On March 5 of this year, i started some Mammillaria luethyi seeds.

The seeds were started on paper towels and moved to small pots, once the seeds germinated.

A pic of a couple M. luethyi seedlings, right out of their shells, just before they were planted.




A few seedling pics of some seedlings from the March sowing, with the little fellas already working on their fuzzy capped tubercles...







dvg

Those little guys are looking great!

I've heard of germinating seeds on damp kitchen towels - indeed, I've done it with a few non-succulent species before - however I've never heard of it being used to germinate cacti seeds. What sort of germination rate did you get?

Thanks again Lachy.

Unfortunately the germination rate with 4 year old seed of this species was not spectacular...

...somewhere around 15%.

I did have better success with 1, 2 and 4 year old M. theresae seed though...80% for the 1 and 2 year old seed and 50% with the 4 year old seed, but i did use a slightly different techinique with sphagnum moss being utilized.

Maybe i'll try the M. luethyi seeds again using the same technique that was used with the M. theresae.

Anyway, here is a shot of three M. luethyi seedlings from yesterday...



...and another shot of the same three seedlings taken from above.



dvg

I find these very difficult to keep alive over winter, they are very susceptible to mites which results in orange rust/rot. They were fine whilst seedlings but after they mature this is when the problems start.

Anyone else had issues? Any tricks ?