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Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

I have had this cactus since i was 9. It is now 22 years old and in big trouble. I have come back from travelling for 3 months and it is in a terrible condition. It has been in the greenhouse over the winter months and i fear this has contributed to the damage. It appears to be rotten at the top as half of steam looks eaten away. The bottom i am not so sure of. I gather that some breads do tend to go a little brown at the around the bottom anyway. I am just wondering what the best course of action is. Can i cut the top off where it is rotten? If so, should i do this and repot the remainder of the plant? Any advice would be most welcome as i have previously had no trouble with the plant so i am not knowledgeable about treating them.

Thanks in advance.

Paul.

Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

On Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:49:15 +0000, CactusPaul
wrote:

I have had this cactus since i was 9. It is now 22 years old and in big
trouble. I have come back from travelling for 3 months and it is in a
terrible condition. It has been in the greenhouse over the winter months
and i fear this has contributed to the damage. It appears to be rotten
at the top as half of steam looks eaten away. The bottom i am not so
sure of. I gather that some breads do tend to go a little brown at the
around the bottom anyway. I am just wondering what the best course of
action is. Can i cut the top off where it is rotten? If so, should i do
this and repot the remainder of the plant? Any advice would be most
welcome as i have previously had no trouble with the plant so i am not
knowledgeable about treating them.

Thanks in advance.

Paul.

Years ago I had a cactus that went rotten down one side from the top.
I cut all the rot away but the remaining stem could not support
itself. So I cut the whole lot in half so that the planted part could
support its weight. I planted the cut off half and that grew. I now
have two cactus!

I would think your cactus will stand cutting the rotten part away. You
could try cutting the stem in two as I did.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 2:49:15 PM UTC+1, CactusPaul wrote:

and i fear this has contributed to the damage. It appears to be rotten
at the top as half of steam looks eaten away. The bottom i am not so
sure of. I gather that some breads do tend to go a little brown at the
around the bottom anyway. I am just wondering what the best course of
action is. Can i cut the top off where it is rotten? If so, should i do

Must cut out all rot. In case what remains doesn't survive I'd be tempted to remove any pads etc and plant them so they'll likely grow. ISTR using sulphur against rot, but that was a long time ago, you can't buy it now.

NT

Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

Must cut out all rot. In case what remains doesn't survive I'd be tempted to remove any pads etc and plant them so they'll likely grow. ISTR using sulphur against rot, but that was a long time ago, you can't buy it now.

NT

Try googling
flower of sulphur

Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

On 10/04/2013 14:49, CactusPaul wrote:

I have had this cactus since i was 9. It is now 22 years old and in big
trouble. I have come back from travelling for 3 months and it is in a
terrible condition. It has been in the greenhouse over the winter months
and i fear this has contributed to the damage. It appears to be rotten
at the top as half of steam looks eaten away. The bottom i am not so
sure of. I gather that some breads do tend to go a little brown at the
around the bottom anyway. I am just wondering what the best course of
action is. Can i cut the top off where it is rotten? If so, should i do
this and repot the remainder of the plant? Any advice would be most
welcome as i have previously had no trouble with the plant so i am not
knowledgeable about treating them.

Before you do anything a picture would be useful. The best thing to do
might be nothing as some cacti can recover on their own from cold
damage. They will always look scarred afterwards but stay alive.

However, fungal rot from overwatering or cold damage to a sensitive type
that needs semitropical arid conditions is often fatal. A picture and
knowing its shape would be very very useful so that we can ID it and
then offer appropriate advice. If it is fungal rot you have to get every
last trace of rot which tend to show as brown or orange.

Rotten from the bottom is usually more common. A big globular cactus can
survive and astonishing amount of time with no roots. I had one I
thought was brown and dead after chopping it off rotting roots that I
only realised was still alive when it threw out a flower spike six
months later. Last act of desperation - putting it on well drained
compost and grit it rerooted and grew on with a growth check ring.

Three of the cacti I had as a youngster are still alive. One an opuntia
lives in an unheated greenhouse that is falling down around it at my
parents. The thing flowers every year despite the adverse conditions.

The other two are columnar cereus that are as tough as old boots and
survived 3 years in storage as "house plants" when I lived and worked in
Japan followed by house moves to and from Belgium. One of them about 2m
tall put a spine right through the nose of one of the house movers as he
went to lift it. His mates thought it was hilarious. I expected him to
have given the thing a good kicking out of sight in the back of the van
but it survived the journey back unscathed.

Even if it looks dead hang onto it for a while and you might be lucky.

If it is the sort of plant with pups on grab a couple off it now and try
to root them as an insurance policy.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

"CactusPaul" wrote

I have had this cactus since i was 9. It is now 22 years old and in big
trouble. I have come back from travelling for 3 months and it is in a
terrible condition. It has been in the greenhouse over the winter months
and i fear this has contributed to the damage. It appears to be rotten
at the top as half of steam looks eaten away. The bottom i am not so
sure of. I gather that some breads do tend to go a little brown at the
around the bottom anyway. I am just wondering what the best course of
action is. Can i cut the top off where it is rotten? If so, should i do
this and repot the remainder of the plant? Any advice would be most
welcome as i have previously had no trouble with the plant so i am not
knowledgeable about treating them.

I was given a decent sized cacti (no idea what) in the early 70s by an
elderly lady because it never flowered and she thought I needed a challenge.
Some years later I noticed it was rotting at the base, it got wet during the
winter due to dripping condensation which I hadn't noticed. Using thick
gloves I lifted the sound top off the rot and scrubbed out all the rot. I
then left the clean top on the bench for a week or so to callous over. which
it did. I then placed the top onto fresh dry compost and screwed it into
same, gradually introducing moisture after some weeks as the temperature
increased. That plant is still with me and is now flowering every year. No
trace of the near disaster shows.
The small offshoots that were not affected by the rot I just repotted and
those too have done well.

--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Cactus in big trouble. Please help!

On 10/04/2013 23:08, Bob Hobden wrote:
"CactusPaul" wrote

I have had this cactus since i was 9. It is now 22 years old and in big
trouble. I have come back from travelling for 3 months and it is in a
terrible condition. It has been in the greenhouse over the winter months
and i fear this has contributed to the damage. It appears to be rotten
at the top as half of steam looks eaten away. The bottom i am not so
sure of. I gather that some breads do tend to go a little brown at the
around the bottom anyway. I am just wondering what the best course of
action is. Can i cut the top off where it is rotten? If so, should i do
this and repot the remainder of the plant? Any advice would be most
welcome as i have previously had no trouble with the plant so i am not
knowledgeable about treating them.

I was given a decent sized cacti (no idea what) in the early 70s by an
elderly lady because it never flowered and she thought I needed a
challenge. Some years later I noticed it was rotting at the base, it got
wet during the winter due to dripping condensation which I hadn't
noticed. Using thick gloves I lifted the sound top off the rot and
scrubbed out all the rot. I then left the clean top on the bench for a
week or so to callous over. which it did. I then placed the top onto
fresh dry compost and screwed it into same, gradually introducing
moisture after some weeks as the temperature increased. That plant is
still with me and is now flowering every year. No trace of the near
disaster shows.

Very often the stress of a rot attack will provoke flowering in a
stubborn mature specimen. They can survive a couple of years or maybe
more with no roots at all once they are 6" or larger. Its strategy of
reproduce before dying is a last ditch attempt to propagate the species.
In extremis if no roots can find water in a very long drought they will
put all remaining resources into that last flower and seeds.

The small offshoots that were not affected by the rot I just repotted
and those too have done well.

Unless it would disfigure the plant it is always worth propagating a few
pups and giving them away. That way if something ever happens to the
original you can get a bit of it back from a friend.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown