Trichocerereus Pachanoi - grafting success?
Around two years ago somebody I know inherited a San Pedro cactus, only a little one. It was very sick at the time, and still is. It has never been a healthy lime green, and the thorns seem to have gotten smaller, and are becoming brittle. They guessed San Pedro, because it was columnar, with a basic 8 ribbed star shape, and it had been cut flat very close to the base, with new shoots sprouting from the edges of this base. However, upon doing some research and finding some other cacti, cutting them up, searching erowid and all the net, even asking some people who had lived in Peru, they could not determine 100% whether it was San Pedro. Yeah it looked a hell of a lot like it, but too many signs pointed to maybe, and he was just sitting there with little/no attention for a while.
Fortunately, this summer, they said it flowered. On their reports, it is indeed Trichocereus Pachanoi. They've recently replanted it into a similar size terracotta pot as the plastic one it has always lived in, with charcoal along the bottom and a mixture of the existing soil and some of the soil formula I found on
http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/mes03.htm, They say it is going ok, but looks a little sick from the transplant shock. It also has water rot, a room mate of theirs overwatering all the cacti and succulents severely while they were away. The cactus suffered for a while. Still quite pale, with large brown flaked sections of skin.
My question, does anyone know how long water rot lasts, does it ever grow out? what is the damage to the mescaline content of my friends cacti if any? Many sources recommend cutting away water rot, however due to the severity of this (may be in the root system, hard to tell) and the smallness of their cactus, this may not be the best thing to do.
They've asked me to help save their cactus, can anyone with much experience with rot advise them what to do? I would describe it as about 30 cm high, but very thin (he does not grow from a base, rather a point of a rib, meaning he is shaped like an ends-twisted dooby sorta) and not happy. I have doubts about success with grafting/cloning while he is this sick. He hasn't grown much in 2 yrs, only two new tiny ones from the base. They want to graft these elsewhere when they are slightly bigger as they have no rot, but it will be years before they are decent at this rate. They wish to buy more grafting stock for the tiny ones, and hope to graft the rotted one on them as well.
And also has anyone had any success growing plants, not just cacti, in the middle of the city? These get great sun, but you can literally see the dust from the freeway and traffic settling on them. Most of the regular plants look a bit twisted and small, anyone else noticed this with plants in full pollution? Apparently they get plenty of water.
Thanks for all your thoughts peoples.