Ephedra sp. cultivation notes and discussion

[sagiXsagi]

On 16/05/2022 at 4:35 AM, withdrawl clinic said:

i think, one can't give advice to ephedras in general, as they come from very different latitudes and climatic zones because of elevation.   [...] 

 

you are right in the principle.. any suggestion will be better when customised to species, plant age + history, plant container , climate , microhabitat and caring habit. 

 

I have found that the easiest to die on me were the american species, so they particularly need free-drainage .. And its these species who hate it more to be  wet over extended periods of time when they are 'sleeping/resting' . Yet its also possible you loose them if you forget them too dry - which then the plants usually warn you by drying off parts of their branches. Those species  seem to like heavier and poorer in nutricionals  clay-sand  substrate , whereas distachya, major, fragilis, foeminea  and even established  sinicas was grow in typical garden plants soil.  

 

Putting pebbles in the soil surface seems to help in any species, any age and any pot size. 

 

as for fragilis vs major, I think I have begun to figure out a way to tell in established habitat plants or big plants in the ground,  but its not as easy in plants in containers, well not until you have them growing side to side which I plan to do next season with new well-IDed seeds from spain.  more or less, fragilis is bigger with fatter branches and it also tends to create sucker shoots more readily. Major is more erect too.  But other wise they are very similar. 

 

on my good news,  today I picked the first chiloensis seeds !!!! woohoo! the fruits cones fleshy bracts do not become red or as bloated as other species, they are pinkish.  

[withdrawl clinic]

sagi, you make a very good point here, and one that was hard for me to get right, for a long time, for some plants with similar requirements.

tort, once said overwatering a plant can kill it fast, but underwatering will not, one can always just increase the water regime, when needed.

 

some plants are tricky and need, excatly what you suggested.

as well, i believe that some wilting diseases living in the soil, can get encouraged by bad watering regimes.

 

i am sorry to say, i stopped using pseudo ephedrin in pill form, as it now gives my tachicardia, a pitty, because it was the only otc pill, that helped, my hayfever/globus.

all other stuff promoted by the pharmacies, was usless, how can they make claims which are not true for many people, the TGA sucks!!

 

 

[sagiXsagi]

Having said all this,  distachya , major, fragilis, foeminea are less likely to die from overwatering, and once established they are really OK being wet all year round in my zone 9 roof, and now I almost have them all in permanent semishade even sinicas during the heat of the summer  except a couple of them, and those ones that are in full sun, I have to be more carefull so that they dont dry up.... so yeah, after a while, and especially in summer, the worry is never the overwatering, its the drying up if they are not watered often enough ....   I also thing that the more they grow the more vegetative growths per year the do, especially distachya once it gets going , in the right climate it will grow almost yeararound...  if you prune a fragilis, it responds back quickly, it does  thick new sprouts ...  they are very strong plants, especially fragilis... . 

 

sinica and seemingly equisetina are kinda in the middle in terms of how prone to rotting are ... and the american species are the most tricky, at least in my experience...  

 

thing is, once they are established  (size and a routine) , they are kind of easy-going plants, almost care-free, and I am currently in a state I have 3 chiloensis at this advanced, wood at the based stage.. I lost a big viridis approaching this stage which was a pity.. 

 

Well I think plant material might be more suitable for a therepeutic approach than isolated alkaloids, propably european distachyas have the best profile ( medium PE  and low E ) for these kind of treatments.  But I also think that maybe when taken for a long time for a therapeutic scheme ,  you might have to have on and off periods.. I think these alkaloids can be kinda cumulative and I also know they actively change your metabolism.. So  in a case where they were needed for a treatment, I would definately consider periodic off times  and maybe substitute pill PE with  distachya .. Its often said that the whole herb is more therapeytically active than isolated compouds, maybe this is also true with ephedra..   

 

NEWS/UPDATES: 

well I went to the distachya habitat today and I found a several plants packed with fruits, or more correctly cones... I have tried some fominea fruits , they are pleasant but hardly any sweet usually, now I had tried some of my own unknown  progeny distachyas fruits, and sometimes they are very pleasant and sweet... now, I tasted those wild ones from my area ,  man those are very sweet fruits and pretty big fruits, fleshy, and juicy.. (distachya does 3 pairs of fleshy cone bracts)  ... THere's a asian paper on the nutricional value of sinica fruit...  Its really puzzling how this plant is boycotted from the collective knowledge - because the implications with everything are too huge to ignore.. I mean you cant fucking ignore the ephedra genus.. the fuckers have multiple value in several science fields ..  

to be continued in the the habitat thread 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by sagiXsagi

[withdrawl clinic]

3 hours ago, sagiXsagi said:

 Its often said that the whole herb is more therapeytically active than isolated compouds, maybe this is also true with ephedra..   

 

 

 

 

i want to add that i hold this believe, for most other psychotropic plants as well.

and allowes me to bitch, against the established paradime regarding drugs.

 

some of those alkaloids, which get removed or, don't excist in a synthetic product, are often not understood, with somniferium, they stop you from using too much, with coca they make you a bit calm....

humans are soo convinced they can do it better than nature, but the opposite is the case. this thinking will destroy earth.

[sagiXsagi]

57 minutes ago, withdrawl clinic said:

i want to add that i hold this believe, for most other psychotropic plants as well.

and allowes me to bitch, against the established paradime regarding drugs.

 

some of those alkaloids, which get removed or, don't excist in a synthetic product, are often not understood, with somniferium, they stop you from using too much, with coca they make you a bit calm....

humans are soo convinced they can do it better than nature, but the opposite is the case. this thinking will destroy earth.

 

well my friend , I think that the whole shit started with usa   alcohol prohibition because USA... that mentality.  and then they decided  they would grade drugs and enoforce this to the whole fucking world, because they had a failed psychdelic revolution in their hands... drug classification in my country is nuts and thats because we have the USA paradigm ...... 

[sagiXsagi]

Short update  + pictures , as I was tidying up a bit today : 

 

Indeed , for such a hot and dry summer as mine in zone 9 southern greece, placing plants under shade in the summer seems to work wonders, resulting in a more care free style of plantcaring . But you have to change to sunnier positions the rest of the year..   

 

I got 4x  Ephedra feldschenkoi plants, put then in a more clay based soil. These are supposed to be in the E.minima category, very short, small bushy, slightly crawling 

 

 

and 4 x E. intermedia plants , those are supposed to be the intermediate form between the shorter sinica and the taller equisetina. 

 

 

all newcomers are seed growns , they came with some while etiolation in the package, but I trained them in shade and they seem to be doing great so far.. Intermedia seem like vigorous plants, I wonder how they will compare, since my equisetina started from damaged and stressed rooted cutting / branch took its time to take off.. 

 

By the way I made my first attempt at propagating equisetina today, here's a pic of the mother plant after the proceedure. Fingers crossed! 

 

 

I have been postponing to transplant my biggest E.chiloensis to bigger pot, its been in the same pot with a big variegated cactus , a polaskia chichipe  crest for many years .. Part of me was afraid of the stress..   Anyways, here some of the fattest branches of my biggy chiloensis . Definately my small experience and losses  have taught me that chiloensis and propably any american species is better of in poor clay/sand style soil  mixed only with a tid bit of nutricious compost soil.  I am quite positive now that I woulnt have lost the american species I have lost if I had consistently used such poor heavy substrate

 

 

and yet another 2 pics 

 

    

[sagiXsagi]

 

equisetina at the phase of doing multiple suckers. the 2nd plant I made last year died because I left it unwatered during summer in too much of a sunny position. same with my best chiloensis, sadly

 

 

new equisetinas from suckers

 

 

sinica with multiple suckers, I removed the branches that were coming out of the holes, which is a pretty good way to propagate after all, holes being large enough and all 

 

 

the new sinicas I made today

 

 

distachya ssp helvetica 

 

last but not least, 4x intermedia transplanted to their own individual pots, even though they were supposed to be lower in hight and general size from equisetina, I have found they are superior in terms of speed, hardiness , size and ease of growth compared to equisetina and sinica. Also 3 of them are flowering, so I am hoping to get some some seeds eventually 

 

Cheers