Rooting Faucaria stem cuttings?

10 years ago

I have (had) a Faucaria tigrina plant that I was very fond of. I'm pretty inexperienced with mesembs, and most of them won't grow in the conditions I have to keep them in, but I'd kept this particular plant alive for about 6 months and it had a lot of new growth. It's been living in my living room on a bench of succulent plants I keep there -- since the house is poorly-lit, the plants are grown primarily under artificial light.

Unfortunately, I watered it right before the summer rainy season decided to start. We've had several weeks of daily rain and high humidity in Pittsburgh, and it's basically translated into a breeding ground for all sorts of fungal nastiness, even inside apartments. So, some sort of root rot got to the Faucaria plant. I noticed some of the lower leaves on some of the clusters looking soft and mushy, in the same way that a Pleiospilos of mine had before it collapsed and died of a fungal infection.

So I decided to take drastic action, on the theory that the entire plant was probably toast no matter what I did. I took the plant away from the others and removed the dirt from the roots -- at one point I could see VISIBLE fungus >:( I took a clean pair of sharp trimmers and trimmed off all the healthy regions of the plant and threw everything else away. I now have five cuttings, each of which has some healthy stem on it. The cuttings are on a clean dish in the shade of some other plants, where they have been callusing over for a couple days.

My only experiences with vegetative propagation of succulents are with holiday cacti and jade plants, both of which are pretty easy to get to root. I know mesembs are tricky to root, and I don't really know what to do for these guys. Any advice? I'd like to save a piece of my plant if at all possible. If not, I'll put my poor dismembered Faucaria chunks in the bin.

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kataclysm
Original Author

10 years ago

Another update: The rooted cuttings didn't do much for about 3 months, and then suddenly started to put out new growth late in November. I'll call this experiment a success :)

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Comments (8)

Beachplants
10 years ago
put mine in sandy well-draining mix in shade and it rooted...you can sterilize the soil if you want but I cannot remember if I did, as it was a test to see what will happen. I think I put a thread about it here somewhere with pics, maybe you can do a little search. I found it fairly easy to root.

I have a copy of it on my blog - see link below.. good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: faucaria cutting

This post was edited by Beachplants on Thu, Jul 18, 13 at 13:06
kataclysm
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks so much for the info and the helpful link, Beachplants! I did a search before I posted but couldn't find anything... I'll try again though.

Two last follow-up questions before I mix up a batch of sandy mix: For these guys, you are rooting in *dry* sandy mix, yes? And do you remember how long you waited to water the rooted cuttings?
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Beachplants
10 years ago
A little pull will tell you if it is giving resistance its rooted or check the base after a 10 days. I did mist them after a week.
kataclysm
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks so much! Hopefully I'll have good luck, so I can post pics of the rooted guys :)
kataclysm
Original Author
10 years ago
Here's an update so far. I tried an experiment of putting the callused cuttings into different pots of the same well-draining soil mix. One pot has been treated the same as some Crassula perforata I am trying to propagate after accidentally breaking the head off the stem -- I placed the cuttings in the soil, left it alone for several days, and then misted them. The other pot has not been misted at all.

The Faucaria cuttings that were misted immediately developed the same soft rot on their lower leaves, so I threw them away. (Meanwhile, the Crassula heads have developed small roots.) The Faucaria cuttings that were not misted are still green and firm, but (unsurprisingly) no roots have begun developing.
kataclysm
Original Author
10 years ago
Update: Today (over a month after taking the cuttings), I checked them for the first time in two weeks. There was a good deal of resistance and the plants had developed little root systems! Yay! I gave them a drink to celebrate their achievement.

So, out of the original 5 cuttings, 2 ended up rooting. The other 3 died of rot before the roots formed -- my guess is that a small amount of the fungus was in the stems of those cuttings, although they looked like healthy tissue. Thanks so much to Beachplants for the helpful advice!!

- Kat
wantonamara Z8 CenTex
10 years ago
It can take a couple of months or more on some plants, so be patient. I have waited for roots on aloes all winter long.