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For a while now the top of my cactus had been dislodged from the rest of it, the dislodged area is brown and dead, but since the accident the area below it has also stopped growing. After 2 years of no growth I have decided to take the dead part off from the top, this has left the 'new top' area exposed and (I imagine) susceptible to various kinds of damage.

Please can someone provide information on the best course of action to ensure it continues to grow ?

This is the part I have removed. enter image description here

Here in an image of the cactus. enter image description here

Here is a slightly better quality image of the full cacti, for identification purposes. enter image description here

Any help is very much appreciated, iv had this nipper for around 14 years. Thank you.

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    We could probably id the bush in the background... Serioulsy, can we get a photo where the cactus is in focus and the background blurry, please?
    – Stephie ♦
    May 7, 2016 at 15:09
  • I have uploaded an extra image of the cactus, that's the best quality I can get so just pretend we're in 2005. Would you agree that it's a Echinopsis peruviana ? Or do you think it's something else ? Also any other advice would be great !
    – Aztec warrior
    May 9, 2016 at 5:22

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Now you've cut off the top (which, by the way, is impossible to see, its so blurry, could be a tiny hedgehog for all I can tell, and it doesn't look particularly dead anyway), all you can do is wait and see - it should form a callus (like a scab) which look like a corky area. You should leave that alone. What I'm curious about is why this happened in the first place - you mention an 'accident', do you mean a physical injury? Did you notice any indication of infection of some sort in the damaged area afterwards? If the tip of the cactus is damaged in some way, usually, after a while new growth occurs off to the side, not at the tips, but this seems not to have happened with yours.

It's hard to ID it properly because the picture is so out of focus, but I'm guessing it's likely Echinopsis peruviana (previously Trichocereus peruvianus), which is what I'm basing its regrowth after damage information on. Hopefully, that ID is correct, because this particular cactus is pretty tough and resistant to all sorts of damage.

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  • Hopefully it will recover, its hard to show the detached part, but the brown bit is completely brown and crispy, there's no green on at at all. Yes thankfully it was a one off physical injury, not a disease, and no indication of infection at all :) a drunken friend thought it would be fun to karate chop the top. Yes It certainly does look like an Echinopsis peruviana (although I wouldn't of known without your input !) the only difference being the ridges (area between the spike-lines) on my one doesn't go as deep as ridges iv seen in images, perhaps this is due to me watering it very often.
    – Aztec warrior
    May 9, 2016 at 4:45

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