Pagan, nice plants! Especially the P. brevicaule. I once had a fairly large specimen.

About your growth experiment. How many seedlings was grown under each condition #1, #2 and #3 or did you just treat 3 seedlings differently?

That one in the center is one of Mark's, Rick. It is just really extraordinary. And I do so love P. brevicaule. I have a nursery-grown 7-year old specimen too. At least I am hoping it truthfully was nursery-grown. It is not endangered and was removed from Appendix II but still--I do not want the burden of a habitat-collected plant.

Anyway, I have 14 seedlings from my Feb 2015 batch that I am growing to optimize growth without pushing.

From my first attempt to grow from seeds, I have 9 left out of 24--some do not survive my experimentation.

Of this 9, two were grown normally; i.e. I did not experiment with them and put them in what I consider appropriate seedling mix (50 percent soil, 50 percent perlite) but they got minimal care. This means they got fertilizer when I remembered, watered when it rained and although they have not gone through dormancy, they stayed in my winter shelf in the basement.

The remaining 7 were all grown very hard. Basically I treated them like cactus in gritty mix, with barely any fertilizer and only rain. This year, five of these 7 are in the ground, on a spot that I used to compost kitchen waste the previous year. They are in full sun and get regular watering but no fertilizer. I plan to dig them out in autumn. If I don't forget.

All my seedlings get pruned if they start to look annoying to me. All of them were pinched shortly after germination, after second set of true leaves have sprouted. By this I mean I pinched the third set of true leaves---usually around two weeks after they germinate. All my seedlings were sown in the winter, under T5HOs on a heat mat.

Oh. And I have a plant that germinated in complete darkness!

Pagan

I am almost sure that Adeniums don't need light to germinate. Only warmth. I have had a whole batch sprout in semi-darkness.

Yes, we should all refrain from buying field-collected plants. Whatever their scarcity. This is a huge problem in Africa. :-(

http://africageographic.com/blog/couple-gets-12-years-in-prison-for-illegal-plant-possession

Pagan could you explain what optimizing growth without pushing means? And how it differs from pushing?

The yellow one is amazing Pagan. Don't torture that one.

Martin, that is a horrifying story. It's terrible but I can understand their temptation. Those are some wonderful looking plants, thankfully I can't afford to go to Africa.

I'm in the shop, you guys! Stop being interesting this minute! Lol
I promise I will reply after I break for lunch, Dain. It just will take a bit of shplaining and my thumb is too sawdusty for typing on the phone.

Pagan, the one with yellow bloom is most beautiful plant. I had similar kind in the same family, but it was white instead of yellow.

Marie

Okay here goes, Dain.

By optimising growth, I mean just giving it as close to the ideal growing condition as I can possibly give. In my case, it means the following:

1. Seedings are in 50 percent potting soil (I prefer peatless) and 50 percent perlite. To achieve optimum growth in soil-free substrate, it will just take too much effort to meet their water needs while growing rapidly.

2. The seedlings are kept in full sun in the hottest part of the yard (in my case, the deck), hand-watered and fertilized at half the recommended dose when I do water. I use Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro because I am magnificently lazy and don't want to have to be tinkering with trace minerals that plants need.

3. I water only when the pot is really light, indicating that the soil is dry. In my climate, this usually takes only 3 to 4 days because seedlings are voracious things. It will take longer to dry if the seedling is in a bigger pot than it needs (this is why seedlings should not be over-potted, too wet too long makes them rot-prone).

For plants in clay or ceramic pots, this will be tricky. But do this: water your plant. Then lift it with both hands. That's how it feels when it is wet. Check after a week and see how much it weighs in comparison. It should be dry by then. Now you have an idea what dry feels. Water the plant when you get at or close to that point. If you have six thousand pots, goodluck lol

But you really only need to do this benchmarking in the beginning. Eventually you develop a sense of how fast your plants take up water and how fast your climate evaporates moisture in your potted plants. If, after a week, your pots still weigh as much as they did when you watered, your soil is probably not drying fast enough. I'd recommend amending to kick that up a notch.

4. The seedlings stay in the same pot until I see roots coming out the bottom. Otherwise, they are undisturbed, except for occasional pruning of errant branches or unsightly growth.

5. I do not let them go dormant in the winter. They wont if you bring them in as soon as night temperatures go down to 16C. Indoors they are in the warmest room, under lights for 14 hours. Remember I only have 2 that I have done this with. This year space will be an issue.

I have not pushed an adenium before because that's a balancing act I don't have the attention span for. But that usually means feeding it often and at full dose, maybe more. That needs to be complemented with proper watering, sun and heat. I suspect it will be less risky to push a plant in 5:1:1 because it can be flushed if there are signs of fertilizer burn. Maybe I'll pick a couple of the smaller ones from my 2015 batch and push those.

I hope I didn't miss anything.

Pagan

PS and OT: I assure you there will be no torturing of my Pachypodium brevicaule! This photo was from this spring, it bloomed for the first time. I'm sad you lost your plants, Marie and Martin. So far, I think it's pretty certain that the best way to care for these plants is to ignore them. We're a perfect match as a result.

Hi there, happy to finally join the thread. Had a repotting session today that never seemed to end! I love that compact fella there in the middle Pagan. It doesn't appear that he has been tortured just yet.

The story about the poachers (is that what they are called?) I am amazed that they were able to get the number of plants that they did without anyone catching them. Even more amazing is that they were tried and sentenced in a matter of weeks!

Tracy

That's actually the 6-month old seedling, Tracy. Not torturing that one, I want to see what happens. I haven't even pruned it at all. The one on the left is the super compact one. It's 2.5 years old.

These poachers are particularly despicable. Imagine going to an impoverished neighbour's backyard and having the temerity to steal from them. We really need to be careful what we buy.

What did today's roots look like, Tracy? Roots are my favorite part.

Pagan

The roots were crazy good on these plants today, they were just perfect. Sometimes I think about experimenting in just some plain coir to see how a few would do, the roots really take to the stuff. I normally take pictures but I had so many to do that I couldn't slow the machine down long enough in fear I wouldn't get done in time to barbecue before a big storm heading our way arrived. Storm's here and the b-b-q was good!

Oh you should try braiding, knotting and generally just aggravating them. (I have to look up where southern Illinois is, other than on the other side of Northern Illinois.)

Anyway...seedlings PIG

Did you amend the soil before planting them? They look great. Will you pull them up for winter?

Tracy

Um..er..no? That didn't even cross my mind, Tracy. These PIG seedlings were the most miserable-looking ones coming out of winter. So I just dug holes, shoved them in, filled 'em up and basically left them for dead. At the time, night temperatures were still dropping below 16C for a while.
I think i'll have to dig them out since they've survived thus far.

Train!

Pagan

It will be interesting to see what the roots look like, if they are patterned substantially different due to not being limited by a container.

Great pics and lovely plants Pagan.After going through the post I am wondering whether the caudex gets fatter if one pinches or pushes the plant? Does it or does it not? My seedlings are a month old but very thin compared to the ones in the link you provided.I am assuming that the other thread you have placed a link of is your post.

Please let me know if I should pinch mine(break off the terminal bud is what it means I assume)?

Please advise

I know your question is directed at Pagan, but IMHO I would not pinch these as they are too small any may not survive it.

Tracy

Hey DrG.

Nah, your seedlings are fine--they're just very young. Tracy is right--wait until the seedlings have grown a bit before you pinch them, if you want to pinch them. I usually wait until the third pair and then slice off the fourth pair when they are about a couple of millimeter big.

But to answer your question, the size of the caudex seems to be largely genetic and, under normal care, will develop as they are predisposed to do. There are various techniques to make the roots grow fat and---I can not stress this enough---this is possible IFF kept under the soil for a looooooong time.

Pinching is done mainly to encourage branching. If there is a direct impact on the growth of the caudex, I have not seen it. Pinching too early does not usually trigger branching, which is why I wait. In some cases, even pinching later will not trigger it---seedlings will just continue growing out of a single stem. These plants sometimes refuse to do as they are told.

I hope this helps!

Pagan

P.S. the link on my first post was not my thread. It was started by one of the regs here who doesn't come around anymore, I think.

Hi gang.

Two weeks ago Marie suggested an experiment that involved doing this to a seedling:

Um..I mean, cutting both ends of a seedling and letting it dry out. Mine disappeared for a few days before I found it on the floor. Remember the way that bottom part looks: it has to be that dry before putting it back in the pot; sealed, of course, with glue. I used wood glue.

Then I potted it up in this, right on top of that Christmas ball.

Next, this:

It only has about a centimeter of its stem under the soil and note that when you water it, the soil will settle down a bit, exposing a little bit more of the stem. Since it has no roots, this means it will have zero support, only friction and gravity holds it in place. This is actually what I wanted because in my experience, once the stem has been exposed, burying it back under the soil often triggers scar tissue to form and it looks unsightly to me.

Anyway, to support the barely-potted seedling, you can buttress it with something so it does not move, in this case, lava rocks.

In the shade, watered only once and rained on once, we have new growth!

Thanks for this, Marie!

Pagan

P.S. I also did one graft on a 6-month old seedling and it looks like it has taken. You'll know your graft has not failed (yet) when you see the edges of the scion dry up a little bit but there is no gap between it and the stock, indicating that tissue has grown to fuse the two pieces together. The scion will also look quite firm and, well, alive. Eventually, those edges will grow over.

That's all folks. Hopefully I don't end up killing either of these things. If you have questions, ask Marie!