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Aztekium ritteri removing offsets from a big palnt

Hey folks I got a couple of Aztekium ritteri grafted plants today. I got them cos I like this plant but I don't really like the look of grafts. After looking them over it doesn't seem like they will be easily "degraftable" so I can get them on their own roots. I could cut the stock stem real short and dig the rest of the stock out with a sharpened ice cream scoop but other than that they look well affixed (grown down over the stock). However, the Aztekiums are covered in offsets where the spines would be on a normal cactus, can I remove these 1/4" Aztekiums and get them to root on their own roots?
Is there any special procedure other than carefully just snapping one off?
Do you use a special soil or rooting solution for rooting offsets?
When "planting" the offsets do you bury them halfway in the soil or just set them on top?
 
Swords, I really wouldn't try to degraft your Aztekium. If anything I would regraft them onto something like Opuntia compressa. O. compressa has small little pads and those pads can be pretty much buried in sand with only your Aztekium showing. If you try to degraft the Aztekium, there is a very good chance you will lose them. Aztekium ritteri is probably the slowest growing cacti out there. Definitely the slowest that I know of. You have to be very young to see that grow to any size on it's own roots, in this lifetime. I have grown them from seed in an enclosed bag and after two years, they are only the size of a match head. They are also notoriously difficult to reroot, unless you have access to an extremely powerful rooting hormone, which most of us don't.
 
Thanks for the info. These are 1 1/2" or so each. I really like the look of a big clump of them in a pot (I saw that in a photo once) I suppose I should forget having a pot full of Aztekiums eh? lol!
 
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