As long as the substrate has been sterilised, the issue is going to be pulp on the seeds themselves or otherwise dirty seeds. Very very difficult to deal with, last winter I had many pots with this, and tried many of the mentioned methods, the only one that works for me is opening the bags and dryin...

100%red spider mite - I have about 30 plants that were affected this way (but worse) by a RSM infestation last year.

They've all gone blind and have started growing from offsets instead.

Very nice rauschii, it's funny, the longer I'm interested in cacti the more those that are practically hidden from view appeal.

I really like G.prochazkianum. This one has gone for the subterranean deflated look, but seems happy enough to flower well. Root like a turnip. This one look closest to habitat photos of the plants I have. Conrad

As an aside, I have a dwarf plum in the garden which recently became infested with mealy plum aphid. I repeatedly sprayed with sbpi to no observable effect. The aphids shrugged it off with no ill effects. I ended up giving a limited spray of bug clear which cleared them immediately. Didn't fill me w...

Hi Marise, I think this would be unlikely to have much of an effect I'm afraid. Root mealies are very difficult to get rid of at high levels of infestation without using systemic neonicitinoids, i.e acetamiprid or imidacloprid. Even then the plant needs to still be growing well in order to take up t...

Also a really helpful reply Terry - thankyou. I've checked out the Fargro website, and yes it is very useful. Out of interest, just to point me in the right direction - do you know if there is an official body/college, etc that you would need to apply to in order to do a hand spraying course? A Hi ...

Killermite is another abamectin product. Abamectin is sold for control of red spider mite and thrips; spinosad is sold only for control of thrips. No mention is made of any activity against other pests. The Fargrow website is a good source of information about pesticides available for professional ...

Looking at it, it looks like Marie's pot's is an overpriced reseller for some of what they sell, I don't mean that to sound too rude, but the fact is I've purchased the pots they sell from Czech suppliers for years at a tiny fraction of the price. Pavel Pavlicek always has a good selection and is as...

Lovely little thing - a synonym for bruchii according to my go to source: https://www.gymnocalycium.fr/gymnocalycium-bruchii/ Mine are all going off at the mo too: 20200503_133255.jpg 20200503_133235.jpg Hi Conrad, which species are they in the first photo bottom left corner? Hi :) Those are Notoca...