Astrophytum caput-medusae

Doing well calycium you are going to end up with better percentage than me

Not sure about that Betty,
but 3 to keep, plus 1 to graft = 4. Any more than that will make their way to the cacti trading area so I can get other varieties of cacti I'd like

(off topic - have 16 germinated Lithop Optica cv Rubra germinated and looking very healthy - 2 have your name on them )

Well you do have better % than me at this stage. Its strange one pot has 8 germinated and another 4. All same conditions etc so who knows??

Whoo hoo rubra babies Thanks cal so are they called B1 and B2

.........something I can't do is get those to grow. Tried awhile ago and got 3 to germinate and then Oooops they disappeared???

Just a note on their soil:

I spent a lot of time with their soil - 30% fine sieved potting mix from the Hortico packet. 30% course washed sand. 30% pertlite and then a large dollop of dolomite lime. All mixed in and then I soaked it in rain water and micro-waved the pots with the soil mix for about 3 minutes before I let them cool. Planted the seed and tamped them down then covered them with a sprinkling of course washed river sand. Stright into the germinator at about 26 degrees with fluro lights at 8 inches for 14/10 hours cycle a day.

Did an aweful lot to make sure there were no gnats and was the right soil composition. Have used it for all my mexican plantings with great success.

Having said that I would have been happy with 40% germination... but am experiencing much higher - around 70+% typically.

yep, the L. O. Rubra's are doing well - they will probably be a xmas present unless they grow a lot faster than normal.

calycium wrote:

he He B1 and B2 has different connotations for me...

Yeah for some strange reason I have this song going around in my head every since I typed that

I do similar when planting seeds except for the tamping down and I use baggies so no gnats. I actually upped the temp earlier in the week to 30C and this got a couple more moving so hoping this does the trick with the rest.

I've got mine inside covered with a large plastic tray cover which keeps everything out - its like a hard plastic baggie - large size.

Just turned my temperature up a tad, but now I have 3/4 and 3/10 - two more up last night.

Hey Betty, how much did you pay for your Digi seeds? I can buy 10 for cheap as, only $104....
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Astrophytum-Caput-seed-10_W0QQitemZ130242836323QQihZ003QQcategoryZ42211QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em122

There's a heap of this exact same listing....

omg $104 for sumptin that may not grow - 2 rich for me

OMG ya kidding right?
...if ever you need to sell something.. straight to ebay

Hey Michael that is kinda rich eh!!!!!

Then to come from Thailand..................with another USD$14 for postage