lapidiformis seedlings they re kind of like copying your favorite music; no one notices if you keep it to yourself, but when you start to make money from it you can get in trouble). One thing that vegetative propagation can t do is produce new varieties, this is the realm of sexual propagation seeds. Seeds are generally inexpensive, easy to grow, quick to germinate, and, believe it or not, readily available. Growing seeds does not require much space or even a lot of sophisticated equipment. It does require more attentiveness than you ordinarily give your mature plants, but then, they re just babies. With seeds you can grow species that are not readily available at shows. Some succulents, like Astrophytum, do not readily produce offsets or do not branch. This means that seeds are the way to go. Seeds can be an inexpensive way to start a large number of a desirable variety. If you collect and grow your own seed, you can fiddle with cross Mammillaria perez-delarosa pollination and produce your own wonderful hybrids. There is always a bit of variation in your seedlings, which allows you to pick out the best colored or patterned Lithops from the group without fighting over it at the Show and Sale tables. All that said, I don t want this to sound too easy. There are some details to which you must pay attention. Seedlings are much more easily damaged by drought or over-watering. In addition, other perils like attacks from snails and birds don t just disfigure your plants, it annihilates them. A dropped pot may be a temporary setback for an adult, but it often means death to many seedlings. Seedlings take time to grow up. Unlike a blooming adult you buy at the show, your seedling could take several years to reach blooming size (there are exceptions, some Mesembs will bloom in a year or less from seed). Though they don t require much space when they re young, as seedlings grow, they require much more space, which leads to the hardest thing of all culling. Culling is the removal of unwanted plants, though I shouldn t say unwanted. They are the undesirable, the less pretty, the not-quiteas-good-as-the-rest. Mostly they are the ones you just can t find any 1 2 Gone to Seed by Stephen Cooley PART ONE: Why Seeds?

2 more room for. You are forced to pick out some and throw them away (many will be too young to give away). Fortunately this usually happens when they are still very small and you haven t had time to become too attached. The attachment you feel towards the plants you have raised is where the real rewards are. A plant that you have watched come out of the seed, grow into a recognizable plant, and then bloom gives you a great sense of accomplishment. After you have decided that you want to start some succulents from seed, the next step is, of course, to get some seed. Seeds of a great number of succulents are generally not hard to obtain and there are many sources. These include buying seeds from a supplier, begging from your fellow club members, and collecting them right off the plant. If you choose to collect the seeds from the plants there are a few things to consider. You will want to be sure that the seed is mature and will germinate once you plant it. If you are not collecting from your own plants, getting permission before you do would be a good idea. If you are collecting from the wild it might be prudent to know wether it is even legal to do so. I plan on writing more about this in the future. Another good source of seed is your fellow hobbyists. Many who have large collections often get fruits on their plants, many times without any help. People who grow plants from seed may have extra. Ask around and you ll probably wind up with some. Perhaps the best way to get your seed is to buy it from a supplier. There are many to choose from and the best place to go is to the internet at: Here you will find a listing of links to seed sources. However, there are two suppliers that I would like to mention here because they are good places to start. For those of you that are members of the CSSA, the SEED DEPOT is a wonderful starting point. Here you will find a wide variety of seeds that are donated by members. They are just 50 cents for each packet which is a good (and sometimes a real bargain) price. You must be a member to order from the list, however. I have ordered many seeds from the CSSA Seed Depot and have had very good luck germinating them. The year s list is printed in the January issue of the CSSA newsletter, To The Point, with supplements printed with subsequent issues. Directions for ordering from the Seed Depot are included with each newsletter. The other supplier I would like to mention is MESA GARDEN. Mesa Garden is familiar to almost anyone who grows from seed, and for good reason. They have the best selection on the planet. In fact, the choices are so great that the uninitiated may find it somewhat daunting just to look through the catalog. This is the place to look if you re trying to find a particular species or even a species from a particular locale. Looking at the 2003 catalog I count 26 entries for Conophytum pellucidum, varying mostly in where they were collected. Mesa Garden doesn t lump their seed together, but lets you choose which one you want (would you like the olive-green bodied C. pellucidum collected 15 miles west of Platbakkies, or the contractile form from 20 miles south of Kamieskroon?). The prices are good and the germination is high. I have spent far too much money buying seeds from them and I m not likely to stop anytime soon. You can find them at or write to: Mesa Garden, PO Box 72, Belen, NM Now that you re getting some seed, you need to plant it. Before you plant it, let s talk about what the seed needs to germinate. Basically, seeds need moisture, warmth, and air to germinate. For many succulents there is another requirement, light. Most Cacti and Mesembs require that the seed be in the light in order to have good germination while some others, like Aloe, Agave, and Pachypodium do not. Another factor you need to consider in planting your seed is disease. There are a number of diseases (usually fungal) that can attack your seed and 3 4 Pachypodium fruit and seeds PART TWO: What Do I Do Now?

3 seedlings. Cleanliness usually does the trick though there are pesticides that will help as well. Now a word or two about soil. There are as many soil recipes as there are growers so I m not going to get too involved here. The important part about your potting soil id that it drains well. This usually means the addition of perlite, coarse sand, or pumice to your mix. Your mix can either be organic (peat moss, coir, leaf mold, etc) or mineral (garden loam, sand). Personally, I have had my best results using a strictly mineral soil, adding no organic components. An important part here is that your soil be sterile. Store bought mixes as well as perlite tend to be sterile right out of the bag. Other ingredients will need to be sterilized. To do this, place your wet mix in an oven roasting bag, seal it, and cook it in a low oven ( F) until the inside temperature is to about 180F. I have also had good results by placing a clear plastic bag of wet soil in the hot sun and turning it everyday for about four days. Now you re almost ready to start planting your seeds. First, let s clean the pots. Any pot will do as long as it is clean. By clean I mean that it has been washed out to remove any clinging matter and then sprayed with a 10% bleach solution. The pots then should be put in a plastic bag, sealed, and let sit overnight. Cleaning your pots and soil means you probabl;y won t need any other disease controls. Okay, let s plant. Take a pot, fill it with moistened soil, then settle the soil by gently picking the pot up about an inch and letting it fall back down. If your planting a species that does not require light, then leave enough room so that you can cover the seed with about one quarter inch of soil. Now, sprinkle your seed on the soil, covering it if necessary (Many growers will now also sprinkle the light requiring species with a very small amount of sand I wait until after germination). Remember, almost all Cacti and Mesembs require light to germinate. Now, water the seeds by placing the pot in a tray of water. I also tend to spray water on the surface seeds just to make sure they re in contact with the soil. When the soil is wet, remove the pot from the tray and allow it to drain a bit. At this point, the pot needs to be covered to insure that the moisture is retained. This is easily done by placing the pot in a zip-top clear plastic bag. Any other way of covering the top of the pot should work as long as the light can get through. Place the covered pot in a warm bright area, not in full sun. This could be a window sill or fluorescent lights (which I use and they work very well). For most species, a temperature of 75F is good. Some like it hotter and many of the Mesembs like it cooler, but household temperatures are usually okay. Your new babies should arrive in about 7 days (or as little as 1 day or as much as 1 year, depending on the species and freshness of the seed) PART THREE: It s Alive! Before I get started let me correct one thing from last month s article; Mesa Garden no longer prints a catalog but the current lists can be viewed or downloaded from their website Okay, now you ve received the seeds you ordered, cleaned your pots and soil, planted the seeds, watered them, put them in a plastic bag and checked them every hour for a week until finally you see something. A small green thing has appeared at the surface, then another, and another. Germination! For the next week or so more and more come up, or sometimes you only get a few. Perhaps you won t get any, which happens sometimes. At this point you may realize that you ve made the most common error when planting seed: too many seedlings. You should have used fewer seeds or a bigger pot. If you had known how well the seeds would germinate you could have provided the right size pot. But, when you only have 25 seeds to start with, running a germination test would be a waste. After about a week or two from germination, you should be able to recognize distinct bodies and/or the seed leaves of your new plants. If, like me, you did not cover your seeds you will also see a lot of fine roots. Now is a good time to sprinkle on some coarse sand, washing it down over the roots with a spray bottle. Your young plants will need this in order keep themselves upright. Your new plants can stay covered in their plastic bag for a few more weeks or they can be taken out. Do not expose them to full sun at this point, you can gradually work them up to full sun when they are a bit older. You have now successfully started your own succulents from seed. Now you must finish them. The most critical time in the life of your new plants will probably be their first transplanting. Do not get impatient, transplanting can be up to a year away at this point. You will have much better success at transplanting when the plants are older and getting crowded in the pot. Concern yourself now with the health of your seedlings. At this young age your succulents will require more moisture than when they are adults. However, they still will rot if kept too wet. Fertilizer should not be necessary until they are a month older or more. Adding fertilizer too soon can lead to excess weed growth. Weeds? Yes, even in your little pot you can have a problem with 6

4 weeds. These are not the dandelions of your lawn or the grass, mustards, oxalis and spurges of your mature potted plants. Now that you have taken your seedling pot from the plastic bag you have allowed algae and moss to blow in with the breeze. If they grow too fast they can cause problems for your little succulents. The solution is in prevention, don t keep the top of the soil overly wet you can still water your plants from the bottom by sitting the pot in a tray of water. In general I have had few problems with moss and algae, as they prefer cooler temperatures and by the time they get established, I have cut down on the watering of the seedlings. Your succulents will grow slowly now, except, of course, the ones that don t. What I mean to say is that the Cactus, Lithops, Conophytum, and some other popular ones will grow slowly. Some, like Pelargonium, Ipomoea, Othonna and many other caudiciforms can grow quite rapidly. These speedy ones will need to be treated more like bedding plants and transplanted to larger containers quickly. One of the keys to seedling success is attentiveness. Look at your plants frequently and take care of the problems as they arise instead of being surprised by them when it s too late. 16 day old Orbea seedlings PART FOUR: Getting Ready to be a Grandparent When your seeds have germinated and your plants are growing 7 you can certainly say that you were successful in your seed starting adventure. But, there is perhaps one more goal that brings a feeling of accomplishment to the seed raiser Flowers. It is indeed a special day when one of your seedlings flowers. This is truly the culmination of all your work. The flower is a sign that your plant is now fully mature. Some plants can flower very quickly from seed. Annuals, like Moss Rose (Portulaca grandiflora) and Livingstone Daisy (Dorotheanthus spp.) will certainly provide abundant flowers in one season. But, other perennial succulents can also be fast to bloom. I have had Glottiphyllum bloom in less than a year and Mammillaria zacatecasensis bloom in less than two years. I am sure with the right treatment there are many more examples, but I would suspect these probably would not be cacti. In general, most succulents are slow and you must care for them for many years before seeing flowers. Now, it is not my intent to go into detail on how to raise your plants to adulthood and flowering. Still, there are some things you should be aware of. Your very young seedlings must be prepared before they head out into the real world. If you have started your seeds under artificial lighting, then acclimation to the sun is essential. I have found that even very small plants will do better in the brighter light and (usually) warmer temperatures of the outdoors. I also know that plants unaccustomed to this environment can be burnt, desiccated, or killed. Acclimating your plants is not hard to do, but it does take patience and diligence. What must be done is a slow process of increasing the light and temperature so that the plant can get used to its new surroundings. I usually take my new plants outside into an area of bright shade and keep them there for a week. I then move them to an area with a bit more light for another week. After that, I put some out in the full sun (many of my young plants stay under a shade cloth for the first year). Checking your plants each day during this process will alert you to any problems (too much sun is a common one) and allow you to correct it. Once your plants are used to their new location you should use your own good cultivation skills to keep them healthy and growing to adulthood. Let s skip a bit shall we Let s say you and I are a little bit older and your seedlings are coming into flower. You are, of course, ecstatic and you ve probably showed them to all your cactus-and-succulent loving friends. It may occur to you at this time that you might be able to collect seed from your plants, and you could plant them and that would sort of make you a grandparent. But, how should you go about this seed making? 8

5 As you might suspect, you re going to need a Mommy and a Daddy to make babies, right? That s not always true in the plant world. Sometimes seeds can be produced without any mixing of genetic material, but we re not going to go into that here. The Daddy would be the pollen which is on the anthers and is usually that yellow powdery stuff that gets on your nose when you smell a flower (okay, I know you don t get that close to too many cactus flowers). Pollen can also be other colors as well and is not always powdery but it is usually not hard to find. The Mommy is not always so easy to find, however. The female parts of the flower include eggs, ovary, style, and stigma. Needless to say, the pollen must find its way to the egg and this process should be familiar to all of you who didn t sleep through your plant biology. I won t rehash all that now for fear of loosing my readers (and perhaps a few friends). What we re interested in is the stigma, which is where the pollen is deposited by insects, bats, mice, and all sorts of other means. The stigma can sometimes be found sticking out in plain sight, ready to accept the pollen. Sometimes, it isn t as noticeable, being tucked down inside the floral tube, or taking on a shape similar to the anthers. The first flower of an Sometimes it can t be Echinocereus subinermis seedling found at all. This may be due to your aging eyesight or it could be that the flower doesn t have one (just when you thought it was going to be easy). Some plants have the male and female parts on different flowers, so you may have to look around. Some plants have the male and female flowers on different plants, so you may have to look a bit further. Fortunately, the male and female parts are mostly on the same flower. Notable exceptions: many Euphorbia have separate male and female flowers (the popular Euphorbia obesa has them on different plants) and many of the pachyform cucurbits (you fat-plant collectors know what I m talking about) have them on different plants. At any rate, you need to find the pollen and find the stigma and get the pollen on the stigma. A small paint brush works well. Oh, by the way, before you dash out with your brush here are a few rules that will increase your chances of success. Try to keep your gene mixing in the same family; Cacti with cacti, asclepiad with asclepiad, mesemb with mesemb, etc.. Better yet, stay within the same Genus; Echinopsis with Echinopsis, Pachypodium with Pachypodium, Haworthia with Haworthia, etc.. And even better, stay within the same species. The farther the relationship between the male and female, the less likely that seeds will be produced. You will find that sometimes a plant will pollinate itself but many times it won t. Cross pollinating two individuals (not clones) of the same species will not only give you good results, but the seedlings will be stronger and you at least will know what to call them. Once fertilization has occurred a fruit will form with the seeds inside. This fruit can be large, small, long, short, fleshy, dry, hidden, or in plain sight. Knowing when the fruit is ripe and the seed ready can be as easy as waiting for an Opuntia fruit to turn red and fall or as hard as finding that the Euphorbia fruit has exploded and scattered the seeds all over the greenhouse. Collection can be made easier with a little bagging and gluing and I ll try to get into that a bit more next time PART FOUR: Customizing Your Cactus Now that you re practically an expert at raising succulents from seed, let s talk about making the most out of what you raise. There is more to this than meets the eye. Rather than just acquiring any old seed and saying you raised a plant, why not be more specific? Through careful pollination you can preserve the characteristics of a certain population of plants. For instance, if you obtain seeds for Lithops leslei C358 how can you be sure that you haven t received some hybrid of Lithops leslei C358? If the person distributing the seeds allowed

6 the seed to set by itself (open pollination) then you run the chance that a roving moth, fly or bee may have brought pollen from another Lithops. Why do you care? Random crossing rarely produces wonderful new patterns and colors, instead, what you get is a muddle of characteristics that seem dull in comparison to the original. In our hobby I have noticed something that seems rare among other plant societies. There is a passion for retaining the characteristics of wild populations. When a new population of a cactus is found, even though it may differ by only a few minor characteristics, it comes into the hobby as is. It is not crossed with more robust or colorful forms to make it more desirable. Though there are hybrid succulents to be found (Adenium and Echinopsis seem to be the most popular) these are not a major part of the hobby (certainly not like in Rose or Iris Societies). So then, how can you be sure of what you re getting? Many seed suppliers will let you know where the seed came from. But, more than likely, you may just have to put your trust in one and see what you get. If you are collecting your own seed from your collection there are ways to insure you re getting what you want. The best way is to isolate your selected plants from others that may cross with it. This can be done by physically moving the plants to a distance that pollinators are not likely to travel (the other side of the greenhouse or patio is not far enough!). You could remove all the flowers from the plants likely to cross (probably not an option). An easier way may be to cover the flowers with cloth or paper bags to prevent pollination. Whatever you do, you will be responsible for pollinating the isolated flowers. Once the flower withers, the isolation can end. It is a wise idea to mark the flowers that you have selectively pollinated. After several months of fruit maturation you may forget what you have done, especially if you have several plants that have been pollinated. Marking can be done in several ways. What I do is tie a small colored thread to the base of the fruit/flower and then mark down in a notebook what pollinator was used and the date. Sometimes the thread can be laid across the flower and it will tie itself as the flower shrinks and withers (this is good with Cacti that have wooly crowns like Ariocarpus). If you always cross plants from the same population, your Lithops leslei C358 with other C358, then a string may be all that is necessary to show you which fruits have the pure seeds. Now let us consider that you may want to create new and wonderful varieties. You could have been inspired by all the wonderful Schick hybrids of Echinopsis or you just may want to raise the fattest Euphorbia obesa. Whatever the reason, the procedure is the same as above but the strategy is different: you want to protect your plant from Aloe hybrid (middle) with parents (top & bottom) being pollinated by itself or others like it. Once again, isolation is the important part, with one added remark; if the plant you are pollinating can selfpollinate (use it s own pollen to produce seeds) you need to isolate it from itself. This is done by removing the anthers from the flower you are pollinating and then preventing the flower from being accidentally crossed (bagging). The anthers will need to be removed before the pollen is produced this usually

7 means operating on the flower before it has opened. Don t worry about hurting the petals. You may want to bring pollen to this flower over several days as you may not be sure when the stigma is ready. When the fruit begins to form and the stigma has withered, you can remove the bag. Since most succulents don t self pollinate you won t be confronted with this very often. To create your new and wonderful varieties you must give some thought to what you are doing. If you want an orange flowering Echinopsis you might want to cross a red with a yellow. Be aware that the intricacies of genetics do not always produce a mixture of traits. Crossing a yellow flower with a red flower may produce an orange flower, but then again, if red is dominant, it may only produce red flowers. I guess you ll find out. You need to figure out what you want, then devise a plan on how to get it. An orange flowered Echinopsis may not be enough, you may also want it to produce large quantities of huge flowers that bloom in the daytime on small fast growing plants. Adding this many traits will take several generations and may you want to keep with the undesirables tossed out of the gene pool. Then you must decide whether to bring in more genes and add another trait or you could strengthen an existing trait by back-crossing it with one of the parents. This could end up taking years. I guess that s why not too many people do it. But it isn t always as time consuming. If you re not trying to do too much, good results can be had in a relatively short period. A robust, large flowered red Echinopsis crossed with a short yellow flowered Echinopsis will probably get you a medium sized orange flowered Echinopsis. And when you have that orange flowered Echinopsis you can give it that special name like Maynard s Marvelous, or Ed s Extraordinary Echinopsis. After all, it s your child. A batch of mostly Mesemb seedlings require several different parents. This can easily get out of hand (as if you needed another reason for your collection to get out of hand). Each generation will need to be scrutinized for the traits 13 14

8 Euphorbia obesa flowers (female) Euphorbia polygona flowers (male) Euphorbia obesa fruits 15