Hi everyone! I recently got two small indoor cacti and have been having trouble with one, which I think is a small hedgehog cactus. After repotting, he was accidentally overwatered and the next day we discovered he was rotting, so we cut the rot off (but not straight across as it didn't go all the way) for the past couple of days, the wound has taken on a very dark brown- black colour (it was orange to start with) so I'm worried about rot again, but it's dry? Looks like it might peel and isn't spreading to the rest of the cactus. Is this callousing over? I'm new to all of this and Google has no answers for "looks like rot but it's dry"
A freshly cut surface should be pale green, not orange. Even small spots of orange to black means that the rot is still present, so I don't think you cut away all the rot. It spreads much faster inside the plant than on the surface.
Thanks for your response! Should I continue trying to keep the stem and roots intact or just cut straight across? How do I prevent rot from taking hold again?
The usual approach is to continue cutting until there is no trace of rot left, and then, when you see what is left, you decide what to do. The stem will most likely need to be cut off, leaving you with a top section that needs to be rooted, and/or a base that probably will form new stems (assuming the rot has not spread throughout the entire plant). Before the final cut, the knife should be heat sterilized. It is important to let the wound heal and callous over, otherwise it is likely to be infected again. Let it heal in a cool, shaded spot.
Is there any possibility it's a scar or like a scab (like people get that aren't skin colour) as I've heard cacti scar and generally rot is mushy rather than dry and peeling (it looks very thin like I could peel it off and when gently wiped with a q-tip, no residue is found on the q-tip (my grandma says this indicates it's probably not rot)
Maybe, it is hard to tell without seeing it. You wrote that you cut it and the wound turned orange-black, and that is usually a bad sign. I have occasionally seen black, hard, non-spreading spots on my cacti, but I have not removed them as they don't seem to do any real damage, so I don't know how the colour of the wound would develop if I had. But rot can be relatively hard too, for a while at least, it depends on the type of rot. You can wait a few days and see if it spreads.
I decided to just go ahead and cut it just in case, but an unsure how to help it dry out. Some say keep it cool, some say keep it warm, some say keep it away from draughts and some say ventilate it very well. What do you do? Thank you very much for all your help
Wounds are very susceptible to mould. Dry air, about room temperature, out of direct sunlight works. Some ventilation is good, it helps to keep humidity low.
