Mondocactus IOS - Generic Reference Collection

Started at the end of the 80s of the last century exclusively through sowing, the collection of cacti belonging to rare species, threatened and endangered with extinction by me realized the title of 'Generic Reference Collection' by IOS, the International Organization for the Succulent plants Study.

Founded in Switzerland in 1950 by Hans Krainz, Franz Buxbaum and Michael Roan "in order to promote the study and conservation of succulents and related plants and to encourage international cooperation between those who deal with them", IOS is an international organization essentially participated by scholars of various scientific disciplines who find in it the meeting point in which to share their own results in the study of these fascinating plants.

Cultivate to preserve

During the period in which I began attending the Natural Sciences course at the University of Bologna, I was worried about the growing interest of the market in the illegal trade of plants eradicated in their habitats, I began to devote myself to the propagation of cacti included in Annex 1 of CITES, with innovative techniques for the time such as the use of artificial lighting. The results of those first experiences were exposed, a few years later, at an IOS conference held in Phoenix, Arizona (USA) to support the thesis, put forward by some, for which the propagation in captivity of species at the time considered very difficult to cultivate (such as Aztekium ritteri), were it possible, albeit in long times.

Thus was born the principle cultivate to conserve, so that by multiplying in captivity the most requested species on the market it was possible to alleviate the pressure of indiscriminate harvesting on natural populations of plants belonging to species of great commercial interest. Later I was called to contribute to various publications on the subject of the cultivation and propagation of the rarest species of Mexican cactaceae. Furthermore, my plant collection was awarded the title of Generic Reference Collection for the high representation of rare, threatened or endangered species.

A maturing collection

Since the 1990s, when I obtained this recognition to date, the Generic Reference Collection has grown considerably, both in the number of individual copies and in their vital phase. The most consistent body is essentially made of specimens of the genera Aztekium, Ariocarpus, Strombocactus, Turbinicarpus and Pelecyphora seeded between 1986 and 1995. These are species characterized by very slow growth, which sometimes take over ten years to reach maturity and produce the first flowers, but which require more years to reach full productivity. For this reason, the collection has only recently entered its full production phase, with multi-headed specimens that produce abundant fruiting. Completely reused, the seed collected from the plants in the collection is obtained by manual pollination, while the cultivation greenhouses are sealed against the penetration of pollinating insects that could cause unwanted crossbreeding.