apothecary

Torsten, I'm guessing you haven't checked your email yet. Do that It doesn't have to be large. A nice round clay pot where something can live contentedly and keep me company would be nice. There are a lot of computers where I work (as you can imagine) and a small source of negative ion attraction (i.e. any plant) to sit next to my monitor would help with the headaches I sometimes get after coding for a long spell. Like I said, I'd prefer something that isn't included in the list of "pop culture" drugs. This isn't a diminishment of my respect for Peyote or similar plants, but at the same time, I'd rather not have something a cleaner would be tempted to steal or another staff member blow out of proportion. [ 22. February 2005, 20:59: Message edited by: apothecary ]

gerbil, I have both loph and bridgesii's at home, my current loph has a very strong vibe with it, I could never hurt it. I just couldn't do it. Maybe tomorrow when I get paid I'll order a few more from herbalistics, but as it stands, I won't be grafting any time soon. Also, the problem with psychoactive cacti in my workplace is that CSIRO employs a lot of hippies. While you'd think most of them are pro drug, I'm not sure how well havnig peyote at the workplace would go down, and they'd most certainly recognise lophs. [ 22. February 2005, 19:37: Message edited by: apothecary ]

I'm not sure if they're aphids...let me check. You certainly have bugs though. O.K... from overgrow growFAQ again (like I said, alot of this stuff doesn't just apply to growing cannabis!) Aphids: Signs of an infestation: Stunted, curled leaves. Aphids use piercing mouthparts to suck sap from the Phloem. Ants often accompany aphids (Ants help transport aphids around), and will also need to be controlled. Aphids secrete a sugar-like ‘honeydew’, which make the undersides of the leaves sticky. How to get rid of aphids: Use sticky traps (i.e. No Pest Strip) for prevention and detection. Beneficial insects like ladybugs can be used to naturally control an infestation. A soapy spray (i.e. Safer’s Soap or detergent in warm water) can also be used to suffocate them. Summary: • Suck plant sap • Cause stunting, leaf curling • Leave honeydew deposits on leaves • Ants in the grow room So it's actually very likely you have aphids, silly me.

Ed Dunkel, there are actually several CSIRO campuses in North Ryde, CMIS, ICT, and AMCS or whatever it is. I'm in one of those three, I'll let you figure out which Your post is interesting but I'm not sure you got what I meant The gardens at CSIRO are already a testament to the beauty of Australian native florae and I'm not looking for anything to add to that. Whoever landscaped those gardens should be so proud of themselves. I'm just looking for a plant spirit to keep me company during the day, I've already emailed T anyway asking for him to add a pack of Heimia seeds to my current order, so it's moot. Thanks for the help though everyone!

teo, hi! The heimia sounds nice, although it looks a bit spindly. If nobody can think of anything better, I'll probably message Torsten and ask him if he can add it to my current order.

Illegal plants are out of the question. I work for the CSIRO. Illegal things and government organisations don't mix.

Torsten, what we can do is limit write access to only people who have accounts, and basically only allow them an account on a per-user basis, i.e. we review their posts here, or review the content they want to submit. That way it isn't too hard to stop misinformation spreading, and it isn't too hard to submit info either. EDIT: You're right though Torsten, the different growing regions could easily be turned into an asset. e.g. Teo's template to tropical Trichocereus or something isn't just applicable to the tropics here, but is a useful reference for anyone who lives in tropical regions internationally. [ 22. February 2005, 08:02: Message edited by: apothecary ]

peeko, people tell me marijuana is about as toxic as potatoes...vodka is made from potatoes and vodka isnt that good for your liver! As far as opium goes, I doubt anyone here knows, opium is illegal to process, posses or consume, so nobody here would be able to tell you definitively (we're all good boys and girls here).

Zu, the above is definitely because not all the amides are water soluble, and if you throw away the seeds you end up with only the VERY water soluble ones.

teo, yeah it can work that way too. The great thing about wiki's is how flexible they are. I'm sure you're right and growing conditions are quite different in the tropics to here in Sydney, but don't you think the best place to have different methods of growing is under a collaborative effort, rather than scattered randomly through forums in tidbits, etc? Anyway, yeah, I won't be able to post for the rest of the day, but if anyone wants to put their hand up, I'll try and do some more tangible organising tonight.

Maca, that's cool, but if you feel like a wiki is too mechanical, maybe you should look at some of the huge wiki projects on the internet. The best example is http://www.wikipedia.org, a massive online encyclopedia, covering anything and everything. There is a huge community built behind that site, pulling in knowledge from almost every single category possible. I don't feel that a project like this will allow people to bypass the traditional set of etiquette and research, or allow people to mess up the information and make things up. If anything, it'll finally allow us a comprehensive place to point the newbies at before posting questions that have been answered many times over.

My gnome found a few plants that resembles salvia divinorum very much on the way home from his work. He took a leaf, and here are the photos. He'd like someone to ID it if possible. It looks very much like the salvia leaves on erowid, I think, except its edges aren't serrated. If it isn't possible to ID, I'm sure my gnome can take photos of the plants in their entirety on Monday morning. The thing that caught my gnomes attention were the leaves, and the fact that it was leaning deeply, supported on a stake. My gnome knows that salvia propagates by falling over and laying roots where it hits the ground. Any ID appreciated. [ 04. February 2005, 16:06: Message edited by: apothecary ]

Torsten, you share the same gripe with erowid as me and my gnome. When my gnome was young and knew a little less than he does now, he was often frustrated by erowid, especially the "Cultivation" sections. Plant cannabis seeds in April? Poppies in January? This doesn't sound right! (my gnome would say). Also, a point I thought of right after I posted the thread...cannabis is considered by many (including me) an ethneogen, but I don't feel there is a need to document it further, sites like overgrow and cannabisworld have done an amazingly good job already. If we can reach that amount of information for many other plants, I think we will have done a very good thing. Finally, like I said, I'd be glad to undertake this project outside of my work hours. Even if the domain package doesn't come with a wiki preinstalled Torsten, I can manage... I have a fair amount of experience with them, and am on friendly terms with many in the mediawiki development team.

Thats an interesting point, and probably correct. It would be nice if we could get a series of digital scans or photos of TLC thingies so people could use them in comparison to their extractions...of course only in legal plants.

I doubt that the LSA in Ipomea spp. or Argyeria Nervosa is from ergot fungus. Doesn't ergot fungus completely "consume" whatever it infects? That would imply that psychoactive Ipomea spp. seeds, etc wouldn't be viable for germination, which isn't true.

flip: "well by that logic, it would also inhibit the ability of the cutting to form roots. wouldn't it? " No? By slowing the total growth cycle, the plant sees that its root:leaf ratio isn't correct and attempts to rectify it. If you leave cuttings in full sunlight, they simply continue growing without roots until that causes them to die. "well, that doesn't quite make sense. " I thought it made perfect sense. A branch cannot form roots directly after separation from its mother. Clones have a limited energy "budget", only what they "contain" the instant they are cut. Almost all of that energy is needed just to establish good rooting. Strong light forces photosynthesis, thus food production, transpiration and other process not needed for rooting. For this reason, lighting should be kept quite soft and diffuse until the clones fully root. "don't you mean it converts light (energy) and stores in a chemical form useable by the plant?" Yes, sorry. "Are you saying you're trying to halt it's ability to capture energy and produce food for itself so that it can expend it's limited resources and produce roots? (this sounds of shroomery logik?)" Not halt the growth cycle, just slow it. "wouldn't it be better to continue to let any cutting produce food for itself and apply that to root production?" No? Because plants don't work that way. If you let it produce food for itself, it'll use that food to just keep the plant alive, not to re-establish a rootball. What you're saying is contradictory. You say rooting is not a factor at all in rooting. Only water. Then, above, you say energy -> food conversion is nescessary for root formation. "I think that your first point is misattributing the fact that a cutting tends to root at the end of the plant, that just so happens to be where it was separated from it's mother plant." Pardon my french, but that's bullshit. If you take a cutting of a cactus, and place it "top down" - for want of a better term - in soil, it isn't going to root. "According to my reasoning (stated in posts in another thread) hormones that stimulate root production are carried "down" the length of the plant." Doesn't this contradict what you said above? If the rooting hormone is carried down the length of the plant, then why am I the one misattributing roots at the end "when they just so happen to be where it was separated". If the above was true, wouldn't rooting hormone have to travel up and down the plant? "rooting power is a hormone mutagen. it actually changes cell structure, it's doesn't "activate" dormant root cells, but changes cell types. The callous caused by rooting powders/hormone are different than a healing over of a wound. they're tissues that have been mutated and trying to re-organize themselves. due to a cacti/succulents structure I've said that external application of rooting hormone causes more harm than good on our cacti." 1. I don't believe anyone actually said anything about rooting hormone activating rooting cells or anything along those lines. 2. Actually, the callous from rooting hormone is very similar to the healing over of a wound on cacti. The difference being that the healing causes roots to form directly behind the callous and push their way through. 3. I agree, but again you confuse me. If the callous from rooting hormone is so different to that of a healed wound from a cactus, then what can be so detrimental about rooting hormone? The only times rooting hormone is bad for a cutting is if their isn't enough or too much. In the case of cacti, any additional hormone is often too much, simply because it has evolved it's own method of producing rooting hormone, and thus roots. to teo: "leave as much leaf surface area as possible so that it wont wilt and die from high transperation, the more surface area it can support the quicker it will root because the more photosynthisising it can do." Actually, leaving as much leaf mass as possible increases the chance of dying from transpiration. The more surface area of leaf, the harder it has to work to re-establish the corect root:leaf ratio. You'll notice if you order a cutting from Torsten, that when it arrives the full grown leaves will have been trimmed to half their size. From overgrow.com growFAQ on taking cuttings of cannabis plants: "Special Technique: Trimming fan leaves. In this example, the clones shown are Crystal Light x AK47 (unsexed). The fans were trimmed prior to setting them in the cubes because they were already quite large and lush when the cuts were taken, experience will tell you when you have "too much" leaf surface and the clone will just wilt and resist efforts to revive it. So, trim the big stuff before "stabbing it". If it remains "wilty" remove the largest trimmed fans completely, this usually does it for stubborn ones. You can even then trim the smaller fans if you REALLY are trying to save a "special" clone" [ 20. February 2005, 19:47: Message edited by: apothecary ]

LSA is a collection of amides, won't this have some bearing on the test? I mean, certainly LSA won't show up as pure as a single amide, would it?

2benubee, people worship money now, karma means little to them.

Torsten, as a staunch bacardi fan, I can in fact assure you that unless you've had the entire bottle (which might leave you quite blind ), its brown as you'd expect a brown rum to be. My advice is to find out a place that sells those high proof smirnoffs in each state, because smirnoff is both nationwide imported and of trustable quality. Also, it's probably a good thing you don't plan on selling alcohol, as I believe you need one of those liquor license things for that

Ah well, they're quite beautiful I don't mind keeping them around I think I just got back from the Shihad gig. They were fucking great. My gnome says he is quite anxious to try mescaline (I tell him it's illegal and he shouldn't be saying such things) but at the same time he has found something more in cacti than just an interesting alkaloid. I hope everyone has a good night and a good weekend, my friend Mary has given me another revelation tonight, and I require sleep or at least darkness to contemplate it.

Went and visited a friend I haven't seen in a long while (organising a party for tomorrow night), noticed huge cactus in his yard for the first time, he said I could take as many branches as I wanted... I didn't really want to take lots, so I got these two, off the same branch... the long one is 40cm , the short one is 15 or something like that. Am I correct in guessing these are T. Pachanoi? Regardless of whether they are or not, I will plant the small one, but if they are T. Pachanoi for sure then 30cm of the big one won't be planted. [ 18. February 2005, 17:19: Message edited by: apothecary ]

Uh, the reasoning behind putting cuttings of all kinds, not just cacti in reduced light is so their growth cycle slows down. It isn't as visible with a cactus, but if you try taking a cutting of another plant and leave it in the same lighting conditions as its mother plant, it'll simply continue growing rootless until it dies. There is nothing the plant can do about that, if it recieves light, it has to convert it to energy. The only way it will root is if you slow down that energy conversion cycle to give the root mass a chance to re-establish its ratio to stem/leaf mass. If you want to take an example from nature, let's actually think of where a columnar cacti like a T. pachanoi or similar is. In the desert, there is no "competition" for light. We aren't talking about a rainforest here... If there's something obstructing the light, it's most likely another branch of the same cactus, or the parent cactus itself. I think Etiolation is caused (although I'm having trouble getting much information from google on the issue) because the cactus is so far removed from its natural cycle. Think about it. In nature, if a branch of cactus breaks off because of wind or an eagle who had too much rabbit for lunch, it doesn't lie in the dark and then prop itself upright to form a healthy a rootbase. The cactus will form its roots from where the fresh wounds harden (I wish vascular plants would do this sometimes, it'd save me money on rooting powder [that's what rooting powder does if you didn't know]) and simply pup, perpendicular to the ground. When you take a cutting of cactus, and lay it on its side to dry, the cactus knows what to do. Then you prop it up and suddenly it realises it doesn't need to pup and everything is ok again. It confuses the cactus and takes a while to sort itself out the way it should be. I believe that's where the etiolation comes in. If the cactus isn't in just right conditions mid/post-rooting, its growth pattern will mess up for a while until everything is straightened out. Now you might say "well not all my cacti etiolate when I take cuttings" and I'd say that it probably does a little, but not enough to be noticable.

Dan Murphy's sells Bacardi 151 2benubee, but Torsten wanted a white spirit.

You've only seen one episode of Shameless, because it was the only episode so far! The Monday night 10pm slot on SBS is always good. First it was Oz, which was awesome. Then Queer as Folk, equally awesome. Now Shameless, which I don't like as much as its predecessors, but it wasn't bad. Other good shows: Malcom in the Middle (Ch9) Everybody Loves Raymond (Ch10) Mediawatch (not on atm, but when it is it's 9:15 Monday night, ABC) I don't really watch much tv, but I usually try and watch the above lot. EDIT: Secret Life of Us, unashamedly good, Channel 10, 10:30 most weeknights. I don't care what anyone says, the writers manage to raise some philosophical and social issues, and still have time to show the characters smoking a billy or taking MDMA. This is a show worth watching imo. [ 18. February 2005, 07:55: Message edited by: apothecary ]

I don't know if anyone saw Rove this week, but Peter Hellier was dressed in a giant koala costume, and after ripping into Amanda Vanstone, he pulled a bong out, live on air. Crowd went *gasp*. I was cacking myself. Maybe it is time to get Torsten on Rove?