Input about experiment

[Guest Ramon]

I have recently cut two pups from the same T.pachanoi and once thet have produced roots I plan to add some dopa containing supplenment to one and not the other.

I was planning of using Mucuna pruriens but see that this plant is no longer available at Shaman so will probably use Fava beans as I believe that they are also high in dopa.

Plan on doing this for about a year to see if we can produce a answer regarding whether this increased the potency of certain cacti or not.

I would like some input as to whether people think that a year will be enough for this sort of experiment and also a good way to check the final results as I am not very sophisticated regarding chemical work.

Initially thinking that a ph test would be the simplest ( assuming alkaloids are alkaline )

Any suggestions as to how to make this experiment as valid as possible would be greatly appreciated.

[Torsten]

I have recently cut two pups from the same T.pachanoi and once thet have produced roots I plan to add some dopa containing supplenment to one and not the other.

Add the dopa where?? In soilo it would be digested by bacteria etc. You would need to inject or somehow get inside the cactus.

I was planning of using Mucuna pruriens but see that this plant is no longer available at Shaman

It's an illegal import and our plants are not doing well due to the wet periods this spring.

so will probably use Fava beans as I believe that they are also high in dopa.

Tyrosine rather than dopa. However tyrosine is as good or even better than dopa for what you're trying to achieve.

I would like some input as to whether people think that a year will be enough for this sort of experiment

Probably.

Initially thinking that a ph test would be the simplest ( assuming alkaloids are alkaline )

Alkaloids can be present as salts, which are neutral to acidic. pH is no use here.

Any suggestions as to how to make this experiment as valid as possible would be greatly appreciated.

You'll need to get this tested for the alkaloid content. ie, in a country where it is legal you could extract the crude total alkaloid mix and compare this to the cactus weight. Eating equal weights at different times would also give you some indication, but a rather subjective one.

[theobromos]

You'll need to get this tested

Do dancesafe do quantitative testing? If not then several other compounds could be added at different known levels so the ordering would give the approximate concentration. One could then just make a little pill out of the plant

I would like some input as to whether people think that a year will be enough for this sort of experiment

I seem to remember that the amino acid feeding experiments with Coryphantha macromeris showed that the turnover of macromerine was less than a month. Perhaps wira has a similar figure for the turnover of mescaline in Trichocerei? It would be unnecessary to do the experiment for longer than this turnover period.

However these experiments only showed a 1% increase in alkaloid, (say from 1% to 1.01% rather than 1% to 2% alkaloid content). It would require very controlled conditions and sensitive testing to determine such a subtle change.

Some of the trace elements could be used by the enzymes. Supplementation (or elimination of a competitor mineral) might be an interesting study, if somewhat complicated.

Perhaps the effect of some plant hormones could be usefully examined, (acetyl- easier to obtain)salicylic acid or jasmonic acid for example. These are used by the plant to report injury and by other plants to warn their fellows, respectively. The plant perceiving itself to be endangered generally persuades it to mobilise its chemical defences.

The experiments should be done at the season of expected highest production which I believe to be November in its native land.

[Guest Ramon]

Thankyou for the feedback.

I hope people treat this as a brainstorming session in that they can say whatever.

In regards to the tyrosine I know that there has been previous threads regarding this so I will find out what I need from the.

If some of this stuff has already been done then I would love to see some of the results as it may save me a lot of effort.

But I think a month might be a bit to short if I am trying out the results on growing cacti as it will take about a year to have enough to be able to do some test on it.

The hormone stuff sound interesting and can be performed on other clones as I only want one variable at a time.

[rkundalini]

I think Gottlieb somewhere another did some stuff with injecting dopamine... not sure where and I wouldn't be suprised if he didn't have any quantitative results to report. I have seen it suggested somewhere that application to the skin of a solution of the chosen precursor in DMSO could be an alternative to injection... (DMSO is a solvent which is excellent at penetrating cells)