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Comment by Idaho Spud on December 13, 2012 at 10:57am

Joan, I've saved your addresses to beneficial insects and fungi information.  I'll read them again in early spring when I plan on buying some.

Comment by amer chohan on December 13, 2012 at 9:26am

Joan its nature of cactus plant that it involves you. They are usually small and very slow growing. Imagine a plant gaining the size of 12 inches in eight years with such delicate roots that every rain during these 8 years threatens to destroy it. you become involved in them. One remembers each milimeter of them, you know the history of every scar on their body. They are more like of your children than just plants.

When someone has some good cactus plants, common man just praises the beauity of their shape and form. But its only collectors who know how much effort and concentration is involved.

Its raining here for last six hours. After comming from work I have drained myself four times on roof visits just to insure that their is no water standing in any of the pots. My wife looks at me as I have lost my mind(Haven't I)?

Comment by Joan Denoo on December 12, 2012 at 10:29pm

Sentiant, I really like the articles you recommended to Amer. I had  not seen them before. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on December 12, 2012 at 10:25pm

Amer, I like the way you observe plants and let them "talk" to you. I  just watch plants and when I see a bit of yellowing between veins I get out my trusted books and figure out what they try to tell me. 

My favorite source is Gardens Alive and you can get some hints there. They usually have good photos of disease and pests so you don't have to make a trip to the County Extension Service. I don't go to hardware stores or nurseries because they will sell chemical compounds that can cause you more problems than you had to start with. Chemicals can kill your beneficials as well as what you target. Once you get an idea of the what is causing the problem, you can search the internet for more information or sources of natural products. 

Pest control:

http://www.gardensalive.com/category.asp?c=13

Disease control:

http://www.gardensalive.com/category.asp?c=15

Another way to hunt down diagnostics of pests or diseases is to Google and then go to "Images"

"plant beneficial fungus"

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22plant+fungus%22&hl=en&tb...

"plant disease fungus"

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22plant+fungus%22&hl=en&tb...

Oh dear! these are long address. 

"plant beneficial insects"

https://www.google.com/search?q=plant+beneficial+insects&hl=en&...

"Plant insects pests"

https://www.google.com/search?q=Plant+insects+pests&hl=en&t...

If you have trouble finding how to do this just let me know. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on December 12, 2012 at 1:24pm

Beneficial Insects: Your Garden's Most Powerful Allies

Meet the Beneficial Insects

Self-Sowing Beneficials

Beneficial Insects: Your Garden's Most Powerful Allies Images

Let Mother Nature do the work. 

Comment by amer chohan on December 12, 2012 at 9:40am

Most of cacti love low PH range from 5 to 6.

Last winter I was given a small amount of Humic acid powder mixture by a friend who was cultivating tomatoes on commercial bases. Mixture had wonderful effect on his crops(I vitnessed it). I applied it on my plants. Effect was amazing in the bignenging. But after three times some of plants started giving a red colour. I stopped immidiatly.

Cacti in our conditions break their winter dormancy in mid febreruary. But those red ones carried red color and dormancy long into summer growing period. So their last year growth was negligible. I don't know if their redishness was because of chemical overdose, wrong time of appliance or very high levels of acidity? So this time I want to be sure before doing anything silly. 

Comment by Sentient Biped on December 11, 2012 at 8:50pm

You are all teaching me a lot.

Comment by Joan Denoo on December 11, 2012 at 8:21pm

Spud, that is exactly what I thought, desert soils would be alkaline. It feels good to correct an assumption. Thanks.

Comment by Idaho Spud on December 11, 2012 at 4:45pm

My first thought was wrong also, but my first google reference agrees with Joan's.  It's  http://ralph.cs.cf.ac.uk/cacti/Cactus%20and%20Alkalinity.pdf

It starts by saying:  We often hear references to desert soil being alkaline. Maybe this is because there are so many alkali dry lakes in the desert, the assumption is that desert soils must also be alkaline. Cacti in their natural habitat get their water directly from rain. These plants normally grow on a minimum of soil in rocky areas. Many appear to come out of cracks in the rock. The pH of rain is acidic due to the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolving in the rain water. It is this water that the cacti prefer. 

 

Comment by Sentient Biped on December 11, 2012 at 2:52pm

Amer,

All I can say to that would be via googling on it, so your guess is as good as mine.

Humic acid is part of what is in humus, which is one of the important parts of compost.  I use lots of compost in all of my gardening, but I have not used purified humic acid.

All I can think of is to follow the label instructions.  I don't think it will hurt anything, but I'm not familiar with it.

This is from one web site:  

Humic acids - the fraction of humic substances that is not soluble in water under acidic conditions (pH < 2) but is soluble at higher pH values. They can be extracted from soil by various reagents and which is insoluble in dilute acid. Humic acids are the major extractable component of soil humic substances. They are dark brown to black in color.

I don't know that humic acid would acidify soil so much as bring it closer to the middle.  It buffers the soil.  It would take a chemist to explain that.  also info here.

Hope that's a little helpful!

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