wachumacallit
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Posts posted by wachumacallit
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New research/interviews with people who suffered ongoing existential distress following psychedelic experiences: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0322501
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From the piece linked above (The Conversation):
a future of precision phytotherapy (use of plants for medicinal purposes), where natural remedies are tailored not just to individuals but to selecting certain plant chemotypes that produce certain combinations of alkaloids. Manipulating the growing conditions and genetic make-up of plants to optimise for alkaloid content is an age-old art.
The researchers tested "two chemotypes" -- I remember these being discussed years ago, in an old conference/seminar video presentation, hosted online by one of the ethnobotanical organisations (speaker was the leading advocate and start-up entrepreneur, who'd already brought a kanna therapeutic to market -- but I forget his name). The existence of these two chemotypes was pointed out by Indigenous healers: "not this plant, but that one from over there" was the gist of their instruction to a westerner pharmaceutical researcher, who otherwise would have been oblivious.
Honouring Indigenous knowledge means ... paying for it. That's the fundamental issue for me: how the benefits will be shared equitably with traditional custodians. Western science is hardly known for its social conscience or sense of moral obligation. Its track record on biopiracy should give us all pause for concern. Not that that's a legal or regulatory requirement, by any means.
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Fresh seed is best - I'd say viability is less than a year.
Ziplock bag with a few drops of water (and air) works to germinate. Or you can just spread the seed on top of a pot, cover lightly with sand, keep moist. You don't actually need to remove the seeds from the husks (I had faster germination leaving the pods intact). Germination within 1-2 weeks, usually. You can transplant while small, no problem.
In traditional areas/markets, growers don't sow seed -- they propagate 12" cuttings of their favourite plants. 6" or so would suffice. Too easy.
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https://engage.vic.gov.au/hemp
Probably just another tax grab ... I think one proposal seeks to abolish references to "low THC" (<1%) strains in favour of "hemp" and/or "industrial hemp."
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It wouldn't matter which path performed best in clinical trials. The profitable, proprietary option wins out -- no contest.
It's potentially risky though, since everyone knows that isolating, concentrating, and commodifying plant alkaloids typically ends in social disaster. I'm not saying the novel drug is anything like crack cocaine (versus coca leaf). But it might prove just as harmful as, say, Prozac.
Most westerners -- health bureaucrats, prescribing doctors, as well as consumers themselves -- prefer the (illusory) "magic bullet."
Personalised plant therapeutics sounds like a time-consuming affair. At least in cultures with no established history of traditional use. But isn't that a basic principle of shamanic healing?
I can see the market opening up to accommodate both pathways. Big wins for Big Pharma (via the government-subsidised masses) and bespoke plant remedies (for economic and cultural elites).
What I don't see, necessarily, is just compensation being paid to the custodians of traditional plant knowledge. Colonialism in Africa, under the aegis of western biomedicine, is abysmal. It's essentially organised biopiracy, sanctified in the name of global health. And wouldn't it be a prudent strategy to ameliorate (if not remedy) the causes of social anxiety in the first place?
LOL, bitterly. Such questions only should play a more prominent role in determining how we should proceed.
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I don't know this book, its authors or publisher. But looks like a useful reference!
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[from Scientific American]
Everyone makes mistakes—and sometimes those mistakes can lead to surprising discoveries. In the early 1990s, while programming the computer game Doom, game developer John Carmack set the value of pi (π) by hand—and in true nerd fashion, he wrote the number down to the ninth decimal place from memory: 3.141592657.
Do you notice anything strange about that figure? The last digit is wrong. The number should instead be 3.141592654. (Pi is often truncated without rounding, in which case the ninth decimal place would be filled by 3, but it rounds to 4 because the subsequent digit is 5.)
Fortunately, this error has little impact on the game. In Doom, one of the earliest first-person shooters with three-dimensional graphics, you take on the role of a space marine who, because of a failed teleportation experiment, ends up on a moon of Mars, where he fights demons and zombies. The game has a great story but terrible graphics. That’s not because of the incorrect pi value but rather a reflection of how little computing power was available in the 1990s.
Still, the error inspired U.S. engineer Luke Gotszling to investigate the possible consequences of incorrectly programming pi at a larger scale in the game—an idea he presented at a hackers conference in 2022.
Because Doom is an open-source computer game, you can download the code—and modify it. Gotszling did just that, testing what would happen if he changed the programmed values of pi.
The results can make a viewer feel a bit nauseous. When Gotszling set π = 3, for example, the pixelated world of Doom became distorted, with walls and pillars moving in unexpected ways. Nevertheless, the game was playable.
When pi was set to the value of Euler’s number, 2.718..., the strangeness intensified. As a player moved straight in the game world, surrounding objects would move to different sides. Enemies could appear out of nowhere and disappear again. “With enough intoxication, you can re-create this,” Gotszling joked in his presentation.Things got really bad when he set a value of π⁄2 for pi. Walls would flash and disappear. Invisible obstacles block the player’s movement. The game wasn’t particularly fun in this state. ...
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Sounds promising. But intriguing.
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8 hours ago, misteek said:
Are the 2nd lot still available or no?
Some of them, yes!
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We had 125km/h winds in Melbourne yesterday. The greenhouse still stands, but a couple of polycarbonate panels came loose. Not so easy to slot back into place, either. That seems to be the one weakness with this design.
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zelly lives!
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I saw an interesting YouTube (some award-winning cultivator based out of San Francisco, iirc) showing DIY approaches to laminar flow, which could make all the difference?
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19 hours ago, Starward said:
@wachumacallit How big are you been able to grow A. phlebophylla in a pot?
2-3m, so far. Flowers, but no seed, after a few years. But plenty phyllodes.
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A while back I decided for similar reasons (want of space/property) not to bother with larger Acacia trees -- only A. phlebophylla. That one I can grow quite nicely in a tall slim pot -- sometimes I upcycle those black plastic bin inserts (from clapped-out stainless-steel kitchen tidies thrown kerbside) with reasonable success. I have A. burkittii and A. acuminata (narrow phyllodes) in pots, doing okay for now. But any of the larger Acacia trees wants to be in the ground. Based on my limited observation of things like A. obtusifolia.
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Good to know about the anti-spiral pot design. Most acacia trees rely on a central tap root so root spiralling is unlikely to be an issue. But not many native acacia trees do well in containers -- A. phlebophylla could be the exception, according to Herbalistics. Even baby acacia seedlings will rapidly throw down a tap root (10-12cm). Consider how tall an acacia tree wants to grow, ideally, and you'll realise that 36cm isn't deep enough.
So maybe your plant is root-bound, on its vertical axis? I'd recommend a deeper pot, or preferably, planting it in a raised garden bed. For growing acacias, I don't think the width of the pot matters as much as depth (the opposite "rule of thumb" that I apply to growing trichocereus spp.).
I don't think there's a problem with your potting mix, good drainage (and not nutrient levels) being the critical factor.
I consulted my Growing Acacias book, and none of your plant's symptoms are included in the section on plant diseases.
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Could be a Hulk x Trojan Llama.
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As far as I know it's always propagated by vegetative cloning. And always shared (by those in the know) for free. If someone offers you seeds for sale, you're definitely in the wrong place. Maybe Facebook?
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There's nothing quite like an exasperated eBay customer service rep, at a call centre somewhere in Asia, desperately clutching at straws in order to justify the delisting of your items. I had one mention the DEA, who must have been alerted by my generic "cactus plant" listing, so very far from US territory. Next the eBay rep furnished an unrelated botanical name, and said: "look, see? that's a prohibited plant!" (it was an environmental weed, completely unrelated to any of my gardening pursuits). They would never name names, in terms of being flagged or reported by another eBay member; but surely one should have the right to know if that's the case. What's even more offensive is that eBay member X can successfully report Y, but not (as I proved to my own satisfaction) the other way around. That's dodgy as fuck -- and the corporation has the audacity to accuse me of wrongdoing?
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The trick to listing on eBay without being molested is to be a VOLUME seller. That big end of town is untouchable. But if you're a small-time hobby gardener, you are more likely to be picked off and hung out to dry, so that eBay can have its cake and eat it too: curry favour with law enforcement and still enjoy the lion's share of profits from (ahem) "illicit" cactus sales! As a former seller, this eBay policy -- or rather, the way it's unevenly applied -- caused me no end of frustration. A seller with high turnover is free to list blatant "drugs policy" violations, indefinitely, whereas I couldn't even list a generic "cactus plant" without provoking prompt censure, incriminations, threats, etc. You can always appeal the eBay decision, with mixed results in my experience. It's getting harder all the time.
One suspects some rather dubious ethical practices, among those eBay sellers who've invested heavily in TulipMania 2.0 as their business model. The worst I ever did was to report 30 local listings (as per eBay's recommendation that I do so) ... all to no avail. The eBay investigative team found "nothing to see here folks," at all. Go figure.
My sister set up a little plant stall out front of her house, and cleared $2K in a weekend. But she had a lot of pedestrian exposure.
If you know someone on FB, maybe they could advertise plants on your behalf? My mum does that for people, but she has her own "drugs policy" to enforce.
For what it's worth, you've probably dodged a bullet by not being involved with either eBay or Facebook. I'm still weighing up whether selling a few plants on FB is worth the demoralising invasion of privacy, dealing with unknowable "friends," unwanted advertising, etc. On FB, nothing is sacred.
I'd like to see this site become a viable alternative to eBay/FB monopoly. For the moment, it's mostly just tumbleweeds.
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Another study focusing only on concentrations of the one alkaloid: https://www.phytodex.com/?p=81
Anyone know this study or which cultivar the "SM" label designates?
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Around 6 of these available, hardened off and ready for planting out. Looking to swap for medicinal plants I can grow in my greenhouse.
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https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2838765?resultClick=1
The use of psilocybin mushrooms is legal under regulated conditions in Oregon and Colorado, but to ensure safety, psilocybin-containing products require standardization and production using current Good Manufacturing Practices. However, unregulated products marketed as magic mushroom edibles (eg, gummies and chocolates) often contain no psilocybin and instead contain muscimol from Amatina muscaria, synthetic tryptamines, or other adulterants. During 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 180 emergency cases, 73 hospitalizations, and 3 deaths associated with these products in 34 states.2 This study analyzed the constituents of unregulated magic mushroom commercial products.
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Star pickets! That's dedication! I was never too sure about making the structure too rigid and airtight -- wouldn't ventilation give the structure some leeway and flexibility, better for withstanding strong winds?
After buying a few tent pegs I realised that there was actually some concrete and stone under part of the site, so they weren't of much help. What I ended up doing was laying some spare concrete roofing tiles in the corners, with potted plants on top of them. We've had several bouts of gale-force winds and the greenhouse still stands!
But one of the corner panels popped its seam, I had to loosen a few bolts and fudge it back into place. Teething problems, I hope. So far, so good.
Even with sub-optimal ventilation, the greenhouse effect works -- if anything, it might get too hot during summer. I'm hoping humidity will increase, the more plants I add.
Good to know about the water barrels, saves me a lot of trial and error.
Watering, Nutrition and Care of Crafted LW
in Cacti & Succulents
Posted
I had a grafted LW on a Tricho base that *looked* like a perfect specimen. But it was rotting from the inside out. Since then, I withhold water from my grafted specimens. I seldom feed or water any of my cactus plants.