poisonshroom

All dead now =[ the humidity in summer killed them. they all started wilting then the leaves fell off and that was it. I still have plenty of seed to try again when i get more GA-3. I was in Boulia earlier in the year, and didnt realize out tudy area (i didnt realize at the time) was only about 50km from the mulligan river, and if i had of mentioned it at the pub (i was there every night too) someone could have shown me where to find them and possibly given me a sample oh well. And i agree with torsten in that those outback desert bordering areas are really interesting places, and i had a great time at boulia

Mine never fall off (out of about 5-10 i got to germinate) some of them rotted because i left it on. Now i usually just gently hold either side of the split with my forefinger and thumb and gently pull the two sides apart and off the cotyledons. Sometimes it takes a bit of wiggling to get it loose, but they usually come of fine. even if you rip the cotyledons a but they tend to continue to grow fine. Also spraying them with water frequently before removing the seed coat softens it a bit making it easier to get off

I love it how in these articles they put death statistics up as if its some kind of epidemic, but really I think more people die from panadol each year than from 'synthetic drugs'. I mean 8 deaths in Australia from drugs which have been available for half a decade and openly sold in all tobacconists, sex shops and some alternative lifestyle type stores isnt that alarming to me - hundreds die from alcohol poisoning and heroin overdoses each year, but thats not front page news, and theres no push to ban alcohol. Scaremongering propaganda at its finest

Ill probably come again - if i can get there etc..

Unfortunately its hard to trust either side on this matter - leaving me still sitting on the fence with GM. Most reports that say its a horrible thing are poorly done, with the authors usually having bias against GMO technology. I havnt read the report, but from what i gather it doesnt mention what the GM was for (herbicide resistance, bt toxin etc?), and each modification works on different alleles, affecting different systems, so you cant really tar it all with one brush anyway - theyd need to test multiple GMOs with different GM traits to get a real indication of whats safe and what isnt. Also not sure if roundup has different ingredients other than just glyphosate, but as far as i know glyphosate itself is relatively safe to use (as long as you dont eat something thats just been sprayed), as it breaks down rapidly and is readily absorbed by the plant is put on. I dont thing its a good solution though - sould really only be used as a last resort. I visited the farm they grow the wax-tipped bananas at in innisfail, and they use a system they call bioganics or something, but the idea is they dont dig (except directly where they plant the banana tree), dont pull out the weeds or use much fertilizer, and if you've ever eaten one of their bananas you would know they are better than most, and the trees are healthy and high yielding, so really i dont see any need for some of this stuff in the first place. (sorry - off topic a bit lol)

The other thing is those are all brand names - wouldnt changing the names make them 'legal' again? and id love to see them try and ban all synthetic drugs - the caffeine in redbull probably isnt naturally sourced. On the plus side that would mean artificial sweeteners, flavours and colours will be banned too - they are artificial (ie synthetic), and they are chemicals (ie drugs) after all...

They have a couple in one of the pet shops here in Townsville (petHQ). They only have 2 types as far as Iv seen - what they call "desert" and "coastal" or "forest" or something.

Id like to see the actual study for this - from the article a few things arent clear: Where the fluoride went, what form the fluoride was in (as in was it naturally in the water or was it from whatever they add to water to fluoridate it), how they measured the fluoride concentration etc. It sounds encouraging, but Im still a bit skeptical.

Keen =] I have a bigish one, which endorfinder is coming to pick up at some stage, so itll be nice to try out growing some from seed

Horrible - something similar happened at anderson gardens in townsville last week or the week before (except they uprooted and stole a bunch of plants, rather than just hacking at them). I cant understand why anyone would do stuff like that

They work pretty well - but they do tend to fall over and get weak and soft after a bit (fine for vegie seedlings though, which are usually planted out pretty soon after germination. I usually use a toilet paper roll to wrap the newspaper around so you can fold the bottom inside - it works best of you fold the paper in half or use 2 pieces, so its a bit stronger

Love this tree - they are very common on the east coast, quite a fair way inland too. I tend to find most of them along rivers or creek beds, but they are all over the place. I think there are also populations in southern WA. May be placebo, but I remember smoking some bark (very harsh - not ideal) once after walking about 30km in a really bad mood, and it relaxed my aching muscles and improved my mood. I think its similar in potency to mulungu, which is another Erythrina species, which I have found reasonably effective. Not sure of the exact chemicals, but they act a bit like curare. DONT USE THE SEEDS!!!

Snowfella - your's looks like my O. macrocentra from hamiltons (i think - I emailed him and asked if he had any, and he sent me 3 or 4 pads for $5). I have a seedling of a "o. macrocentra", but its not the aqua colour with purple edges like my other ones, and the spines are different ( fairly dense, not many glochids, and not that nice red/black colour). Has anyone eaten the fruit or cladodes (pads) of this species? I have a heap of other species Iv collected from around the place - I love them, but also hate them lol One day ill get around to trying them all. that orchard picture is cool too

From what i understand M. hostilis is a dry climate species (certainly looks like it). Mine does well with minimal water and low humidity (higher than Perth though). Planting it in the ground or a big pot should help prevent too much water loss - the roots are quite large and deep.

Hey all, my massive hylocereus is in full bloom at the moment - this is the most flowers iv ever seen on it! the last two nights dozens of them have opened up and wilted away the next day, but there are still plenty more to come Iv been up there in the mornings on a ladder with a paintbrush to hopefully pollinate some of the flowers so i can get some tasty pitayas. is running a paintbrush around inside the flowers enough to successfully pollinate them? as far as i know pollination rates are pretty poor here naturally (from what i understand in their native habitat they are mostly pollinated by large moths and some bats, which we dont have here). Iv seen plenty of flowering plants around town, but none ever seem to get fruit. this particular plant is around 5 or 6m high and is growing from a small pot thats tied to the host tree (its been there as long as i can remember though and its pretty much busted out of the pot). I would really love to be eating chilled dragonfruit this time next month so hopefully iv done the right thing =] thanks

GA-3 will probably work. the chemical in smoke that breaks seed dormancy acts like gibberellins. The other option is to make your own smoke water/treatment, but its complicated. The other thing you could try is microwave sterilizing the soil or drying the soil out in the sun for a while then re-hydrating it (both supposedly have a similar effect to an ash-bed (not sure exactly how it works though)

yea, the purple is some kind of antioxidant (anthocyanins or something). theres a story going round that in Japan there is a region where the purple sweet potatos are a staple food and the people there have a very high life-expectancy. correlation isnt the same as causality, but when it comes to a healthy diet (especially for 'survival crops'), emulating the diets of people in areas with high life-expectancy and low disease rates is a good idea oh and i dug up some oxalis tubers from the species randomly growing thru my yard (big, rounded leaves, green with some patches of faint purple), and they looked like tiny onions. tasted one and although it was pretty flavourless, it was slightly sweet and had a nice crispy texture (also onion-like, but didnt taste like an onion). i think theyd go good in a sauce (like pasta sauce) or raw in salad etc

yep - iv got blueberries (small ones in pots) that produce the odd fruit or 2 in north qld. They look like they are only about a year old and iv had them since late last year, so they wouldnt be producing much anyway. the fruit they do produce is still sweet and tasty

Yeah id say it's mostly to do with amazon water almost always being rich in tannins (i think even drinking water from the river is usually slightly brown).

I dont want to live in this state any more =[

What colour are they inside? I love the ones which are purple inside, but they are hard to find here (and usually not very purple - but cooking seems to increase the colouration). We got a bunch of shoots from the market intended for use as greens/spinach substitute, and just put them in some water until they sprouted roots - now we have like 20 plants lol not sure if Iv mentioned it, but capers are probably a good one - I got some cuttings out west where they grow wild, and all except one is starting to sprout some new leaves. Apparently the leaves are edible (but these ones have spines on the tip of the leaf), and the fruit tastes like passionfruit and has lots of vitamin C, and of course you can pickle the flower buds and eat the flowers. Australia has a few native species too, which are variable in taste of the fruit (but all should be suitable for pickling), and almost all of them are arid climate species, which can grow on pretty much bare rock and the ones i saw had some flowers even after like 6mm of rain since january and salty ground water. It's probably a good idea to take some local soil if making cuttings though, because they are likely to have a symbiotic fungus or bacteria.

The tannin should increase the acidity of the water, making extraction easier/more effective - like lemon juice or HCL in other things. Looking good =] definitely hope some cuttings from these guys make it out into the community some time. It'll be interesting to see how they go in the very different climates they are being grown in

oh yea - look out for betsy jakes book "plants of magnetic island" I think it's a free PDF you can get off the JCU website. She is amazing! And I have to agree - maggie is a good spot to get up to no good ;) I find growing tropicals and most other things a pain here - the climate is too variable. It gets too cold for some things, too dry or too wet for others and too hot for cool climate plants.

hahaha sounds alright - im in the ville =]

I saw heaps of them at Boulia, but none were as lush as that (its pretty dry out there - especially this year). I tried to dig out a small one, but after i got about 15cm down and the root hadnt even thickened I just tried to pull it out, but I couldnt even pull it out - Id say it has thin, deep tubers, but in a pot or in a garden in brisbane it would probably be a bit different. The ones I saw had slightly different flowers, and smaller leaves, so they may be a different variety/species? Crossing with sweet potato sounds interesting, and would probably work.