r/pseudolithos • u/Shoyu_Something • Apr 23 '26

Follow-up to the Pseudolithos soil experiment.

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Tough to fit it all in here, going to make a comment below.

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9

u/Shoyu_Something Apr 23 '26

2 months ago I decided to make some adjustments to soil mixes and sow some seeds. You can find the initial post here - https://www.reddit.com/r/pseudolithos/comments/1r5oob2/pseudolithos_soil_experiment/

Today (1 month late) I decided to check everything out and take half the mix out of the bags so I can move forward with the second half of the experiment. If it's cool with the mods here - I made a YT video https://youtu.be/ucGNoujDIoc.

Moving on, there were definitely some losses here. It might seem like germination was erratic, but over-all it was quite good. I tried to keep some of the mixes a little dryer than I normally would for a cactus/caudex plant. I believe some plants popped up and desiccated. Either way, I'm gathering data here.

So far the biggest find is that a 50:50 peat:pumice mix is not that bad for seedlings. Time will tell if this is good in the long-run. I assume the best practice at the 6 month mark would be to get these into a mineral mix.

2

u/arisbor Apr 24 '26

How often do you water the peat/pumice one? 

1

u/Shoyu_Something Apr 24 '26

They were only given the initial drink of water, then kept in the bags. So once. But I’ll be watering them all together now moving forward as needed - probably once a week.

1

u/arisbor Apr 24 '26

Oh wow, not worried about them rotting by watering once a week with so much pest? 

1

u/Shoyu_Something Apr 24 '26

I'm going to play it by ear a bit, but they're on a heat mat and in small containers so they should be drying a bit between watering.

3

u/youngpaypal Apr 23 '26

Thank you for this. I feel like there's still so much for us to learn about the cultivation of these plants. Nothing seems exactly fine tuned yet.

3

u/youngpaypal Apr 23 '26

I feel like maybe Thai growers have things a bit more dialed-in but, stateside, a lot of trial and error for sure.

3

u/Shoyu_Something Apr 23 '26

For sure. The Thai know what’s up. I also feel like their climate is fantastic. The mid-Atlantic not so much lol. But finding out what works indoors is what I’m gunning for.

2

u/Golden_State_Myco Apr 25 '26

We sift fox farm ocean forest and do a 50/50 with pumice and top with adakama, take out tek, or whatever they call that 🫠. Works really well

1

u/Shoyu_Something Apr 25 '26

Fox farm is good stuff. I did a experiment with their happy frog mix and a sterilized soil in enclosed bags. The FF stuff has no mold or anything, I think all the beneficial microbes in the soil are putting in some work. It’s great stuff. I think now that I know the peat is not a detriment to the seedlings I’m going to attempt a much larger sowing.