How do I identify variegated seedlings?

Hi there,
While I have a lot of experience with grafting, I don't have a lot of experience with seedlings. I have a very brown-red seedling that has shown up in the middle of one of my seedling trays. Why would it be different from any of the other ones? Could it be a variegated seedling? What else could cause the colouration difference?
Thank you for any help in this.

i know that im new here plus im no expert..
sunburn? or are all the others still the same colour and jus tthis one..
maybe i should just sssh
chef

There's more then 30 seedlings in the tray, and only this one is red, the rest are a very healthy green.

like i said im no pro but sounds like you may have something interesting on your hands
but my self i think i will wait for an expert to come along
What seeds did you sow?

Peruvian Apple cacti, monstrose. I'm going to graft it, as I don't think it will go too well on it's own if this is it's real colour.

pics, pics, pics!!

I'll post pics tomorrow, I'm just heading off to graft it now.

keep me posted mate!

It is very difficult to tell with seedlings, however, a dark red/brown colour usually indicates some form of stress. While a light pink/yellow/white "can" be an early indication of variegation or albino.

The "stress" can come from a variety of sources including too much sun, not enough water, a problem obtaining nutrients, including a poor root system or not enough nutrients in the soil, and I believe commonly when it occurs in only a single plant or two in a tray such as yours then this plant is simply weak or what would be called a "runt" in the animal world.

That being said If I'm looking for freaks I graft anything different

Ok, well, I grafted it last night. I'll do pictures later when it's not so nasty outside (Where is Summer and what have you done with it??). The red/brown seedling was just as big and well formed as all the others, and different only in colour.

Ok, here's a photo taken this morning.

What do you think? It was the same size and shape as all the deep green seedlings around it, being different only in it's dark red/brown colour.
It has light coming through it, so looks lighter in colour then it really is.

will have to keep us updated could be quite interesting. I recently had a some trichocereus throw what I assume are variegated, have tried to graft them asap as they are not growing particularly well on there own roots.

Only time will tell

I found one of my Astrophytums that sprouted yesterday and it is definitely variegated, green & yellow. That one at least is a good bet. I'm really looking hard for the unusual, and as such have planted close to 10,000 seeds in the last month. I'm bound to find a few more interesting ones

Yep freaks is a numbers game, keep your eyes peeled.

I wish I knew how they were getting all those amazing mutants in Japan. Ya reckon someone must be using mutagens or radiation to get some of those?
Look at some of the cacti that this fella has/had for sale...
http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~saisen/newpage4.html
http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~saisen/newpage3.html
http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~saisen/newpage1.html
He doesn't do any paperwork or anything on them, so it would be near impossible to get some of those here

Mr. Saeki of owner of Saisenen have developed cultivers by himself and also collected quite many cultivars developed by Japanese hobby cactus collectors.
He does not use any special technics such as mutagenes or radiation.

He has exported these cultivars to Asian and European countries.
Since CITES 1 plants are impossible to export to overseas, he has categorised these cultivars as hybrids plants.
Roots of grafting stock are also cut off completely for the exporting.

He can make necessary English documents but I am not sure Australian law can accept importing cactus plants or not.

Hanazono

Even if they can never get to here, they are still some amazing cacti, and it would be great to see if the cacti growers out here could come up with some amazing cultivars of their own

Back to the original topic of this thread, the red seedling has slowly turned green, and is indistinguishable from the seedlings that were the normal green.

I think you can recognize albino seedlings very soon just after germination.
You have to wait 4~5 months to select well balanced variegated seedlings.
I sowed asterias seeds in November last year and grafted recently after selected 5 of well balanced variegated seedlings.
The photo is one of (variegated asterias x super kabutos).

Very nice! Now, is there any difference between what causes variegated seedlings and albino seedlings? Or is it the same, only in an albino, the lack of chlorophyll is 100%?

IXOXI

I think the cause of both variegated and albino seedlings are same.
The degree of chlorophill content shows differntly.
The albino is nil of chlorophyll.

You can keep albino cacti by grafting but their lives are very short generally.

I had a large batch of Loph seeds, collected from about 40 of my friends plants, many were of mixed parentage, as he just takes one paintbrush, and goes around to every visible flower. One of the seedlings was extremely pale. The seedlings that I planted are now over a month old, and while all the others are are emerald green or deeper, this one is still barely green at all. I took a photo of it a few days ago next to one of it's fellow batch of baby lophs. The green one is among the lighter green of the 'normal' ones. I think the whitish one might be albino, but it is definitely growing.

IXOXI

Almost all Lophophora williamsii are self-fertile and diffusa is not.
Do you means these scions are diffusa or williamsii x diffusa?

One of your scions is pale.
I have never seen Lophophora albino but Astrophytum albino is paler than your scion.

I said the grafted albino was very short life but it meant 4~5years of life.

It looks a lot more white than the photo shows. It might be showing green reflections from the plants around it.

These Lophs could be any mix of hybrid that is fertile. My friend uses one paintbrush and brushes every open Lophophora flower that is open. He does not clean the brush between pollinations. He has over 40 Lophs, many varieties, so the seeds that germinate will be a big variety. From this last set of thousands of seeds planted, the pale seedling is the only one. The rest are all bright or deep green, like the one on the left.

I won't know what kind they are until they get more mature, and even then most of them will likely be hybrids of some sort. I'll keep pics posted here as the pale one grows.