Harvesting fruits of Mammillaria luethyi

Hello everyone,

does anyone here in this forum have experience with harvesting fruits of Mammillaria luethyi I have 2 fruits on 2 of my plants. In the german kakteenforum.com people were saying that they were only able to harvest the seeds when making cuttings because the fruit stays in the plants body, or nearly completely sunken in the stem. How do I know when they are ripe? and how do I harvest them without harming my plants? Pictures are a little blurry because they are just taken with the phone camera..

Kind regards Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,

It looks as if the fruits are from this year's flowers and then they are probably not yet ripe. I would wait till next spring (or maybe spring 2022). For M. theresea, M. saboae and M. haudeana I harvest the seeds (from the fruits of the previous year, or even older) in the spring using tweezers with thin points. That has always worked well. Sometimes I cover the substrate with plastic to prevent the seeds from falling into the substrate. The plants may get some wounds, but they have always recovered from that.
With M. luethyi I have done the same with grafted plants, but I have not yet done it with my luethyis on their own roots, I am too afraid of losing them.
Germinating the seeds of these species is another matter, I do not yet have a reliable method.

For M. albiflora I usually harvest the seeds in the early fall, just after the fruits have ripened. It leaves a very moist hole in the plant body, but I never lost an albiflora this way. About a week later the hole has completely dried up. In the albiflora case, you can also wait till next spring, but harvesting the seeds in the fall is much easier.

Wolter.

I have harvested plenty of M. luethyi seed (following a particularly floriferous season) under a binocular loupe with very fine point tweezers, as Wolter mentioned (two grafted plants). One thing I recommend is that you try it on very thirsty plants, the tissue is more likely to "give" something without ripping.
The process itself, for me, was like this: with the fine point of the tweezers slowly and gently enlarging the access to the fruit; carefully ripping the fruit itself; removing the seeds, one by one.

Hello together,

Thank you for the detailed information. Yes the fruits are from this year, because the year before I didnt have time to pollinate these plants. So I will get very thin pointed tweezers, wait until next spring and harvest the fruits before the first watering? Arent the tubercules not to close together for harvesting the fruits, if the plants are very thirsty?

Thanks in advance

Jonathan

It's a tradeoff. A plump plant would make it easier to access the fruits, but you would risk injuries to the soft tissue. And M. luethyi (the plants I have grafted, at least) is not the same as, say, M. theresae, that shrivels noticeably in the dry season.

You just have to see if it is possible to harvest the seeds at the end of the dry season. It certainly depends on how much the plants have shrivelled. If they are as plump as they are now, then it should be quite easy.
I have a few luethyis on their own roots and they shrivel a lot in the dry season, they shrink to about half the summer size! And it is really amazing how fast they take up the first water in the spring: two days after the first watering they have almost doubled in size.
These luethyis have a few seed pods from 2019 (and from 2020), but I have not yet dared to harvest the seeds because the plants are so tiny.
With M. theresae and M. haudeana (I have several of each on their own roots) I usually harvest the seeds in the spring and I never lost a plant this way. April is the driest month in the Netherlands (and in Germany too, I guess), so from March to May the lower humidity will be beneficial. But my haudeanas and theresaes are much plumper than my luethyis.

Wolter.

My luethyis have been without water since mid-September, they only received two very light sprayings in April. Two days ago I watered the luethyis for the first time and I took a photo then. Today, 48 hours after the watering, I took another photo of the same plant and below you will see both photos.
It is amazing to see how rapidly they absorb water.
M. luethyi is probably adapted to absorbing water very rapidly, because it grows in a thin layer of gravel which rapidly dries out. So, when it rains, the plants have to drink the available water as rapidly as possible in order to have enough strength for producing flowers (the flowers use up water!). A few days later, the soil will be completely dry again, the luethyis retract under the gravel and wait for the next shower.

Regards,

Wolter.