Hi Jenny. The quickest and easiest way to sterilise the soil rather than microwaving it is to soak it in boiling water from a tea kettle. I have never had mould or fungus in seedling pots. I usually fill the pots with soil mix and then moisten it with the boiled water before sowing. You could use some sort of seive for larger amounts of soil. Love to Cookie ❤
I’m reading this right at the moment that she says she lost seedlings to mold. There’s a part of me that feels responsible for not exclaiming in the comments the importance of getting that out of there. I didn’t because I’d only be parroting other people as I’ve boiled the water for the soil, not the perlite for both rounds of seeds I’ve sown and I didn’t have that problem. Physically removing mold and spraying with peroxide immediately is what I think I would have done. Maybe remove and replace as much soil as possible. Everyone that remained silent is culpable
I think you would be really interesting if you took one of the cost effective soils, such as the Rob Romero mix, and do a test of it with and without the heating mat underneath.
@@cookiescacti Yes, I meant try adding a heating pad. I had always thought that heat was more important than light during the germination phase. But maybe your growing room is already warm in Arizona? What are your approximate high and low temperatures in that room?
Hi really interesting to no the difference in composts and the growth rates in the seedlings well done for a very interesting video keep the videos coming
Gymno vatteri, Gymno bozsingianum, Echinocereus triglochdiatus, Copiapoa Calderana . Soil 1: 60% pum - 20% MG Cactus - 10% MG seeds - 10% lavarock, Soil 2 : pum, lava rock, perlite, ground of garden, 25% each. Soil 3 Perlite, MG Cactus, 50% each, and last one: (#4) All de soils i have recuperate from old pots and its the only one i have sterilized in the oven (wet at 210 F 45 mins). 25 seeds per pots except Copiapoa cuz i am not that rich. So far soil #2 leads and soil #3 is last. À suivre...
Great video (as always)❤ I just potted up Ariocarpus, Astrophytum and Copiapoa that was from from a really sweat friend last night, i went twice as heavy on the rock mix, and added gypsum to my usual mix .i also used 2 parts hydrogen peroxide 1 part water to moisten the mix in the pots (after watching Cactus Quest use just %3 HP. no added water (i had poured boiling water in the Miracle Gro cactus palm & perlite mix earlier in the day to moisten it, and rinsed the rock mix of course). As for mold and fungus, last month after i went almost 3 days without electricity due to tornadoes in the area (we lost a massive tree and power lines ) i dealt with damping off of a whole tray . The other trays were starting to get mold , so i basically took the dooms off within 2 days, lifted 1 day, off the next. Mind you that my trays are in greenhouses with at a minimum of 60% humidity, lights on 24/7. Since doing so I've had zero issues, zero loss. From now on, as soon as I see them spinning out, off comes the dooms. Except for Ariocarpus, those as leave as long as possible.
Hey, great info! I had been curious about using worm castings. This is definitely going to influence what I buy now lol. Can I recommend making the rest of the screen black while showing the graphs so we don’t see the computer moving in the background. If possible, thanks 😁.
I'm surprised that the castings aren't doing as well as the cactus soils. Although I need to check in on them to see if this is still true. Let me think about the background. I leave my footage behind it because it makes me feel like I'm still in the video lol. Is it distracting?
@@cookiescacti Hey, with the background yeah it’s distracting and makes me dizzy with one screen in focus and the background moving about, can’t concentrate on the info. Your voice on it is good though.
@@cookiescacti also with your mold issues... I grow a lot of things from seed in Houston, TX, so mold is omnipresent. I use Root Shield+ and just sprinkle the soil surface with it and it takes care of all the mold. If I don't use it, I can have huge patches of seedlings that die from dampening off.
Omg, I feel sorta vindicated on the "MG-cpc does OK if you amend it with inorganics" assertion. I was kind of worried that I was getting magical results or something, but nope. You got kinda-OK results from amended MG-cpc too. Yay! This is really interesting and I'm super glad you tried the second tray of stuff. :)
Yeah! I think the MG soil does absolutely fine. Although I haven't been paying attention to the trays lately. I'll have to take a peek at them soon, plus, I think we're just about a week away from checking in on them. I'm glad you're also having a good experience with MG soil too! It helps confirm because sometimes I have no idea if whatever results I get is repeatable or not.
I say to spray for pests and mold. Why dont you move tray to table to open to film and cover after? You probably need to water anyways? I like your ideas for second tray! In second tray, Ariocarpus seeds are different so less accurate side by side bar graph comparison. Awesome and thanks for doing this experiment!!!❤👍🌱
I've had some bug issues from neighboring trays so I've been avoiding opening to hold them off a little longer. Next time I can open the trays since they're at the point that I think they can start to be acclimated to air. They've remained very wet, so no water needed yet. I'm debating how to handle the Ariocarpus... I want to keep them covered longer after the previous experiences. Maybe I'll move them to another tray and start a bunch of other pots of seeds. I did not think this through! 😂
@@cookiescacti I understand. I opern periodically to check , water or add fungicide as needed and don't see any difference. Yes, keep Areios covered longer fine but hard to compare different species progress. You are doing good with the different varieties of soil modifications in the second batch!!!
I just read the news to see the Super Bowl right now is in overtime. As good as it gets stuff and I shrugged my shoulders and settled back into this video. Oh my God, what’s happened?
Hi Jenny, I am sowing cacti for around 10 years now every year. I question myself why your seedlings are still under the lid after 12 weeks. I usually sow Mammillarias they start germinating after 2 weeks and are done after 4 weeks. Then they stay under the lid for max. 4 weeks. So after max. 8 weeks after sowing they are stable enough to stay without the lid but with regular sprays. During those 8 weeks I never had problems with fungus sometimes it started to looking mouldy but dried up after taking of the lid. Kind regards from Germany Jonathan
Hello Jonathan! There's not a really good reason really for keeping them in the dome for so long except it's the average of what I've read due to confusing information out in the public. I've heard of people keeping their seedlings covered for a year. I've heard of people opening the domes as soon as desired germination is achieved. On the average, I hear/read 4 months the most often, so that's where I started. But I've opened domes as soon as a month when fungus problems get bad.
Oh and you could look into stuff like spill absorbent to compare in a future experiment. Its the stuff they use to absorb oil spills you can find it a mechanic shops, or non-scented non-clumping kitty litter. It's calcined clay, a gritty non organic soil amendment alternative. It's somewhat similar to akadama in composition and usage.
A completely inorganic substrate for sowing seeds is something I haven't tried before and it's worth trying in the future - probably not for this round of experiments as what we've got going is already hard to track. Interestingly the ECC soil has quite a bit of organics in it. In episode 1 I show a bit of what the ECC soil looks like dry and wet. I have no idea what the organic is, maybe some type of castings?
Jenny, important question... What are you going to do with all these babies?! I don't propagate or do any serious seed growing because I would run out of room so quickly. I have a notocactus that's self fertile. So I get seed from it quite regularly. I just toss it in places and if it comes up, it comes up. I have a few seedlings, and I have to assume they will be ultra tough plants because they have to survive with virtually no extra care.
Excellent question, I have not thought that far yet 😂 Every time I think I'm out of space, I somehow managed to magically find more space. So far I just want lots of seedlings because of all the losses that come with the activity.
4:05 ....привет сестрёнка)))) споры грибка образуются при слишком влажном помещении, надо проветривать по 10 мин утром и вечером.....а зелёные водоросли это из-за того что используете удобрения и почва сверху окисляется...надо раскислять..спасибо за видео))) hi sis)))) fungal spores form when the room is too humid, you need to ventilate for 10 minutes in the morning and evening.....and green algae is due to the fact that you use fertilizers and the soil on top is oxidized...it needs to be deoxidized..thank you for the video)))
I open my seedling trays to "real air" for a minute or two every day while I peer at their progress. I do not have mold issues and I am not a great... soil sterilizer. (I have occasionally had tiny mushrooms grow, but i just pull those out.)
It's not mold. It's a mycorrhizal fungal bloom. That's a good thing. If it were any other color besides pure white I would say to treat it. If a few seedlings are weak, the mycorrhizae will wipe them out. Let it cull the weak. The ones that survive will thrive with the symbiotic relationship between their roots and the mycorrhizae, and you'll have a stronger cactus in the end that can better handle extremes in temperature, moisture, and disease. If you only had 10 seeds and you paid a lot of money for them, then sure, treat them because they're expensive seeds and you don't have many, but in this case, you have plenty of good looking seedlings. In my opinion, let nature do its thing. Loving this series by the way. This type of content is always interesting.
Very interesting! How do you tell the difference between mycorrhizal fungus and the fungus that causes damping off? Or are they the same thing? So far I've gotten one strong vote for intervention and one strong vote to let the tray take their course. Decisions decisions! It's kind of interesting that the Eastcoastcamanchaca soil has been unaffected so far... But only time will tell!
@@cookiescacti the likelihood that you have pythium in your seed tray is small. It's not impossible by using cheap big box store soils, but it's unlikely. They tend to sterilize their soils rendering them biologically useless as far as mycorrhizae are concerned, but that doesn't mean pythium can't work it's way into a bag of moist sterilized soil. Pythium, which often leads to damping off (or root rot), thrives in wet conditions, and lives in the roots and you really can't get rid of it once the roots are infected. You can keep the plant as healthy as possible to ward off phythium expressing itself, but eventually, the pythium will win. A strong bloom of mycorrhizal fungus can wipe out a few weak seedlings, but most of them will benefit from it. A healthy mycorrhizal fungus bloom is stark white, dense and fluffy. A pythium bloom is a bit less white and more thinly spread out. What I saw in your video looks like healthy fungus, and not pythium. You're welcome to treat if it makes you uncomfortable, but consider reapplying mycorrhizae as soon as you remove the dome permanently.
@@cookiescactiI didn’t know you were tallying votes lol I would have said something sooner. Yes intervene. I had recently gotten orange spots and mold on cactus seedlings and I did nothing but now I regret it. I think it’s because I left the sand I used outside and bacteria got on it. So I feel like it’s an outside factor (bacteria/fungus) affecting the experiment.
a couple weeks ago, I tried sprouting cactus seeds for the first time in over 15 years. i sowed them in the ECC soil mix and still haven't had any sprouts. So, I'm wondering how long cactus seeds stay viable for. Many of these seeds are about 15 years old and collected from my own plants.
In this experiment I've seen seeds continue to come up even at the 2 month mark. I've heard that seed viability depends on the species and storage conditions. Otherwise I have little experience on seed viability. Maybe Rob Romero would know. If you go to my previous episodes, you'll see his comments, worth replying to his comment to ask and see if he can answer.
@@cookiescacti i have some jeans cloth my mom cut to me and cove them witht his when smashing,also dont try smashing too hard of stones,it has to be some kind of sandstones,i dont know if you can find those where you live,basalt cant be used,only porous rocks or sedimentary ones,the ones i use are not so hard so i smash easely with a 300g hammer.
Oh my God I had the video paused for a moment, you can’t leave it. Gotta remove and treat or everything will die as I’ve been lead to believe. This is crazy to live this nightmare vicariously and not be able to do anything. Stop watchin football and save those f’n cactus!!!
Lololol, okay one strong vote for fungus intervention! No one has yet expressed such strong preferences so you're in the lead! I'll take some hydrogen peroxide to it!
Hi Jenny. The quickest and easiest way to sterilise the soil rather than microwaving it is to soak it in boiling water from a tea kettle. I have never had mould or fungus in seedling pots. I usually fill the pots with soil mix and then moisten it with the boiled water before sowing. You could use some sort of seive for larger amounts of soil.
Love to Cookie ❤
what about hydrogen peroxide?
I’m reading this right at the moment that she says she lost seedlings to mold. There’s a part of me that feels responsible for not exclaiming in the comments the importance of getting that out of there. I didn’t because I’d only be parroting other people as I’ve boiled the water for the soil, not the perlite for both rounds of seeds I’ve sown and I didn’t have that problem. Physically removing mold and spraying with peroxide immediately is what I think I would have done. Maybe remove and replace as much soil as possible. Everyone that remained silent is culpable
I think you would be really interesting if you took one of the cost effective soils, such as the Rob Romero mix, and do a test of it with and without the heating mat underneath.
Do you mean to add a heat mat? There is no heat mat included in this experiment. That would be interesting to see if higher heat helps.
@@cookiescacti Yes, I meant try adding a heating pad. I had always thought that heat was more important than light during the germination phase. But maybe your growing room is already warm in Arizona? What are your approximate high and low temperatures in that room?
Hi really interesting to no the difference in composts and the growth rates in the seedlings well done for a very interesting video keep the videos coming
Isn't that interesting? I took a quick peek at them and things keep changing
Thx for update!, i just did a 4 soil comparaison test myself cuz i am a lemming. i am at day 7 😊
Please do share your soils and your results! What seeds did you sow?
Gymno vatteri, Gymno bozsingianum, Echinocereus triglochdiatus, Copiapoa Calderana . Soil 1: 60% pum - 20% MG Cactus - 10% MG seeds - 10% lavarock, Soil 2 : pum, lava rock, perlite, ground of garden, 25% each. Soil 3 Perlite, MG Cactus, 50% each, and last one: (#4) All de soils i have recuperate from old pots and its the only one i have sterilized in the oven (wet at 210 F 45 mins). 25 seeds per pots except Copiapoa cuz i am not that rich. So far soil #2 leads and soil #3 is last. À suivre...
Such a cool experiment!
I'm so glad you enjoy this series!
Great video (as always)❤
I just potted up Ariocarpus, Astrophytum and Copiapoa that was from from a really sweat friend last night, i went twice as heavy on the rock mix, and added gypsum to my usual mix .i also used 2 parts hydrogen peroxide 1 part water to moisten the mix in the pots (after watching Cactus Quest use just %3 HP. no added water (i had poured boiling water in the Miracle Gro cactus palm & perlite mix earlier in the day to moisten it, and rinsed the rock mix of course).
As for mold and fungus, last month after i went almost 3 days without electricity due to tornadoes in the area (we lost a massive tree and power lines ) i dealt with damping off of a whole tray . The other trays were starting to get mold , so i basically took the dooms off within 2 days, lifted 1 day, off the next. Mind you that my trays are in greenhouses with at a minimum of 60% humidity, lights on 24/7.
Since doing so I've had zero issues, zero loss. From now on, as soon as I see them spinning out, off comes the dooms. Except for Ariocarpus, those as leave as long as possible.
Hey, great info! I had been curious about using worm castings. This is definitely going to influence what I buy now lol. Can I recommend making the rest of the screen black while showing the graphs so we don’t see the computer moving in the background. If possible, thanks 😁.
I'm surprised that the castings aren't doing as well as the cactus soils. Although I need to check in on them to see if this is still true. Let me think about the background. I leave my footage behind it because it makes me feel like I'm still in the video lol. Is it distracting?
@@cookiescacti Hey, with the background yeah it’s distracting and makes me dizzy with one screen in focus and the background moving about, can’t concentrate on the info. Your voice on it is good though.
41 minutes, yes please.
Thank goodness you like the long ones! Sometimes while I'm editing I'm like "this is so long, I hope they don't mind" 😂
@@cookiescacti also with your mold issues... I grow a lot of things from seed in Houston, TX, so mold is omnipresent. I use Root Shield+ and just sprinkle the soil surface with it and it takes care of all the mold. If I don't use it, I can have huge patches of seedlings that die from dampening off.
@@Fabdanc is it effective on existing mold? Or does it work as a preventative measure? I like this solution because it's so simple 😁
Omg, I feel sorta vindicated on the "MG-cpc does OK if you amend it with inorganics" assertion. I was kind of worried that I was getting magical results or something, but nope. You got kinda-OK results from amended MG-cpc too. Yay! This is really interesting and I'm super glad you tried the second tray of stuff. :)
Yeah! I think the MG soil does absolutely fine. Although I haven't been paying attention to the trays lately. I'll have to take a peek at them soon, plus, I think we're just about a week away from checking in on them. I'm glad you're also having a good experience with MG soil too! It helps confirm because sometimes I have no idea if whatever results I get is repeatable or not.
I say to spray for pests and mold. Why dont you move tray to table to open to film and cover after? You probably need to water anyways? I like your ideas for second tray! In second tray, Ariocarpus seeds are different so less accurate side by side bar graph comparison. Awesome and thanks for doing this experiment!!!❤👍🌱
I've had some bug issues from neighboring trays so I've been avoiding opening to hold them off a little longer. Next time I can open the trays since they're at the point that I think they can start to be acclimated to air. They've remained very wet, so no water needed yet. I'm debating how to handle the Ariocarpus... I want to keep them covered longer after the previous experiences. Maybe I'll move them to another tray and start a bunch of other pots of seeds. I did not think this through! 😂
@@cookiescacti I understand. I opern periodically to check , water or add fungicide as needed and don't see any difference. Yes, keep Areios covered longer fine but hard to compare different species progress. You are doing good with the different varieties of soil modifications in the second batch!!!
I just read the news to see the Super Bowl right now is in overtime. As good as it gets stuff and I shrugged my shoulders and settled back into this video. Oh my God, what’s happened?
Is my Patrick winning?
Hi Jenny, I am sowing cacti for around 10 years now every year. I question myself why your seedlings are still under the lid after 12 weeks. I usually sow Mammillarias they start germinating after 2 weeks and are done after 4 weeks. Then they stay under the lid for max. 4 weeks. So after max. 8 weeks after sowing they are stable enough to stay without the lid but with regular sprays. During those 8 weeks I never had problems with fungus sometimes it started to looking mouldy but dried up after taking of the lid.
Kind regards from Germany
Jonathan
Hello Jonathan! There's not a really good reason really for keeping them in the dome for so long except it's the average of what I've read due to confusing information out in the public. I've heard of people keeping their seedlings covered for a year. I've heard of people opening the domes as soon as desired germination is achieved. On the average, I hear/read 4 months the most often, so that's where I started. But I've opened domes as soon as a month when fungus problems get bad.
The sowing guides I've read for ariocarpus generally recommend no organics in the soil even for sowing. Maybe that would perform more like ECC's?
Oh and you could look into stuff like spill absorbent to compare in a future experiment. Its the stuff they use to absorb oil spills you can find it a mechanic shops, or non-scented non-clumping kitty litter. It's calcined clay, a gritty non organic soil amendment alternative. It's somewhat similar to akadama in composition and usage.
Oh yeah! Something like turface? Or that stuff you can buy at a NAPA shop? I forgot what it's called.
A completely inorganic substrate for sowing seeds is something I haven't tried before and it's worth trying in the future - probably not for this round of experiments as what we've got going is already hard to track. Interestingly the ECC soil has quite a bit of organics in it. In episode 1 I show a bit of what the ECC soil looks like dry and wet. I have no idea what the organic is, maybe some type of castings?
Jenny, important question... What are you going to do with all these babies?! I don't propagate or do any serious seed growing because I would run out of room so quickly.
I have a notocactus that's self fertile. So I get seed from it quite regularly. I just toss it in places and if it comes up, it comes up. I have a few seedlings, and I have to assume they will be ultra tough plants because they have to survive with virtually no extra care.
Excellent question, I have not thought that far yet 😂 Every time I think I'm out of space, I somehow managed to magically find more space. So far I just want lots of seedlings because of all the losses that come with the activity.
It may have been mentioned in an earlier video but are you running heat mat as well?
No heat mat in this experiment.
4:05 ....привет сестрёнка)))) споры грибка образуются при слишком влажном помещении, надо проветривать по 10 мин утром и вечером.....а зелёные водоросли это из-за того что используете удобрения и почва сверху окисляется...надо раскислять..спасибо за видео)))
hi sis)))) fungal spores form when the room is too humid, you need to ventilate for 10 minutes in the morning and evening.....and green algae is due to the fact that you use fertilizers and the soil on top is oxidized...it needs to be deoxidized..thank you for the video)))
I open my seedling trays to "real air" for a minute or two every day while I peer at their progress. I do not have mold issues and I am not a great... soil sterilizer. (I have occasionally had tiny mushrooms grow, but i just pull those out.)
@@jessicagothie2951 you need to not just open it, but use a fan to blow air for about 10 minutes)
It's not mold. It's a mycorrhizal fungal bloom. That's a good thing. If it were any other color besides pure white I would say to treat it. If a few seedlings are weak, the mycorrhizae will wipe them out. Let it cull the weak. The ones that survive will thrive with the symbiotic relationship between their roots and the mycorrhizae, and you'll have a stronger cactus in the end that can better handle extremes in temperature, moisture, and disease. If you only had 10 seeds and you paid a lot of money for them, then sure, treat them because they're expensive seeds and you don't have many, but in this case, you have plenty of good looking seedlings. In my opinion, let nature do its thing. Loving this series by the way. This type of content is always interesting.
Very interesting! How do you tell the difference between mycorrhizal fungus and the fungus that causes damping off? Or are they the same thing? So far I've gotten one strong vote for intervention and one strong vote to let the tray take their course. Decisions decisions! It's kind of interesting that the Eastcoastcamanchaca soil has been unaffected so far... But only time will tell!
Oh wait, I need to read the new comments! So far 2 votes for intervention, 1 vote to leave them be. So far I haven't done anything yet 😂
@@cookiescacti the likelihood that you have pythium in your seed tray is small. It's not impossible by using cheap big box store soils, but it's unlikely. They tend to sterilize their soils rendering them biologically useless as far as mycorrhizae are concerned, but that doesn't mean pythium can't work it's way into a bag of moist sterilized soil. Pythium, which often leads to damping off (or root rot), thrives in wet conditions, and lives in the roots and you really can't get rid of it once the roots are infected. You can keep the plant as healthy as possible to ward off phythium expressing itself, but eventually, the pythium will win. A strong bloom of mycorrhizal fungus can wipe out a few weak seedlings, but most of them will benefit from it. A healthy mycorrhizal fungus bloom is stark white, dense and fluffy. A pythium bloom is a bit less white and more thinly spread out. What I saw in your video looks like healthy fungus, and not pythium. You're welcome to treat if it makes you uncomfortable, but consider reapplying mycorrhizae as soon as you remove the dome permanently.
@@cookiescactiI didn’t know you were tallying votes lol I would have said something sooner. Yes intervene. I had recently gotten orange spots and mold on cactus seedlings and I did nothing but now I regret it. I think it’s because I left the sand I used outside and bacteria got on it. So I feel like it’s an outside factor (bacteria/fungus) affecting the experiment.
@@SweetetKiss5 if you had treated, what would you use to treat? I've seen some suggestions on hydrogen peroxide, would you use that or something else?
I think the bugs may be springtails and if so they are probably beneficial they might eat fungus for you.
Excellent, I've let them be. Thanks for letting me know!
a couple weeks ago, I tried sprouting cactus seeds for the first time in over 15 years. i sowed them in the ECC soil mix and still haven't had any sprouts. So, I'm wondering how long cactus seeds stay viable for. Many of these seeds are about 15 years old and collected from my own plants.
In this experiment I've seen seeds continue to come up even at the 2 month mark. I've heard that seed viability depends on the species and storage conditions. Otherwise I have little experience on seed viability. Maybe Rob Romero would know. If you go to my previous episodes, you'll see his comments, worth replying to his comment to ask and see if he can answer.
just make your own substrate,griind sandstone with a hammer,mix with sand,and charcoal powder,also some fine ground bark and you good to go
How do you keep the rocks from flying around when smashing with a hammer?
@@cookiescacti i have some jeans cloth my mom cut to me and cove them witht his when smashing,also dont try smashing too hard of stones,it has to be some kind of sandstones,i dont know if you can find those where you live,basalt cant be used,only porous rocks or sedimentary ones,the ones i use are not so hard so i smash easely with a 300g hammer.
hi Cookie!!
Hiiii!!! 😻💚😻💚
Oh my God I had the video paused for a moment, you can’t leave it. Gotta remove and treat or everything will die as I’ve been lead to believe. This is crazy to live this nightmare vicariously and not be able to do anything. Stop watchin football and save those f’n cactus!!!
Lololol, okay one strong vote for fungus intervention! No one has yet expressed such strong preferences so you're in the lead! I'll take some hydrogen peroxide to it!
first!
Ha! Congratulations!! 🎉🎉🎉
Lol James, unless it's a contest, no dude should be happy he came first...well at least no chick (or other dude) will be happy you did 😅