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Written by Nate
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Tuesday, 08 February 2005 |
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Page 3 of 4
On the subject of grafting cristates, etc.
How are you, brother? Yeah... the cristates amaze me! I was so happy when those cuttings came into my life! I look forward to the day, years from now when they grow large enough to start convoluting like the motherplant. Taking a cutting is fairly straightforward. If taking one from a rooted plant without offshoots, it is important to cut enough plant material away from the donor plant that you have a viable stock for grafting. At the same time, if you do not cut high enough that you leave several aereoles on the root, then the root will die without bearing new crowns. If at all possible, it's best to take cuttings from a plant that has offshoots (scions) growing from it. That way, the donor plant is left intact... you've just taken a pup (clone, scion, baby button) for grafting. If the cactus is cristate or monstrose, it gets a little trickier. I just took two cuttings from one of my favorite cristates and grafted them to a 4 ft. Trichocereus peruvianus. That, my friend, was painful to do, but it was all in the interest of propagation.
I had to be careful to choose parts of the plant that displayed the kinds of growth that appealed to me. Hopefully, the donor stock will recuperate and overgrow the damage in a year or two. The monstrose Trichocereus pachanoi graft that I performed last week was a little difficult, as there was so little tissue to work with. I'm getting better at "micrografting", though. I've had success getting a good graft from the barest slivers of tissue. I need to run into town to buy batteries for my digital camera... I'd like you to see the new grafts. The upshot when grafting montrose/cristate cacti is that the xylem (the ring seen in the center of a cut scion) is elongated and gives you a better shot at making contact with the growth ring of the rootstock.
I don't know if you are aware of this (forgive me if I'm getting remedial here!), but when you are grafting two cacti together, you have to overlap the growth rings so that they will heal together. This means that you often have to graft the smaller scion the rootstock just slightly off-center. If you try to "center" the scion on the rootstock, you will likely place the smaller growth ring within the larger growth ring and the perimeter of the two circles will not intersect. This means that the water/nutrient channels will not intersect and the graft will eventually fail. This is always disappointing because the graft will heal together, but since the nutrient channels never intersected, the scion will eventually starve and begin to rot from within.
To those of you who have peyote and are interesting in trying your hand at grafting... I would recommend that you go to your local nursery and purchase one of those small pinkish, sometimes orangy/yellow ornamental grafts and some small Myrtillocactus. Make sure that the ornamental graft has plenty of dime-sized scions on it. Then you can practice your grafting technique until you feel proficient and comfortable with the process. Once you have some healthy growth on your practice grafts, you'll be ready to work your magic on the medicine. Erowid has links to some terrific tutorials on grafting by Leo Mercado. They cover all of the basics. If you can't find it on the web, I'll be happy to go over the process in my next session. I'll make sure to put up some images to accompany the instructions as well.
The mescaline content [of Trichocerii] can vary widely even within the same species of cacti. My experience with Trichocereus peruvianus has proven to me that it does indeed have an exceedingly high mescaline content! However, I have had two equally powerful experiences using and similar amount of T. pachanoi! L. williamsii is supposed to have the highest concentration of mescaline per dry weight. But keep in mind that the stress, soil, light, and water conditions can drastically alter the mescaline content of these cacti. Harvesting a stressed out T. pachanoi that has been under-watered can yield up a powerful plant ally! At the same time, harvesting a water-fat grafted peyote too soon can leave you with a button that is poor in mescaline. The thing that Peyote has going for it over Trichocereus species is that it contains in excess of 50 other phenyl-group compounds that may act in synergy with mescaline. The Trichocereus species contain about 30 or so of these compounds. Perhaps that is why you are less likely to vomit when using San Pedro... fewer alkaloids make it more forgiving without reducing its visionary qualities.
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