grafting onto Opuntia subulata monstrose.

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

i thought you guys would be interested in this.
if it proves replicable this will be the new pereskiopsis. and will initiate a new grafting phase craze.
you all know the plant, the spineless form of O. subulata that produces offsets with leaves at every areole. you all probably have at least one specimen of this in your collection.
well it appears that the monstrose mutation is caused by a virus, and, when used as a grafting stock, can pass on the monstrose gene to the scion. Obviously all the areoles must be removed before grafting, as this would result in the stock feeding them at the expense of the scion.

here are two examples of the very rare Pterocactus tuberosus grafted onto a piece of O. subulata, they were normal before grafting. It appears that the scions have inherited the form of monstrose exhibited by the stock. particularly the left. this is a trully remarkable discovery, and was originally claimed to be a chimera. but it is not.
imagine the consequences if it is indeed cased by a virus and can be passed on to any cactus scion. you could theoredically create any monstrose you wish. serious research and experimentation is necessary to confirm this. but it does look very promising. i have some cuttings of this (the spineless monstrose form used here) in my propagator and i am going to try. i am extremely interested. and finally there will be a use for this weed!

(pics courtesy of cactiguide forum member).
^^^notice how this monstrose scion is a perfect replica of Opuntia subulata monstrose^^^

^normal Pterocactus tuberosus grafted onto pereskiopsis for comparison. ^^^completely normal.

normal own roots plant for comparison: just long individual singular stems arise from a tuberous rootstock.

Opuntia subulata (aka Austrocylindropuntia subulata)

the monstrose form used. (the pic on the right, why you would need to graft this weed i am unsure of lol).

Joined : 16 May 2008 Posts : 194 Location : Canberra

hmm...

very interesting. I look forward to seeing any developents

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

Brings with it the question are all montrose forms viral-induced?
or for that matter, is the subulata actually carrying a virus? it has also been claimed that it is not a virus and rather a hormonal abnormality resulting in the excessive production of offsets. No one actually knows what causes monstrose forms to appear at all, many theories have been put forward, none proven.
If it is a virus is it only transmissible to members of the Opuntia family (Pterocactus being in Opuntioideae)?
will the Pterocactus remain stable if de-grafted to its own roots? if it is a virus then presumably yes once it has been infected.
it seems there has been no real experimentation done on the effects of grafting onto monstrose root stocks.
has anyone ever tried grafting onto lophophocereus schotti monstrose, trichocereus bridgesii monstrose, cereus peruvianus monstrose and the countless other varities of monstrose Opuntias commonly seen? or any other monstrose cactus for that matter? would these result in any effects on the scion? in most cases i have seen no, however most monstrose forms are not at all widely used for grafting stocks, in fact more often as scions since they are often highly prized/rare.
The normal form of O. subulata is being increasingly being recognised as an excellent grafting stock. not being monstrose there are no effects on the scion.

hmm this is a very interesting unexplored area in need of some serious investigation. Smile

Joined : 16 May 2008 Posts : 194 Location : Canberra

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

i got them at a weekend market, 2 plants for like $4.
you should not have too much trouble locating some of this plant, it is common enough, check out markets if you can. it is often grown and sold by weekend gardeners. Wink

Subject: Re: grafting onto Opuntia subulata monstrose. Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:18 pm

Hi all, Ive uploaded a pic of one of the plants we were given from Mildura in Oct 07. is this the same , ie Opuntia subulata?? the origial condition of the plant was pretty rough so we cut off the longer growths and kept the root and trunk, only recently potted it into the present container for effect. the pruned off sections have grown into healthy looking plants.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25944292@N06/2548238214/

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

well its a subulata for sure.
whether or not its monstrose is hard to tell at this point, should produce heaps of tiny offsets if it is.

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

i might also add that the taxonomists have had fun with this plant.
also known as:

Opuntia subulata
Cylindropuntia subulata
Austrocylindropuntia subulata
Laughing

Maihuenia subulata
Maihueniopsis subulata
Pereskia subulata

officially, it is now Austrocylindropuntia subulata fma. monstrosus.

and also commonly as Eve's needle, leaf cactus, cane cholla, christmas tree cactus and more.

Screw this, its 'Subulata' or 'subulata monstrose' for me from now on. in working with the monstrose form, it is spineless, very leafy and somewhat like a thicker version of Pereskiopsis, in terms of rampant growth speed, even has the tiny glochiids. also extremely easy and fast to root from cutting snce it is, after all, an opuntia. an added advantage is that it survive without water for much longer, just drops its leaves and shrivels down, is near impossible to kill with any extreme and is much more cold hardy. the very thick stems must be capable of pumping an incredible amount of growth into the scion. and due to the thick stems working with the plant when grafting is less of a pain than pereskiopsis microsurgery.
also, because it is an opuntioid it has a very large vascular cambium surface area compared to most other cacti, which is very clearly defined. this makes double flat-grafting possible:

two L. williamsii's flat grafted on normal subulata.
probably even more scions are possible on one stock, will have to try next spring. i wonder if pereskiopsis-style multi grafting from each stem areole is also possible, eg. cut off one of the monstrose offsets and replace it with a seedling. have to try that as well.
this thing has enormous potential.

Subject: Re: grafting onto Opuntia subulata monstrose. Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:47 pm

thank Lewis, its great to get such information, and one less plant for me to put a name to. Ive heaps of cactus still to get ID on.

Subject: Re: grafting onto Opuntia subulata monstrose. Sat Jun 07, 2008 9:50 am

nice work lewis!

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

The double loph graft isn't mine lol Embarassed

i found it on the net and was using the pic to display what is possible on subulata. sorry for any confusion. hopefully by next summer though, i will have something like that to show.

Subject: Re: grafting onto Opuntia subulata monstrose. Sun Jun 08, 2008 1:02 pm

Interesting. Lewis, how have you decided this is not a chimera ? How many times has this been sucessfully done ?

What I find strange is the scion is taking on not just a monstrose form but the exact same monstrose form of the scion. Different SP display varying forms of monstrose but this scion has taken on the form of the stock plant. This indicates to me there may be some form of gene pooling happening due to the scion and stock being from the same family.

Has there been a monstrose Pterocactus tuberosus before this ?

Joined : 07 May 2008 Posts : 602 Location : Melbourne

i thought it was a chimera when i first saw it too, then someone much more knowledgable pointed out that :

'It's quite unlikely that the opuntia cells have traveled throughout the scion tissues (that would mean that these cells can actually detach and travel like a malignant tumor throughout the scion. Even more, manage to spread/diffuse evenly over the whole scion. As far as I understand, chimeral cacti form when at the border stock/scion tissue gets mixed and forms a new growth from that point near the graft. And even then, these tend to be unstable and easily revert back to unmixed tissues'.

the two possiblities therefore are:
a) a virus that causes the opuntia to go monstrose has infected the scion.
b) the monstrose formation is due to hormonal abnormalities. the scion sprouts offsets due to altered hormone levels present in the stock.

perhaps therefore, it is only transmissable to Opuntioids.

It is still possible that it is a chimera, but i'm pretty convinced that it isn't.
chimeras usually arrise as an offset near the union point of the stock and scion. in this case the whole scion has gone monstrose.

The interesting thing is that it IS the exact same monstrose form as the stock. this means that the stock has in some way influenced the scion. how we don't know for certain.

I'm guessing this hasn't been done many times, because it is not standard practise to use monstrose cacti as stocks. normal subulata is often used as an excellent grafting stock though.

As far as i know there is no monstrose Pterocactus tuberosus. this plant was normal before grafting. never heard of a monstrose one and there is no reference to it i can find anywhere on the net.

In any case, its time to experiment!! Smile

Subject: Re: grafting onto Opuntia subulata monstrose. Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:40 am

Wow.

I step away from the boards for, like, a couple of weeks and y'all go nuts with new grafting teks!

This is indeed very impressive. I could see a paper for a peer-reviewed journal arising from these findings. My guess is that it's viral, although that's based purely on a gut feeling. I can't see a hormonal imbalance resulting in such growth; rather, I'd imagine something that more aggressively "infects" cells to be at work here.

Very cool anyway. Cool