Up-potting native cactus seedlings

It was a pleasure to once again cycle to the GH. The weather was cool and dry after a night of clouds, high winds, and threatening storms.

At the GH, B... allowed me to water the plants in room C1. I had to accommodate an electrician who was working in the room to install wiring for overhead lights to be used during evening hours. Apparently, the original strip grow-lighting was intended for this purpose, but proved to be complicated and impractical given all the automation already controlling their operation. So the solution was to now install simple overhead lights independent of the grow-lights.

While watering, the room felt cold. This is the “cloud forest” room. The temperature is set to be in the 50s and 60s F, with high humidity and a breeze through the room. In these conditions I found it chilly to work, so I put on my cycle jacket which kept me warm enough.

Minnesota's winter-hardy opuntia cactus

Later, I joined B..., Curator J..., and student R.... in their effort to transplant cactus seedlings from their nursery trays into more compact trays. The cacti are one year old. They are native Minnesota “ball” cacti (Escobara vivibara), along with two other cacti: Opuntia fragilis (brittle cactus), and Oputnia macrophilia (purple cactus). One year ago, A planted seed she had collected in the original nursery trays.

Almost 90% of them germinated and grew to the size of a small pea over the next year. Some were considerably larger and bifurcated, but most were smaller than pea-size. The cacti were very well spaced, and took up more room than needed. Curator J and B decided to condense the cactus seedlings into trays with higher density. The seedlings will surely grow just as well if they are 1 inch apart, rather than 3 inches apart. Many of the cacti will be given to a particular researcher at the U of M who is planning to study how to re-introduce the cacti into the wild of Minnesota (predominantly the southwest corner of the State). The seedling trays are to be housed in the ancillary greenhouse room B1. The new ancillary room B1 is being renovated with the installation of an irrigation system called Aquatmat (aquamatsystem.com). It is a water-soaked mat on which nursery pots sit to draw up water by capillary action.

Finally, I had 30 minutes to spare, so I found a rake and bucket to clear away dead leaves and debris from the beds in the display rooms D2 and D3.

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