Psychotria Viridis

[Shroomie the Shaman]

I have two fresh, healthy looking Psychotria shrubs (not yet develloping berries, but getting there) and don't quite know the best thing to do with them. Are the leaves active when dead? Do I wait then cut the lot next year? I used to grow phalaris grass but need a course in Psychotria usage...methods ect...please help this curious psychonaut!

[Benzito]

If you are harvesting leaves from ANY plant, you do it while they are alive and healthy.

If you wait till the leaves die, they will have nothing active in them.

Any harvesting you wish to do, would be best done during the warmer months, so the plant can regrow some foliage before winter.

Just pick them, then use them as you would phalaris. Levels of actives will be different to Phalaris, obviously.

[Shroomie the Shaman]

If you are harvesting leaves from ANY plant, you do it while they are alive and healthy.

If you wait till the leaves die, they will have nothing active in them.

Any harvesting you wish to do, would be best done during the warmer months, so the plant can regrow some foliage before winter.

Just pick them, then use them as you would phalaris. Levels of actives will be different to Phalaris, obviously.

Thanks man, from the plant to freezer ect...I know the leaves and stems are active, but roughly how many handfulls of fresh matter do you wait to get before it's worth cutting? (I mean worth the prep time, about 4-5 people.)

Thanks!

[transDiMenTional]

do the maths shroomie. pv is said to be around 0.01% i think or maybe it was 0.1%. Erowid is a good place to find this info.

[Shroomie the Shaman]

do the maths shroomie. pv is said to be around 0.01% i think or maybe it was 0.1%. Erowid is a good place to find this info.

Back from the vaults...got the numbers, just wondering here in Australia (SEQLD) how much these things can take, should I leave them a year to settle, or mow em back neatly, how hearty are they?

[Benzito]

Your climate will vary, so will your potting mix, so will the fertilisers you use, etc, etc.

Take it easy this year, and guage how quick it grows back for next season.

Or, just mow it back and learn the hard way.

[Stonehenge]

PV clones very easily but takes a while. If you put a couple leaves in damp soil now, by the end of winter they should have nice shoots going up and be ready to be planted. Take a cutting from the tallest tips, trim the leaves and you can have cuttings rooting while the leaves root and develop. I never tried to extract from them so I can't help you there.

[Shroomie the Shaman]

Thanks people...got two so I guess i'll just leave one then crop the other and hope...cloning tips highly appreciated!

[mutant]

If you are harvesting leaves from ANY plant, you do it while they are alive and healthy.

If you wait till the leaves die, they will have nothing active in them.

Well that's not exactly true with ANY plant. Salvia divinorum leaves, which of course is illegal in any form in Australia but legal almost everywhere else, are usually gathered when they die/dry/fall off, even though I am not really sure they don't loose some of their potency...

[planthelper]

what benzito said, is very true, and is awell true for salvia div.

but sure, old, fallen, or yellow leaves might still have some punch, with some plants more than with others.

using old or fallen, or both leaves posess aswell some contamination risks, as once a leaf dies, all sort of critters and organisms right away start to decompose this material, and smoking or preparing preparations with, let's for example say, a bit moldy stuff, is never a good idea.

remeber that weed you scored from some dubious sorces, and which made you cough sooo much?

it made you cough because it was spoiled by whatever organisms, whilst it was stored or cured in an unprofessional fashion!!

never smoke weed or any herb if it makes you cough far more than usual, chaces are it has been spoilt, and as such posses an increased health risk.

strong dope can still be smooth smoke...

[mutant]

Interesting.

Do you have any information on how much is the potency of Sal.Div. reduced [fresh compared to an old leaf that just died or was damaged from frost] ? Of course it wouldn't be such a good idea to smoke moldy stuff. Some leaves might be damaged from cold. I am talking about freshly deceased leaves but , sure, infected leaves could be another thing.

I have heard of people talking about this in other forums and most wait for the leaves to be really old or even fall to pick.

[Torsten]

I don't think Benzito was right at all. Sure, with many alkaloids this might be the case, but I can think of as many species where the dead leaves are just as potent.

Salvia leaves that have just fallen are possibly the strongest you will ever get. As the salvinorin is on the outside of the plant it doesn't really know whether the leaf is dead or not. Just like columbian gold is harvested from dead plants. In both cases it is the amount of rain and wind that decreases the potency, but if you do them in the greenhouse then the oldest leaves [ie the dead ones] are the most potent. Someone alctually analysed salvia leaves years ago to ascertain this and there was a write up of it on one of the O/S forums.

another interesting one is that Acacia phlebophylla leaves that have fallen and gone brown are just as potent as the green ones on the tree.

[mutant]

Thanks, as always, interesting info!

[planthelper]

I don't think Benzito was right at all. Sure, with many alkaloids this might be the case, but I can think of as many species where the dead leaves are just as potent.

Salvia leaves that have just fallen are possibly the strongest you will ever get. As the salvinorin is on the outside of the plant it doesn't really know whether the leaf is dead or not. Just like columbian gold is harvested from dead plants. In both cases it is the amount of rain and wind that decreases the potency, but if you do them in the greenhouse then the oldest leaves [ie the dead ones] are the most potent. Someone alctually analysed salvia leaves years ago to ascertain this and there was a write up of it on one of the O/S forums.

another interesting one is that Acacia phlebophylla leaves that have fallen and gone brown are just as potent as the green ones on the tree.

you post gives an immpression which might lead into believing, as a generall rule, old fallen leaves are the strongest, and this is not the case at all, specialy not with viridis and this is the plant which is the focus of this thread.

that some cannabis gets processed in the yellow stages doesn't mean either yellow is stronger than green, the only thing we could say for certain is, that yellow, is mellow (some sort of curing process is taking place alredy). this yellow material looses a lot of weight, so the actives versus weight ratio goes up, but as we know cannabis actives do detoriate over time, and this means that the older the material the weaker it will get. this detoriation process starts right from the point the leaf starts to die, or has been harverested. with salvia divinorum the same rule would apply, and i agree that in this case older leaves are the best, but my point was foremost about the dangers of consuming "fallen leaves" which very often can get moldy very fast. let me explain the what i mean with actives to weight ratio. if you cure plant materials, the weight of the material will decrease dramasticly, meaning that instead of being able to only stuff one single leaf in your cone (say material which has been dried for 2 weeks) you could fit twice as much or more of the same material (compared to its original volume) into your cone!! so basicly the material has became twice as strong, but in at the same time, probably some detoriation has taken place, meaning your gear might be not 200% stronger in relations to weight but maybe 195%, as we pretend 2,5 % of the actives have been lost already.

some materials change there chemical structure and might get stronger aswell by storage, kratom is a likely candidate for this.

from reading your posts it feels to me that you generaly promote a view like, " the oldest leaves are the best", and i remeber posts in this regard even about catha edulis (one single old catha edulis leaf can produce stimulation), but this is not the view held by the qat chewers. maybe old qat leaves are containing more actives (which i doubt ), but they are surly immpossible to consume in large ammounts, for me even a similar thing happend with salvia divinorm when it was still legal in australia, i prefered to smoke the tip's and not the fan leaves, obviously in comparisment to cannabis.

fresh is the best, don't use fallen leaves specialy of salvia div unless you pick them up on a daily base, because your salvia is very likely to be kept in a humid enviroment and/or will get watered very often, as such the water will spill on your fallen leaves and moulds will grow within a very short periode of time.

edit: no wonder the mount buffalow wattle leave is very potent even old and dry (wattle leaves are safe guarded from being decomposed by micro organisms to some extend, as such the actives stay protected longer than with viridis), as dmt is very stable (but not stable if bacteria and micro organisms attack the plant material, as in the case what happens with fallen viridis leaves). aswell fresh leaves will have lower yields if extracted because "something" seems to hold on to the actives if one processes fresh material.

in short fresh (in fresh from the tree, but mature!) accacia leaves probably contain even slightly more actives than old fallen ones, is just that some of the actives seem to be impossible to extract if working with green material.

Edited March 3, 2008 by planthelper