Illustro
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Posts posted by Illustro
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¡Hola!
I don't want to give too much away here, so I shall be as indirect as possible..
Someone..we shall call him Pablo, has been given the opportunity to take over a well established horticultural business that for certain reasons has to start growing a different crop in the next couple years, the business consists of close to 1000 hectares of prime fertile growing land, in hardiness zone 10b-11a, 1100-1300mm precipitation per year. The business has substantial monetary and infrastructural backing, so there should be no problems catering to any special needs to establish and process the crop/product.
What Pablo is looking for is something not contentious, which can be easily grown organically, and which can be easily sold under his own label, so far Pablo has been thinking about growing Yerba Mate, and making a very high-quality boutique label tea - but this idea just doesn't quite cut the mustard for Pablo, it seems just a bit too risky as Yerba Mate market is still quite small.
Other alternatives that have been considered is Chinese tea, goji berries, coffee (though C. arabica would probably produce sour beans in his climate), and Pitaya (dragon fruit).
Any ideas for Pablo?
Muchas gracias, amigos!
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Boldo
in Ethnobotany
I was given some sprigs of boldo yesterday, and told it was a highly revered herb used in South America for tea's/mate's, and that it was used alot with Yerba mate infusions - I had never heard of it before, and a search of this site returned only ~10 hits.
Anywho, so today I minced up about 14-20 leaves and made a tea, not expecting anything much after all that I had been told and read was that it was good for digestion and liver function, well about 1hr later I noticed that I had a subtle but noticeable stimulated feeling, kind of like what you would get from a cup of black tea, but less energizing and more 'fluffy', with some slight mood elevation. After doing more research, I found out it is reported to have some stimulatory effect; interesting.. I'm not sure if it was the boldo that I was feeling, or just placebo; either way though, the reported medicinal properties are profound and very real, it is definitely worth looking at.
It is a member of the Laurales order, and has very aromatic leaves, they smell really quite nice, the tea made my whole room smell of this kind of strangely delectable weak petrol & camphor-esque aroma. The tea was subtle and different, a tiny bit astringent, a tad bitter, but refreshing and nice, immediately after drinking it, I wanted more.
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Mmmm, caek, delicious caek..
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Dude, awesome!
Thanks for sharing, I love the panoramic shots, they really give you a feeling for context. Interesting to see an old corn cultivar growing in the area, did you ever try any of the ancient food crop cultivars like corn and potatoes? I have heard only but good things about their ancient varieties.
Oh, and I love the epiphytes! The lichen are awesome, but I would have never thought I would see Bromeliads(?) growing on cacti! And never in such density and numbers, super-awesome-rad.
EDIT: on the Bromeliad comment; just looked up Bromeliads on wikipedia, one pic showed them growing on lines in Bolivia, maybe its not such a feat for them to grow on cacti after all haha.
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Spread that Peres butter across the toast that is Aotearoa..
I can definitely vouch for Amylase and the quality of his plants.
Hear hear! I too can vouch for this gents' utmost credibility and resolution, quite rather.
Jolly good.
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Thanks for all the info everybody, yeah Aztekiums sound testing, but they will be worth it I'm sure.
I think I will stick with the sterile method, I do not like it myself, but at the end of the day we are growing these cacti in very un-natural ways, there is rarely as much organic matter in the soils where these cacti typically grow, but we want quick growth at the end of the day. When I re-pot them I plan on introducing these plants to a highly opportunistic ectomycorrhiza that I have, plus some other miscellaneous soil microbes from the garden, but for now I just want them to survive the highly alien conditions that I, like most growers expose their cacti to during the seedling stage.
I'm not sure on the lumens, but it is a high-out put bulb, it certainly served all my Tricho's well.
Hmm, everything I have read has warned very, very strongly against using high pH water, I have read several times that a water pH of around 5-6, like rainwater is optimal. As long as you live in an area with low pollution, rainwater tends to be the best water for cacti.
Cheers
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I am getting ready to start some seeds of about 40 different species and varieties from the Ariocarpus, Aztekium, Epithelantha, Lophophora, Mammilaria, Obregonia, Pelecyphora, and Turbinicarpus genera, I just have a few really quick questions for those seasoned seed raisers here.
The first is, could you please critique my seed raising plan?
Outline:
- 1/3 generic seed raising mix to 2/3 small-grain (1-3mm) pumice (sterilized in microwave)
- treat w/ copper-based fungicide (copper oxychloride)
- dense sowing (0.35cm^2 = 0.59x0.59cm soil area per seed), roughly equivalent to 100 seeds in 6x6cm pot
- 1-2mm thick pumice topping on seeds (none on Aztekiums due to their size)
- wash seeds into mix w/ sprayer (boiled rainwater)
- heated propagator w/ 18" grow fluoro (propagator shrouded w/ reflective foil casing)
- 16hr light @ ~24-28°C; 8hr dark @ ~5-10°C
- bottom water w/ dilute (~0.01%) low N fert. (Yates 'Thrive' cacti & succulent), beginning several weeks after germination occurs
- keep in propagator for 4-6mo. after which humidity is decreased gradually
Secondly, how much attention do these slow growing species need in the early stages?
I wish to know this as I will be away for 16 days during the end of June to start of July. Would you take the risk of starting the seeds now and being away from them for a couple weeks (when they are ~6 weeks old), or do you think it would be better to hold off until I get back?
Cheers!
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Thanks for the input guys, we probably won't know for a long time if the soil is causing any problems, but for what it's worth, the plant is still booming in growth.
My friend had a careful dig around the trunk and root zone, apparently there are feeder roots growing everywhere all through the newly added soil, and some substantial adventitious roots emerging from the trunk and some branches that have been ground-layering for about a month, so I think its safe to say it is adapting well to the situation :D
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Hey,
My friend recently extended his raised garden in which a small Khat plant grows (1m tall), he had some leftover soil mix (50/50 , loamy topsoil/pumice) which was added around the base of the plant to even out the garden level. This added about an extra 3-4cm (~1.5") of soil above the roots and around the trunk.
He knows adding soil around the base of plants can suffocate and kill them, but he figured that a few centimeters of this porous soil would be alright. Especially considering these plants readily send out adventitious roots from branches, and suckers from their roots, which indicates they are relatively well equipped for handling soil disturbances.
But, we are both now wondering whether this wasn't a very good idea, it has been about a month and the plant is still exploding in growth, but we are unsure if the soil will cause problems later on.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
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So what's the deal on leaf branching? You're saying the leaf pattern is alternate for upward growth & parallel for lateral growth?
The main shoots that grow from the base of the plant tend to have an alternate phyllotaxy (leaf arrangement), whereas when the plant is near maturity it will produce lateral shoots that grow from the axillary buds on the main shoots, these tend to have an opposite phyllotaxy, it is probably an adaptation to better control light exposure. It's pretty cool tbh, not many plants do that.
Cos there's a LOT of plants with shiny green leaves that start reddish and LOOK very similar to Khat.
Could be Photinia spp.? I thought I had hit the payload a few years back (before I had seen Khat irl); when I found out what it really was, I was disappoint .__.
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I would keep it in a bright location, but no direct sun and/or high temps for now, seeing as it is already obviously very stressed.
And in terms of sand, the domestic/commercial stuff is OK, but at the end of the day it is just rock fragments..
I only use cheap sand on cheap plants (like San Pedros etc). But, if you have some rare or special succulents, river sand is ultimate (as long as the river isn't polluted of course).
It also depends on the sand source in the river, but I would imagine most river sand would be much better than the stuff you buy.
There is a river near me that has large deposits of this coarse sand (~3mm average), it is a varied mix of sedimentary and volcanic sands plus lots of fine organic matter. It is full of all sorts of different minerals and nutrients, my cacti absolutely love it - plus it looks the part too.
Heres a pic of what I use:
http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/uploads_gallery/1286901678/gallery_5307_350_70545.jpg
I sift exclusively for coarse sand to use at the top, as it dries quickly which is important when it is in contact with the cacti body, but deeper down it is more fine grained. BTW for reference, the cacti is about 15mm across.
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It was most definitely over-watered, there should never be any moss growing in with your desert succulents.
Another thing to mention, is that for all arid species like Sceletium, Ariocarpus, Lophopohora etc, you should have as little wood/peat in the mix as possible.
It is usually far better to use actual garden soil instead of potting mix, the reason this is that humus and peat are only partially decomposed in most mixes, this material needs time and moisture for it to break down to its constituent parts for it to be usable by the plant.
Usually the greatest contributor to this process is various soil microbes and the acids and enzymes that plants release into the soil via their roots, for this to happen the soil needs to be relatively moist for extended periods - something which doesn't often happen in desert conditions.
Desert plants rely largely on wind-blown soils and regolith for nutriment. They require that the nutrients be immediately available during the brief times that moisture is present because it is largely impossible for them to extract these nutrients during the dry periods, and very little can be actively dissolved and absorbed during the short wet periods.
Also, large bits of detritus absorb water and can promote the growth of potentially pathogenic soil fungi - if you do feel the great need to use potting mix, screen it first for any large chunks.
I don't know much about Kanna cultivation, so the following should be considered accordingly:
Seeing as the plant does not have much of a root system, I am not quite sure what to advise right now.. But without any food and water reserves (roots), keeping the soil dry will almost definitely kill it, but keeping the soil moist would likely promote more root rot if it has set in.
Probably the best thing you could do is perhaps keep the soil dry, and mist the plant in the early morning or late evening, just enough to get the top of the soil damp.
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I started out with cuttings and a few boring seed-grown hybrids, they all appeared to be variants of Echinopsis scopulicola x Echinopsis pachanoi hybrids. They were what got me interested in cacti, but I ultimately got bored of them, they were kinda ugly tbh; and I like spines ^-^
I ended up giving away all my old cacti, or what was left of them lol. I'm not a real fan of hybrids, or mutants (which one was), I really like the strong genetic examples of species.
The only cuttings I still have are an Echinopsis macrogona and an Echinopsis peruviana, everything else is seed grown. I have about 200+ seed grown cacti now, some 2m+ tall.
It is much more rewarding to grow from seed imo, especially once they get past about 2yo and they start looking like adult cacti, just a lot smaller. At that age the growth starts exploding as well which is awesome to watch, especially during spring when the shoot apical meristem starts 'glowing' bright lime green - the same happens in large cacti but its just not quite as prominent in older specimens.
Plus, starting a large batch of seeds of a single species and seeing the huge amount of variation that arises in the lot as they grow is pretty damn cool.
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That unknown Trichocereus from the department store.. I got one from the same chain, I contacted the supplying nursery in hopes of some binomial names but they just buy the seed in-bulk as 'Trichocereus' seed - hence the labels only stating 'Trichocereus'.
I also found a beautiful tiny little T. scopulicola and a really beautiful T. peruvianus that was very different to the other, similar to the KK242 strain - but much more handsome looking.
I bought them over a year ago and are all 1-2ft tall now, some really impressive specimens for department store buys.
Edit: just realized how old the original post was..
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@paradox; I felt i was simply being honest and using language i would usually use.. I said what i meant; that i simply havent done any study into the Acacieae tribe / Mimosoideae family like many people who are obsessed with the DMT producing plants.. I guess it could seem i was implying more, but it was the complete opposite.
Dude, seriously... You really had to go to the extent of looking through my previous posts?..
When the did i ever call myself a botanist huh? I have never said anything of the kind, i have always been conceding in my posts to the fact that i am new to botany.
Shit, i try to make something good out of what was previously destroying my life just to have some hopped-up little geek on a on an ego-trip critiquing my every move. Which i must admit, is exceptionally aggravating.
I don't see what jargon i was 'mincing' in that post, it was all proper terminology (to the best of my knowledge). Yes i was wrong in my original assumption, but i admitted i was wrong when culebra22 gave some insight - your point is? I bet if i could be bothered trawling through your masses of posts that i could find plenty golden turds.
I will admit, i have learned a an exceptional amount from this tho. I think i have found a new study-method
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Dude plant biology is botany.. If you said botany and plant physiology or something similar, it might not come across as you trying to sound important.
Basically, this is what it sounds like to me:
You think that the presentation of a post is of more merit than its content; so my incorrectly written but ultimately accurate post is of less value than yours because yours was better written even though it is completely inaccurate? Well by all means, make your own forum where you and your egits can bring back the good old days of overly formal ye olde english posts jabbering on about the flat earth and why dinosaurs didn't survive the great flood in pure, lovely, insane jargon..
Sounds to me like you took a stab in the dark just as much as i did, yet my stab was actually in the right direction and not all pissed like yours..
If this place was for qualified botanists only, i may see some grain of reason to your gripes - but it isn't.. This forum is for amateurs, this subforum is for amateurs to get plant identifications from amateurs.. Even members of botanical societies wouldn't stoop as low as you and your chumps did to dish out this kind of crap on amateurs that make a simple taxonomic mistake.
Besides, i still think you are talking out your ass.. I have been studying botany amateurly for about 1-2 months (on a truly botanical scale and not just being wowed by the drug content of plants). Yet i (someone who isn't even in australia) can come to a far more competent and accurate ID than you, a supposed professional who is resident in the country where this plant is native.
I get the feeling you are definitely not a qualified botanist, but someone who has been studying plants amateurly for several years and may have at most taken a few botany interest papers at university..
Definitely not an ego-anthem if you ask me..
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I think the reason why Morg asked that question is that there is no such family as the Acacieae.
And secondly perhaps because you said "looks like it could be one of the 'black wattle' analogues to me" - 'black wattle' being almost so vague as to be meaningless, but if anything it generally refers to Acacia melanoxylon or A. mearnsii, and 'analogue' being a term which has pretty much no place in botany.
Therefore it is pretty clear you are just making stuff up.
Also, it does look a lot like Tipuana tipu (in fact it looks more like this to me than P. lophantha) or related species. These are South American plants that are VERY common in horticulture and often planted as street trees.
So while Morg came across a bit harsh I really think he was quite reasonable and that your post contributed nothing to the conversation except perhaps further confusion.
Thats pure semantics, i have just heard the family being referred to as Acacieae - turns out thats the tribe. Yeah, retarded mistake i know - so what?..
I have been learning the basic faunal KPCOFGS groups lately. I simply made the mistake of applying the faunal taxonomy order to flora, putting Acacieae above genus - making it family.. Anyway, you know what i meant and had nothing to do with this debate - you are simply clutching at straws.
As i said, i have never done any study into the Acacieae tribe (got it right that time
). And no, i am exceptionally correct in my judgment - it is exactly what i suspected (at least it looks a lot like it). Differing or wrong local terminology really isn't my problem.. At least i had a go at rounding it down to a few species, better than the blanket "South American exotic"...
Analogue has no place in botany? Really, thats awesome man.. You speaking from experience or from your ass?
How am i making stuff up? I said exactly what i thought.. My terms were incorrect but my ID was spot-on. When i read morgs post i revised the 'black wattle' search with 'wattle' suspecting the common name i used may be incorrect. When i searched for 'wattle' and my geographical location, i found exactly what i meant.. Paraserianthes lophantha, which was the dominant search result - cited as a major pest in my area. Which it is, hence me recognizing it. And guess what, it is considered a pest in Melbourne too.
As i said, Occam's Razor.. Heard of it?.. No?.. Well, google it...
Tipuana tipu? Really?! I have absolutely no idea how you managed to ferret that one out of the box. Well at least you tried huh?
Lets compare..
Paraserianthes lophantha:
Tipuana tipu:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Tipuana_tipu2960832493.jpg
You do realize true botanists use things like the flowers, leaves, branching and pretty much anything that makes a plant a plant to identify and categorize plant species right? I'm not sure what you used, but it obviously wasn't anything to do with the plant..
Oh and thanks sapito! Good to see a few good people about
EDIT: @paradox; i thought my OP was pretty unassuming
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Have you studied any botany?
How do you gently and politely suggest refraining from posting stabs in the dark?
Looks to me like a South American exotic...
I would highly recommend getting that sandy-vag cleaned brah.
Have i studied any botany?.. :/
As i said, i have never studied the Acacieae family - at all.. But the leaves, trunk and infloresences resemble very closely that of what i was taught was a black wattle. Upon doing some googling, it appears what i was taught growing up was a black wattle is in fact not - that it is another wattle species the 'brush wattle' or Paraserianthes lophantha.. Which, shit.. If you ask me, and probably everyone else on this board - looks a fuck load like what the OP posted. And considering this guy lives in Melbourne, and not the Amazon - makes it a whole lot more likely to be an ozzy native over some South American who-knows.. Occam's Razor much bro?
Also, the inflorescences are undeveloped - so an exact ID would have to wait until they mature.
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I have never done any study into the Acacieae family, but it looks like it could be one of the 'black wattle' analogues to me.
I could be wrong..
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Holy shit! That is one boutty fucking M. madisoniorum! (#2)
6-8 look like some tarmaensis X peruvianus or something along that line, beautiful..
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I just finished reading the DEA article and thought i would update with results..
I wont copy any more material as i have already posted more than i should.
In summary:
The analysts concluded that drying khat leaf at 20'C for 72hrs will has an insignificant impact on the cathinone:cathine ratio, the material can be stored for several years like this with no appreciable loss of cathinone. Heating the plant material has a negative effect, if heated over 50'C a significant degradation of the cathinone is experienced.
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I would assume they simply leave it out to dry?
If you wanted to get fancy you could get a food dehydrator or a vacuum pump.
Or put the leaves in the oven at ~50'C
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The fact that cathine and cathinone break-down is undeniable, but how much affect this has on the psychoactive yield is something to be debated.
The article i have been quoting basically said that if you dry the leaves carefully a significant amount of alkaloids will degrade, but the majority of psychoactive alkaloids will remain stable - and once dried the future degradation is negligible.
I cant link the article, its on a private database - i am probably in breach of copyright for even quoting it
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I just had a skim through the DEA article i quoted last night, i didnt really read anything more than the intro at the time - here what it says about dimerization.
Chappell, J.; Lee, M. 2009. Cathinone preservation in khat evidence via drying. In. Forensic Science International, volume 195 p. 109. Drug Enforcement Administration, Western Laboratory, 390 Main Street, Room 700, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA.
Cathinone undergoes other reactions that may further complicateits analysis. As a ketoamine, cathinone undergoes dimerization
and auto-oxidation to form 3,6-dimethyl-2,5-diphenylpyrazine
[7,14]. This degradation reaction readily occurs when cathinone is
extracted as the base form and is subsequently evaporated to a
concentrated solution or a solid residue. However, dimerization is
not observed in strongly acidic solutions [5,14], where cathinone is
protonated and exists as a solvated ion-pair. Enolization of the
ketoamine segment also facilitates racemization at the C2 sitewhile
cathinone is insolution, particularly inpolar solvents [3]. These sidereactions
do not occur in vivo, but their products often appear as
artifacts resulting from the extraction and preparation steps.
Racemization can also occur during the drying process after the
plant is harvested [15,16].
EDIT: and this is interesting.
The conversion of cathinone into cathine in the fresh plant can beretardedby several techniques.Refrigerationor freezinghas become
a common protocol for scientific studies and forensic analyses
[16,18]. Refrigeration slows both the conversion to cathine, as well
as decomposition of the plant, and may allow cathinone to be
detected for several weeks [22]. However, the conversion is not
completely halted at freezing temperatures. A time study of freshly
harvested material found that a refrigerated sample degraded to
comparableamounts of cathinone and cathine after 14 days at2 8C
when initially no cathine was detected [22]. The cathinone content
was also not maintained in samples stored frozen at 11 8C, which
continued to show an increase in cathine levels up to 48 days of
storage. Another established approach for preserving perishable
substances involves freeze-drying, although this method has
inherent limitations. Freeze-drying requires expensive equipment
that can process only limited quantities at a time, and this
equipment is not commonly available in many crime laboratories.
In recent years, numerous seizures of dried khat have been
reported by domestic crime laboratories [23–25], where the dried
material has been called ‘‘graba.’’ The precise manner of drying
used to prepare the material is unknown, but cathinone and
cathine were readily identified. Historically, dried khat has been
consumed as an ingredient in food or as a tea [26], and there are
isolated reports of the dried leaves being smoked [27]. The
availability of a dried form suggests that simply drying the plant
material in a timely manner, with or without the application of
heat, may be an effective method for preserving khat evidence. The
present study examines several simple methods of drying khat,
and quantitatively assesses the long-term stability of cathinone in
the resulting dried material.
Alternative commercial crops?
in Ethnobotany
Posted
Some interesting ideas and good input so far guys, cheers!
Maca sounds interesting, I will definitely look into it more tripsis!
@PH: yeah, those are the kinds of problems that put Pablo off, it would take a lot of effort and money to launch a good label. Those other crops were just what Pablo had previously researched, and came to the same conclusions as you.. The climate in his location is fairly good for growing stuff, it is a much different to the place you may be thinking about PH! The climate where Pablo is is practically identical to Melbourne, just it doesn't get quite as hot during summer, and with far more precipitation!
And Pablo definitely will not be jumping right in, there will be many trials over the next couple years.
@FSL: Apparently Acai are hardy down to 9B, so should do fine, Pablo has many tropical and subtropical plants like Inga edulis (ice cream bean), Coffea arabica, Carica papaya (paw paw), Solanum betaceum (tamarillo), Ceratonia siliqua (carob), Murraya koenigii (curry leaf) and Cinnamomum camphora (camphor) growing like absolute fiends in the open in his backyard, so it will probably grow fine, just Pablo has heard that a lot of the info on Acai is unsubstantiated and often downright lies, seems a bit too risky to get into - the balloon may pop any day.
Cacao would be interesting, though it would probably be a tad too cool at Pablos to grow it commercially, seeing as cocoa is such a particular product.
Haha, that last idea is brilliant though! Pablo has also considered starting a massive Ethnobotanical Garden, all properly landscaped and displayed, charge people to visit some of the most interesting plants in the world! Its totally doable, just Pablo can imagine many of the plants would get ripped-off all the time..