This is my [first](https://i.imgur.com/27AwhdA.jpeg) [attempt](https://i.imgur.com/yDMkr5s.jpeg) at what I’ve been calling a “vertical seedling slab” micrograft. The scion is *Weberbauerocereus johnsonii (syn. winterianus)* grown from seed from /u/IMDAVESBUD. I made this graft on 2025-07-24 and took the photos just now.
**Process:** Sliced from tip to root along the narrow side of the seedling, getting as close as possible to preserving one of the two most recent areoles on each side. *Pereskiopsis* cut to accommodate and no pressure applied. This post shows side A and B. Sorry about the image quality; my hands were too shaky to get it quite right. I wanted to show the very small scale.
I was going to wait a bit before posting, but it’s been five days and the graft looks healthy, as do the other pair of seedlings I grafted the same way the following day.
**Why I dit it:** I got here in a kind of roundabout way. First, I was working on getting very young seedling butt grafts to pup. I knew I needed a viable areole on the butt, which required a deep diagonal cut that left the top portion of the seedling very small and vulnerable to desiccation (so far, all my deep diagonal grafts are doing OK, and a few have started to pup after about a month; see [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Graftingplants/comments/1mctzb0/when_your_seedling_butt_scion_has_a_viable_areole/?ref=share&ref_source=link).) But it’s a challenging cut and it takes a nervewracking few weeks for the sharply reduced seedling top to recover, so I was wondering what I could do to improve my chances of doubling a graft (with the intention of finding a technique for rare/expensive/difficult seeds) and thought of slab grafting.
**First I tried** slab-grafting a few seedlings onto a horizontally cut *Pereskiopsis* stock, but even very squat seedlings had a difficult time when there was any overhang past the stock. I sliced four seedlings and grafted eight horizontal seedling slabs, of which only three have made it and only two are actually taking off (they’re not pupping but rather kind of arching upwards to what was ‘up’ for them before the graft, BTW). So the technique in this post is trying to improve the two vertical portions’ chances of surviving long enough to get hooked into the vascular system. I know it’s only been five days but I think these grafts have already cleared the first major hurdles to success. It remains to be seen whether the growth will continue from the tips or restart from offsets.
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This is my [first](https://i.imgur.com/27AwhdA.jpeg) [attempt](https://i.imgur.com/yDMkr5s.jpeg) at what I’ve been calling a “vertical seedling slab” micrograft. The scion is *Weberbauerocereus johnsonii (syn. winterianus)* grown from seed from /u/IMDAVESBUD. I made this graft on 2025-07-24 and took the photos just now.
**Process:** Sliced from tip to root along the narrow side of the seedling, getting as close as possible to preserving one of the two most recent areoles on each side. *Pereskiopsis* cut to accommodate and no pressure applied. This post shows side A and B. Sorry about the image quality; my hands were too shaky to get it quite right. I wanted to show the very small scale.
I was going to wait a bit before posting, but it’s been five days and the graft looks healthy, as do the other pair of seedlings I grafted the same way the following day.
**Why I dit it:** I got here in a kind of roundabout way. First, I was working on getting very young seedling butt grafts to pup. I knew I needed a viable areole on the butt, which required a deep diagonal cut that left the top portion of the seedling very small and vulnerable to desiccation (so far, all my deep diagonal grafts are doing OK, and a few have started to pup after about a month; see [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Graftingplants/comments/1mctzb0/when_your_seedling_butt_scion_has_a_viable_areole/?ref=share&ref_source=link).) But it’s a challenging cut and it takes a nervewracking few weeks for the sharply reduced seedling top to recover, so I was wondering what I could do to improve my chances of doubling a graft (with the intention of finding a technique for rare/expensive/difficult seeds) and thought of slab grafting.
**First I tried** slab-grafting a few seedlings onto a horizontally cut *Pereskiopsis* stock, but even very squat seedlings had a difficult time when there was any overhang past the stock. I sliced four seedlings and grafted eight horizontal seedling slabs, of which only three have made it and only two are actually taking off (they’re not pupping but rather kind of arching upwards to what was ‘up’ for them before the graft, BTW). So the technique in this post is trying to improve the two vertical portions’ chances of surviving long enough to get hooked into the vascular system. I know it’s only been five days but I think these grafts have already cleared the first major hurdles to success. It remains to be seen whether the growth will continue from the tips or restart from offsets.
I hadn’t seen anyone else doing anything like this before I tried it, but I just saw [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Graftingplants/comments/1mc0zg1/bets_on_will_this_work/) and figured it was time to share my own effort.
Very cool !! I’m gonna follow you , I’m excited see your results !