John_Barleycorn

Stuffed a flagon of cheap wine as full as possible once, and extracted in the dark for 12 hrs resulting in a nice rose colour. Did nothing.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I have trouble seeing how shadecloth acts as either a high or low pass filter at all. I would have thought it simply passes white light through the gaps, and the more gaps the more light. If the size of those holes was comparable to light wavelengths then some interesting refractive effects might occur, but the holes wouldn't be visible in that case. I assume that dark cloth absorbs a bit more heat, but it would also dissipate fairly rapidly. In other words, dark material absorbs rather than reflects infra-red, but I can't see how it would actually pass it. Another point is that shadecloth seems to be rated according to its UV blocking (rather than white light blocking) ability, regardless of its colour. If it literally acted as a filter, then you would presumably want the cloth to be reflecting high-frequency blues. I tend to think filtering becomes more of an issue in glass rather than shade houses. In fact, I posed the question some years ago about the merits of glass vs fibreglass vs polycarbonate, etc, some years ago, and I don't recall that we reached much of a consensus except to conclude that no plants need UV for growth. Whether plants are actually damaged by UV is another matter. Stuff like poppies doesn't seem to like heat plain and simple, which presumably would be an argument for blocking IR.

As I kind of indicated in the "aspartic acid" thread, I tend to think that combatting depression is the key to beating almost any addiction. A radical change of environment is one way of kickstarting that process (in my particular case that would involve dropping me on some tropical island with uncrowded tubes ); otherwise it is down to chems. Ethno stuff includes St Johns wort, damiana, sceletium, betel, ephedra, khat, sida, tribulus, passiflora and other things that have been mentioned already. Some of these work better in the short term, others in the long term (the latter being how anti-depressants classically work). You just have to make sure that you don't overdo it and substitute downer withdrawals with a speed or alcohol crash, which will simply compound the depression. William Burroughs swore by apomorphine (a mild stimulant) for kicking hammer, and I suspect it would have more general applicability. So various types of lilly may also be a possibility, although I personally experience absolutely zip effect, and I can assure you that it is not through lack of trying various sources and preparation methods. Failing that, there is always a HBr reflux of codeine.

Nonsense; should have checked first. Muscimol melts and decomposes at 180C, although it may well exist as an alkaloid salt in nature (hence higher melting)? I have actually seen the odd recommendation to sprinkle the shrooms with vinegar when drying, not just acidified boiling. As for the role of UV, however, there is the obvious consideration of how the material gains light exposure unless it is pulverised along the way. Back in the dim dark past, a FOAF tried washing an acidified solution with paraffin, the idea being to take out any oils that might be causing the queasies. Didn't work. One other thing that could be worth trying is to wash a basic solution with something like chloroform, in order to take out the non water-soluble alkaloids.

As mutant mentioned, any drying may be enough to effect decarboxylation. It doesn't seem to work with MJ, but it could with flys. However, you then run straight into the potency deterioration issue, which I can verify is substantial with both Sth Aus and NSW specimens. Possibly because of enol-ketone tautomerism, but another consideration IIRC is that muscimol is a liquid at room temperature, so how much can be expected to remain in dried shrooms? You don't necessarily have to boil a substance to evaporate it. Incidentally, the shrooms can handle at least a half hour's vigorous boil without loss of potency (an over-cranked oven could be a different matter). My experience is that boiling still doesn't cure the queasies with Aus shrooms, and so preparation and ibotenic acid probably can't be blamed alone. Maybe some other alkaloids, maybe something in the fibre ... I said quite a bit about this on EBA. Too bad those comments have been lost. It was interesting to see someone recommending skinning the caps to reduce the nausea; I have often read (without actually testing it) that that was where most of the action is.

A FOAF has performed some further R&D into this planting-time issue which may be old news to some but hopefully still of interest. This has mostly been done using Tasmanian ornamentals because of the legality issue. The main factor seems to be temperature at the leaf. Poppies can handle 40C, but not 50C, and an hour a day's exposure to high temperatures is enough to stunt growth. It is possible to hit that limit on a nominally 25C day, provided that it is still, cloudless and dry. That limit will be hit at 30C ambient, regardless of conditions. A single layer of 100% UV shadecloth is good for about 35C nominal, but any hotter and it takes multiple layers and/or full shade. It has been suggested from time to time that the Autumn crop is always less productive than the Spring crop. Bollocks. I would say this is due to inadequate heat protection in the early growth stages. My acquaintance has gotten into the habit of planting in late Jan/early Feb in order to beat the frost at harvest time, and has had no problems whatsoever. In fact, there are certain advantages with the slower pod maturation that occurs when harvesting in the cold, like that the pods don't bleach as soon as you turn your back on them. Incidentally, by planting successfully a month out from the Summer solstice, this also illustrates that day-length is probably not a big deal in temperate latitudes.

It's still on my to-do list. I know, I'm slack

Check out what Wikipedia has to say about papaverine. It is a vasodilator (hence the flushed face, bloodshot eyes, and occasional Viagra-like effects), can also cause allergic reactions, thins the blood, and, potentially nasty, may cause liver damage, ie, hepatitis. Not completely sure of the accuracy of that last point, nor how relevant it is to someone not taking a concentrated extract. Anti-histamines combat papaverine to some extent because these tend to be vasoconstrictors, apart from anything to do with allergies (I said histamine in a previous post where I really meant anti-histamine)! Another thing to bear in mind with opiates more generally, as I think Anodyne has mentioned previously, is that there are loads of reports of hearing, balance and numbness/pins and needles problems on the somni forum, despite the fact that medical opinion seems to have nothing to say about these symptoms. OTOH, the hearing problems at least could be a symptom of paracetamol poisoning from those who do prescription chems.

Coz the flowers are hard to come by commercially, there aren't too many reports, but all that I have seen have been positive. I would speculate that is due to higher flavonoid content than with the foliage, and also note that oral activity may not be too great. Another point to consider is that foliage tea is absolutely foul, presumably due to the tannin content. The usual nasty to be avoided with Passiflora is cyanide which, however, shouldn't be a problem with naturally dried material consumed in sane amounts. That concern may be eliminated by boiling up an acidic extract, but the downside there is that this would probably leave behind most of the flavonoids, if these are indeed responsible for most of the chill-out effect. Syrian Rue (harmala) taken by itself, on the other hand, is sort of a combination of hallucenogenic, nauseating and sedating.

Just for the record, my test monkey managed to spin himself out a while back after taking a third-generation, non-drowsy histamine (Claramax) 6 hrs in. Now before anyone starts drooling about potentiation, it wasn't pleasant: monkey went from alert to fatigued, and also developed a splitting headache espite all the analgesia. Histamine taken at 0 hrs, however, seems to be OK.

Just for the record, yes. What I assumed was A. Confusa (ball flowers, straight phyllodes, end-to-end seed-pod arrangement) seemed to be the first shrub colonising any clearing in Kailua-Kona. The A. Koa seems to prefer a higher altitude, like 1000 ft+. There were some big stands of it by the road near the Manuka state park, on the southern tip of the big island. Alternatively, and closer to the main tourist drag, get thee to the ethnobotanic gardens at Captain Cook: http://www.bishopmuseum.org/exhibits/green.../greenwell.html. Burn tests of various parts of both species weren't particularly exciting (in December), but then again I don't have a lot of experience in this area.

Don't forget Passiflora. BTW, does anyone possible have a line on P. Manicata yet?

It could just be coincidence, but all of a FOAF's white-seeded varieties (Persians, Indian Raj, Gigs) have bled pink.

I think the advice to avoid moisture and weak acids is basically sound, but the explanation could probably do with some tidying up. The odds are that the cathinone dimer is water-insoluble, which complicates the dynamics of the reaction. When it is said that cathinone exists as a salt in an acidic medium, this is only an approximation because there is always an equilibrium between the salt and the free-base which lies more or less in one direction. So, if two free-based molecules collide and form a dimer, the resulting precipitation should cause more free-base to be liberated in order to preserve the equilibrium. In this way, the cathinone could ploymerise under acidic conditions, and it is worth noting that a mineral acid will tilt the equilibrium much greater than an organic acid. The presence of water probably helps molecules to collide.

The issue is that cathinone contains both amine and ketone functional groups. These can react together to form polymers, provided the amine is free-based. So, I wouldn't have thought moisture would be such a big deal here, and many fruit-based wines would have a pH of 3-4 and should be naturally acidic enough. Enol-keto tautomerism is a different matter entirely, in which the molecule essentially flits between two different forms. I wasn't actually aware that cathinone had an applicable structure for this to occur, and a quick Google turns up nothing.