I've been growing a variety of mesembs since mid-February by following Steven Hammer's guide. All has been going well up until this week. 6 of my 13 pots of conophytums died off, and the other 7 have had their numbers reduced significantly.
After germination, I removed the lid and misted heavily in the morning and at night. Occasionally I would bottom water them for an hour or two. I suspect they've damped off, but none of my other mesemb seedlings have suffered the same fate. They are all growing quite happily in the same conditions. See the first pic where I've got plenty of faucaria, gibbaeum, and argys shedding their cotyledon and growing their first set of mature leaves.
This is not my first time growing conos, but invariably I've found that around the 6-8 week mark they die off significantly. I've never had much luck with them. I've looked around for guidance on maintaining them at this stage of growth, but haven't found much. Any help would be appreciated.
by MissorNoob
5 Comments
Growing setup: 2″ nursery pots in trays. 12 hours of light per day. Heating pad under the trays. During the day it’s about 80° and 40% humidity, at night about 65° and 60% humidity. I mist with filtered water, occasionally cutting in heavily diluted fertilizer.
Based on your growing setup, my guess is the ambient humidity is still too high. I’d defer to some of the other growers here who have been more active than me lately, but getting a small fan running can’t hurt.
No heat for conos or other winter-growers (unless of course you are sowing when ambient temperatures are below freezing).
You might have better success sowing in the fall or early winter when your temperatures are cooler than 80F.
But really, your experience isn’t so far off from my own. My last sowing (outdoors) I did in the fall and they lived just fine for several months. But my summers are very hot (90-100F+) , and conos don’t want water when it’s so hot, yet young seedlings are at risk of drying out if kept totally dry for months on end. I ended up losing the majority of them. At least the survivors are almost guaranteed to handle my climate…
your medium has a lot of algae growing, maybe it’s got too much organic material? i also agree that conos do not want a heating mat.
are you letting them completely dry out between watering?
I agree with the other comments about cooler temperatures. I started my first batch in September – at the start of Autumn. I have an attached unheated enclosed porch that I have an electric oil heater in and set the thermostat to 48F. All my succulents have done fine with this – it’s a very diverse collection.
I didn’t see any mention of fans, but I have small fans on mine 24/7. It typically takes several minutes for the tops of the seedlings to dry off after their morning and evening spray. I have fans on all the times around my indoor plants as I’m pretty paranoid about my fungal nemesis.
Diluted fertilizer is also welcome at these – if not all – stages.
https://preview.redd.it/8umnnt5ff6tg1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e11a8c3cc5bc0e21a0090c004c6d0c7459c79a0d