Mammillaria luethyi seed production

Hi, I want to start my experience in this forum asking something about one of my favourite plants, M. luethyi. Last year I had only a plant in flower but it produced some seeds that I tried to sow, without results, but that was interesting because I used to think that this specie was autosterile. This year happened the same thing. I know that, in nature, seeds of M. luethyi are kept in the body of the plant for years, so, when it's the best time for keep them out the plants and sow and how the scarification of the seeds has to be done?

Hi Luca,

First of all, welcome to this forum. It has become less active over the last 5 years (the same happened to the German Kakteenforum, which has a subforum dedicated to mammillarias). I think that Facebook has 'taken over' much of these forums. I am surprised that your M. luethyi is self-fertile, but it is not impossible. I used to have a plant of M. tepexicensis which was also self-fertile (the other 3 were not).
Harvesting of M. luethyi seeds. I harvest mine during the growing season. This year it was somewhere in July. After harvesting, there is a hole in the plant, and therefore I prefer to harvest the seeds during a dry sunny period in order to prevent rotting.
Germination: I had not much success with M. luethyi. On the German Kakteenforum an interesting method was recently described by Franz Dankwart, see https://www.kakteenforum.com/t38344-aussaat-schwer-keimender-kakteen-insbesondere-mammillarien. He keeps the dry seeds for 1 to 2 weeks at 50 °C, then sows them, and gets quite good results. This probably mimics nature, where this species (and others with cryptocarpic fruits) grow on barren gravel fields, where the sun can make the substrate very hot. I will try Dankwart's method next year.
On https://cactiguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20291 you can read about someone's experiments with M. theresae, using wet paper.

Regards,

Wolter.

You could also try the method described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbeXw2xafrc&t=52s

It might be a bit tricky to cut off a small piece of the seed and not of your fingers.

Wolter.

The process involving paper is very interesting and I think I will try. It's curious that this specimen of M. luethyi is autofertile, it produces lots of seeds by herself. Thanks Wolter, I will share with you the method and the results