| Copiapoa in cultivation | |
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+3SnowFella Navajoa SneakyCuttlefish 7 posters |
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SneakyCuttlefish Moderator
Number of posts : 705 Location : FNQ Registration date : 2012-12-11
| Subject: Copiapoa in cultivation Tue Dec 24, 2013 6:35 pm | |
| Hi guys and girls. Merry Christmas to all. I have been reading a very interesting and exquisitely presented book. Copiapoa in their environment. By Rudolf Schulz and Attila Kapitany. Just wondering how many of our forum members have taken the time to collect this fascinating species? I only have a few young and relatively unimpressive members of this genus. Would anyone out there be interested in sharing some photo's of their plants???? | |
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Navajoa Moderator
Number of posts : 599 Location : Australia Registration date : 2009-09-15
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Wed Dec 25, 2013 8:26 am | |
| Have a few myself, most mature plants are from Rudolf when he had his nursery. In 2007 I travelled with Rudolf, Paul Klaassen and others through Chile to visit many of the locations in the book and see the plants. Was an amazing experience and I highly recommend anyone to take a trip to Chile as it's a wonderful place with friendly people and amazing scenery. Do it fast though as I'm hearing a lot of habitat is being destroyed, even in the 6 years since I was there.
You can read about that trip and see pictures here -
http://www.bcss.org.uk/foruma/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=74738
Be on the look out for Rudolf's other books - the follow up to this one - Copiapoa 2006 is very good, I prefer it to the 1996 one. His Uebelmannia book is very good also. | |
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SnowFella Calm and Collected
Number of posts : 218 Location : Sydney, NSW Registration date : 2010-12-15
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:40 am | |
| Wish I could do a trip like that! Got a few on the shelf here including one large one that I'm still not sure what it is, came with a "C. goldii hybrid" label but can't really seem to find any info for C. goldii. That's a 20cm pot it's in. | |
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SneakyCuttlefish Moderator
Number of posts : 705 Location : FNQ Registration date : 2012-12-11
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Wed Dec 25, 2013 3:26 pm | |
| Wow Navajoa. Talk about a small world. I have become very interested in this genius lately. Would you happen to have any pictures of your plants? I find the clumped mature specimens to be very aesthetically pleasing. I assume you would have some very specific locality information to go along with those plants as well? (considering their previous carer)
That is a very nice plant snowfella. Does this one have a taproot or is it more of a shallow root system?
I have tried for quite sometime to grow these plants by seed but have had very limited success. I believe the problem for me is seed freshness as I suspect some of the packets I have been sold in the past are old stock. | |
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SnowFella Calm and Collected
Number of posts : 218 Location : Sydney, NSW Registration date : 2010-12-15
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Wed Dec 25, 2013 7:46 pm | |
| To be truthful I have no idea what kinda roots it's got as I haven't dared unpotting it yet. Still seems happy enough in the pot and soil it's in as it's just started 6 or so new heads. Just need to give it a slightly sunnier spot I think, went chicken with that too after a scorching scare last season. Came home from work one day to find most heads with a sickly yellow colour from sunburn, luckily they went back to their normal colour after a few weeks in a shady spot. | |
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cryptocarpa Calm and Collected
Number of posts : 268 Location : Melbourne Registration date : 2009-03-14
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:34 pm | |
| This genus is one that absolutely fascinates me. I believe they represent the pinnacle of billions of years of plant evolution. All life is dependent on water to exist so aridity is the ultimate challenge for life to adapt to. Given that Copiapoa are the only perennial plants to survive in the driest desert on Earth I would hand them the prize of toughest survivors of all. C.solaris is particulary drought tolerant, going through periods of half a decade at a time with out a drink. Yet in habitat they can be found measuring meters wide with hundreds of heads! So they live to be ancient as well. I believe cacti can teach us about resilience and what it takes to stand tall in adverse environments. They 'win without fighting' by finding ways to adapt to conditions that other life forms find intolerable. I really admire Copiapoa in this respect and have learned so much from them by considering their way of adaptation to be a lesson for when I encounter adverse conditions in my own existence. After all the concrete jungle and the great mass of humanity itself can be as harsh as the Atacama at times.... Luckily I was around when both Attila and Rudolf's collections were on the market. So now I am custodian to over a hundred plants, most in the C.cinerea complex, they were from the seeds collected at the time of that book being written and many have exact GPS locality data. Most are getting near twenty years old now. I have a few pics on file but I will take some more in the next few days a stick em on here cause this topic is one I am slightly obsessive about(if you couldn't tell!) C. Tenebrosa (hasseltoniana) top of Mt Perales [/url] C. Eremophila (hasseltoniana) spineless form. [/url] C. Cinerea v. Albispina single spines. [/url] Nice purple C. Cinerea [/url] | |
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SneakyCuttlefish Moderator
Number of posts : 705 Location : FNQ Registration date : 2012-12-11
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Thu Dec 26, 2013 12:04 am | |
| The hardiness of this species is easily one of the finest examples of adaptive evolution. The Atacarma dessert can receive from absolutely 0 to as much as 15mm of rain a year. To think that such a place exists on a planet that is mostly covered in water is one thing. But to truly comprehend the fact that life has still managed to find a way to survive is quite awe inspiring. This kind of extreme adaptation resonates the exceptionally good chances of life existing beyond our humble abode.
Cryptocarpa, I am truly envious. I have noticed that there are certain generations that just happen to be around at exactly the right time to take over as custodians for the previous generations horticultural efforts. As I am still young I can only hope that I will be in the right position at the right time to help in the continuation of some of these kinds of collections. Because lets face it, many of our beloved plants will easily out live us and our children.
Does anyone have any crested plants? I recently rescued a crested C. Tenuissima grafted on a dodgy stock and to be quite frank I have no idea how to safely de-graft it. | |
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mitchell101
Number of posts : 134 Location : Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Registration date : 2010-05-02
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:34 am | |
| Most definitely agree that this genus is the result of millions of years of adaptation playing cat and mouse with the ever more arid environment of the Atacama. I'm just hoping the Atacama isn't winning as apparently in some places it is now so dry that there are no new generations. But I guess that is why Copiapoa are so long lived so they can live through the adverse years only to produce offspring when the conditions permit. Although they are my favourite genus and have been for a few years now, I only have the one plant. My C. Hypogaea actually went monstrose several years ago before I knew much about cactus. I thought it was ugly growth so I pulled all the growth off! Really enjoyed all 39 pages of your thread Navajoa. I love looking at habitat photos - especially of Copiapoa. Several trips to Chile and the rest of the Americas are definitely on my cards. I've promised myself to buy no plants other than Copiapoa now so I can expand my collection of them. Really hope to have every species in my possession. It may take many years but I can only hope. | |
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cortona
Number of posts : 69 Location : central italy tuscany cortona Registration date : 2008-11-04
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Fri Dec 27, 2013 11:11 pm | |
| i'm starting to grow copiapoas from seeds provided by a friend of mine that have a good collection ofthat genus, wath i cant absolutelly find are seeds of the spineless form of aseltoniana,and i've never seen something similar in copiapoa cinerea before your photo of cinerea single spine) can somebody help me find seeds for this variety, if somebody have seeds of it i can buy it directly or excange with astrphytum cultivar seeds! best wishes Emanuele aka cortona | |
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hydrophobe
Number of posts : 60 Location : Rowville Registration date : 2013-11-14
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Tue Dec 31, 2013 2:20 pm | |
| lovely pics cryptocarpa. Trying some c.Cinerea from seed. Good to know I'll only have to wait 20 years for a nice specimin... | |
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Navajoa Moderator
Number of posts : 599 Location : Australia Registration date : 2009-09-15
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:16 am | |
| Copiapoa certainly have a strong following down here in Oz, guess that's Rudolf and Attilla's influence - great to have some local experts, even if one of them doesn't live here any longer !
Will post some photo's of my plants at some stage, but Crypto's are probably a lot nicer looking...I grow mine a lot harder and a number have their battle scars and most were from when Rudolf was whinding things down at his nursery, so probably not the prime specimens...
That being said, in keeping up the tradition set by Rudolf, I have a lot of young seedlings coming on that are grown from habitat collected seed with GPS data and locality info/photo's. So hopefully Oz will continue to be a Copiapoa hot spot for some time to come... | |
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mitchell101
Number of posts : 134 Location : Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Registration date : 2010-05-02
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:22 am | |
| Just waiting for Mesa Gardens 2014 January seed list and then I will place an order for about $100 worth of Copiapoa seeds which I will be sowing somewhere around march when the temp. is around 24C. This amount of seed should produce more plants than I have in my whole collection! | |
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cryptocarpa Calm and Collected
Number of posts : 268 Location : Melbourne Registration date : 2009-03-14
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Sat Jan 04, 2014 10:45 am | |
| Hello Emanuele, I know you from another forum where I post as Simon. The spineless plants come from seeds collected off a small population in a side valley that runs north off the San Ramon Valley. This population is variable and tends to grow spines when little, becoming spinless when old. I have also tried grafting these ones but they grow with spines on the stocks that I have tried and tend to be a bit difficult to get a good graft with on some species of stocks. I believe recent DNA studies have shown Copiapoa to be a separate group with quite distant relationship to other cacti and I wonder if this is the cause of their incompatability with the stocks I have tried. Another possibility is their hard bodies may cause the graft union difficulties forming. The plants I have are from Rudolf's personal collection. He had a lot of unusual plants from seeds collected in habitat. Likewise the single spine albispina was from a specific locality and it comes with GPS and XXXXX on the tag from Attila. I have another one with same GPS but it is XXX and is not as nice so I infer that he was selecting for single spines. Nav- most of my plants from Rudolf show the damage from their time with him, I call it the 'Rudolf ring' it only takes a few decades to grow out! I used to grow(Wrong word)my copiapoa hard but they barely grew at all over half a decade so last year I potted them up into large pots 20cm plus and they took off finally they are offsetting but still they very rarely flower and I have yet to get a single seed from any of them! I am thinking to propagate some by using the offsets as cuttings. Mitchel, you are lucky to have enough years ahead of you to grow these and see some great results. This genus is one for the true cactus connoisseur. Unfortunately seeds of the nicest species are hard to get and often give low germination, I have had reasonable results with hasseltoniana but the cinerea group and solaris have rarely given a good result. I think maybe the seed is collected in habitat and has been sitting on the plants for a very long time. They rarely flower in cultivation and take a long time to do so. more photos. The spineless ones started to grow spines when repotted here are a couple, both show the Rudolf Ring. [/url] [/url] Nice thin spine orange wool brown body hasseltoniana [/url] some more Albispina [/url] XXX [/url] XXXXX [/url] couple of different ones from Rudolf [/url] See the Rudolf Ring [/url] Big old Krainziana, a bday gift from my wife. [/url] This unusual one from the coast south of Cifuncho, looks like a Hasseltoniana/longistaminea intermediate form. [/url] my biggest Gigantea, getting a psuedocephalium. [/url] Big Hasseltoniana [/url] the tough guy C. solaris [/url] last but not least, some of my favourite C. cinerea [/url] [/url] [/url] [/url] [/url] [/url] v. columna-alba [/url] | |
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cortona
Number of posts : 69 Location : central italy tuscany cortona Registration date : 2008-11-04
| Subject: Re: Copiapoa in cultivation Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:32 pm | |
| oh, wath a nice copiapoas, saddly the last links doesent works, yes, copiapoas are a word of it's own, and grafting is not ever the best way to propagate it, fromthe experience of my friend i've learned that copiapoas can be feded more tan we think but with low nitrogen that others and yes big pot are welcome by the plants with growt and flowers, a thingh that that friend pointed up is that in the hottest moment of the year no water at all is neded because the copiap seems to go dormant and dont like water | |
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