Current State of Phalaris Research

[Syragote]

To recap: Phalaris is very promising as a source of N,N-DMT due to its relative abundance and ease of cultivation.

M. tenuiflora root bark is currently still quite easy to source, and so there's no real need for most people to trouble themselves with phalaris. Phalaris research seems to have stalled for this reason. Still, most of us support the ideal that anybody should be able to cultivate their own plant sources.

M. tenuiflora and acacias are quite slow growing, and harvesting the root bark can be quite damaging to the trees. Psychotria viridis and diplopterys cabrerana are fussy plants; slow growing, rarely produce seeds, cuttings are very difficult to find and quite difficult to keep alive once acquired.

These sources can eventually form a sustainable personal supply, but it takes years to establish. They are also dependent (at least initially) on imports from other countries.

As far as cultivation for personal use goes, phalaris has many advantages.

Phalaris can be found pretty much everywhere, and grows virulently enough to be considered an invasive species. It's not a fussy plant; it replenishes itself quickly, there are fields of the stuff to be gathered in the wild, and anybody can easily cultivate a personal supply in a small garden patch, or even indoors. For these reasons, it's completely impractical to ever regulate.

The downside is that the extraction process (for achieving suitably pure N,N-DMT) is more complicated. The alkaloid profiles are highly variable, even among grasses of the same species, and some additional steps will be required to separate the undesirable compounds present in the plant.

It also requires working with a large amount of material, and though phalaris has been reported as potentially quite high yielding, typically you can expect to process several kilograms of material for a personal extraction. The problems it presents are well worth solving, however, and I believe straightforward solutions can be found.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯~⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯​

P. aquatica, arundinacea, and brachystachys appear to be the frontrunners for good N,N-DMT content, though the variegated ["picta"] variety of arundinacea is significantly less potent and should be avoided.

An important note about the (incorrectly) reported 3% alkaloid content of brachystachys:

I lost the paper long ago, I may have just seen it in the agronomy library in college, but I thought I remembered that what happened was the original work stated 3 mg% DMT in fresh brachystachys which was an antiquated way of saying 3 mg per 100 grams (mg per cent... per 100) and when the data got transcribed people just screwed it up not knowing that mg% was a real thing and called it 3%.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯~⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯​

After reading through the phalaris threads on the Nexus and elsewhere, I've created a list of problems that need to be solved in order for phalaris extraction to be commonly viable:

⠀1. An accessible and reliable way to separate 5-MeO-DMT from N,N-DMT​

This is probably the biggest hurdle for phalaris extraction. It would also solve the apparent problem of a lack of good plant sources for clean 5-MeO-DMT.

Even the purported best strains for N,N-DMT content often contain significant quantities of 5-MeO-DMT. One P. aquatica was measured as containing approximately 0.1% DMT, 0.022% 5-MeO-DMT, for example. At this ratio, common N,N doses would also include very real doses of 5-MeO.

While it's possible to clone plants with an ideal alkaloid profile (e.g. AQ-1), it's not viable to rely on acquiring these clones for several reasons:

• There's no sure way to know that you're actually receiving the specified clone.

• The plant can drop seeds and propagate a new plant with a different alkaloid profile, without the cultivator realising it has done this. Other environmental factors may also alter the alkaloid profile. See: HERE about phalaris cloning.

• It's a limiting factor that once again leads to a reliance on trade.

~

This idea has been floated, but it's sketchy and doesn't seem viable.

Sublimation has also been suggested (exploiting the different melting points of N,N and 5-MeO), but this is sketchy as well.

⠀2. Presence of significant quantities of DMT N-oxide​

It seems that phalaris grasses may contain relatively high quantities of DMT N-oxide. See: HERE and HERE

Besides the desirability of N,N-DMT over DMT N-oxide, the N-oxide is reported to be practically insoluble in naphtha, heptane, and many other commonly used NPS. For this reason, the yield could be dramatically affected if not reduced to N,N-DMT before pulling. This can be remedied by performing a zinc reduction during the acid stage, but elemental zinc dust is often difficult to acquire.

Please see this important thread regarding DMT N-oxide. Much of the information circulating about DMT N-oxide appears to be incorrect, but the initial presence of the N-oxide in phalaris may still be a problem.

According to this thread, ascorbic acid could be capable of reducing DMT N-oxide to N,N-DMT. It would be helpful if somebody could confirm or disconfirm this, or otherwise suggest some more accessible methods of reducing the N-oxide to N,N without the use of elemental zinc dust. Besides phalaris, this would also be valuable for general use.

⠀3. Presence of other potentially undesirable compounds​

Gramine and hordenine no longer seem to be a problem, since they appear to be barely soluble in naphtha and d-limonene at room temperature. See: HERE, HERE & HERE

There are still some uncertainties with other compounds, however, and though some of them may only have been detected in negligible quantities so far, the high variability of relative alkaloid levels warrants further investigation. See: HERE

Some prevalent compounds are 2-MTHBC, 5-MeO-NMT, and 6-MeO-2-MeTHBC(?).

Anecdotal reports suggest some pronounced differences in the effects of vapourised phalaris extracts (vs. MHRB extracts, etc), and it's unclear how much of this is attributable to 5-MeO-DMT, or to other compounds that weren't able to be separated during the extraction. Significant quantities of NMT may also be a problem, as well as bufotenin.

These various compounds need to be ruled out as benign, separable during extraction, or only ever occurring in negligible quantities.

⠀4. Initial processing technique​

Some (unspecified?) enzymatic action appears to degrade N,N-DMT (or the N-oxide?) once phalaris is harvested. This process appears to be halted by freezing, and also by soaking in ethanol, but in either case it seems optimal to extract from fresh material. See: HERE

One strategy for processing the wet material is to put it through a wheatgrass juicer, boil the resulting liquid, and remove the layer of chlorophyll that forms on the surface. The solution can then be washed and basified as usual. See: HERE

It's currently unknown whether or not significant quantities of N,N-DMT/DMT N-oxide remain in the discarded material - in either the drained grass, or in the layer of "chlorophyll" removed after boiling. The drained grass can be acid soaked/boiled to recover any remaining alkaloids, but this could be unnecessary.

Considering the abundance of phalaris, the juicing method saves enough time and trouble that it's probably worth sacrificing some yield for the convenience. A simple experiment to confirm this would be to perform a separate extraction on the drained grass, and see if it yields anything substantial.

The alternative would likely be blending the entirety of the wet material to a pulp, acid soaking it, and decanting. Some further experimentation will be necessary here.

This problem is relatively minor, but could be partly responsible for some of the pitifully low yields.

If any of these problems have been solved already, or if I've overlooked something, please set me straight and I'll update the thread. As far as I can see, once these problems have been solved, it'll simply be a matter of maximising the alkaloid content of the plants.

Thank you to everybody who has worked on phalaris issues so far.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯~⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯​

Useful sources:
Endlessness' analysis thread
rild's Brachystachys Test Report
fourthripley's phalaris pdf
Phalaris ID thread
Erowid - P. aquatica analysis
Erowid - P. arundinacea analysis
Erowid - Phalaris strain info
Erowid - Effects of drying (or freezing) versus fresh material
~Phalaris = The Way Of The Future~
Paper on factors affecting tryptamine content in phalaris
Propagation and Cloning of Phalaris Grass

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Very nice summary :thumb_up: Have you sought out current research papers on the topic should there have been any? A collection of references would make a nice addition to this thread.

Your whole post would also be suited to publication in a pdf format.

 

[dreamer042]

Excellent post! :thumb_up:

I have a couple things I can add here:

It's currently unknown whether or not significant quantities of N,N-DMT/DMT N-oxide remain in the discarded material - in either the drained grass, or in the layer of "chlorophyll" removed after boiling. Considering the abundance of phalaris, the juicing method saves enough time and trouble that it's probably worth sacrificing some yield for the convenience.

The alternative would likely be blending the entirety of the wet material to a pulp, acid soaking it, and decanting. Some further experimentation will be necessary here.

After processing through the juicer, the material is masticated, largely dried, and compressed. A quick boil on this material should recover most anything that would be left (would be good to test this to see if it's even necessary).

it'll simply be a matter of maximising the alkaloid content of the plants.

:twisted: Check this one out. We simply spike the tryptamine content with ammonium sulfate and harvest regrowth. This should work well on a wild patch (being mindful of introducing large amounts of ammonium sulfate into natural environments) and especially well on the selected already high alkaloid strains for home cultivation.

 

[Syragote]

Very nice summary :thumb_up: Have you sought out current research papers on the topic should there have been any? A collection of references would make a nice addition to this thread.

Your whole post would also be suited to publication in a pdf format.

Thanks! I'm still digging, but I'll be adding any references that I come across. Perhaps I'll create a pdf once it's been refined a bit.

After processing through the juicer, the material is masticated, largely dried, and compressed. A quick boil on this material should recover most anything that would be left (would be good to test this to see if it's even necessary).

Right. As you said, it's a matter of figuring out if it's actually necessary. A simple experiment to confirm this would be to perform a separate extraction on the drained grass, and see if it yields anything substantial.

:twisted: Check this one out. We simply spike the tryptamine content with ammonium sulfate and harvest regrowth. This should work well on a wild patch (being mindful of introducing large amounts of ammonium sulfate into natural environments) and especially well on the selected already high alkaloid strains for home cultivation.

Thanks a lot, I didn't see that paper. I'll add it to the references.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Quoted for posterity...

To recap: Phalaris is very promising as a source of N,N-DMT due to its relative abundance and ease of cultivation.

M. tenuiflora root bark is currently still quite easy to source, and so there's no real need for most people to trouble themselves with phalaris. Phalaris research seems to have stalled for this reason. Still, most of us support the ideal that anybody should be able to cultivate their own plant sources.

M. tenuiflora and acacias are quite slow growing, and harvesting the root bark can be quite damaging to the trees. Psychotria viridis and diplopterys cabrerana are fussy plants; slow growing, rarely produce seeds, cuttings are very difficult to find and quite difficult to keep alive once acquired.

These sources can eventually form a sustainable personal supply, but it takes years to establish. They are also dependent (at least initially) on imports from other countries.

As far as cultivation for personal use goes, phalaris has many advantages.

Phalaris can be found pretty much everywhere, and grows virulently enough to be considered an invasive species. It's not a fussy plant; it replenishes itself quickly, there are fields of the stuff to be gathered in the wild, and anybody can easily cultivate a personal supply in a small garden patch, or even indoors. For these reasons, it's completely impractical to ever regulate.

The downside is that the extraction process (for achieving suitably pure N,N-DMT) is more complicated. The alkaloid profiles are highly variable, even among grasses of the same species, and some additional steps will be required to separate the undesirable compounds present in the plant.

It also requires working with a large amount of material, and though phalaris has been reported as potentially quite high yielding, typically you can expect to process several kilograms of material for a personal extraction. The problems it presents are well worth solving, however, and I believe straightforward solutions can be found.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯~⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯​

P. aquatica, arundinacea, and brachystachys appear to be the frontrunners for good N,N-DMT content, though the variegated ["picta"] variety of arundinacea is significantly less potent and should be avoided.

An important note about the (incorrectly) reported 3% alkaloid content of brachystachys:

I lost the paper long ago, I may have just seen it in the agronomy library in college, but I thought I remembered that what happened was the original work stated 3 mg% DMT in fresh brachystachys which was an antiquated way of saying 3 mg per 100 grams (mg per cent... per 100) and when the data got transcribed people just screwed it up not knowing that mg% was a real thing and called it 3%.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯~⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯​

After reading through the phalaris threads on the Nexus and elsewhere, I've created a list of problems that need to be solved in order for phalaris extraction to be commonly viable:

⠀1. An accessible and reliable way to separate 5-MeO-DMT from N,N-DMT​

This is probably the biggest hurdle for phalaris extraction. It would also solve the apparent problem of a lack of good plant sources for clean 5-MeO-DMT.

Even the purported best strains for N,N-DMT content often contain significant quantities of 5-MeO-DMT. One P. aquatica was measured as containing approximately 0.1% DMT, 0.022% 5-MeO-DMT, for example. At this ratio, common N,N doses would also include very real doses of 5-MeO.

While it's possible to clone plants with an ideal alkaloid profile (e.g. AQ-1), it's not viable to rely on acquiring these clones for several reasons:

• There's no sure way to know that you're actually receiving the specified clone.

• The plant can drop seeds and propagate a new plant with a different alkaloid profile, without the cultivator realising it has done this. Other environmental factors may also alter the alkaloid profile. See: HERE about phalaris cloning.

• It's a limiting factor that once again leads to a reliance on trade.

~

This idea has been floated, but it's sketchy and doesn't seem viable.

Sublimation has also been suggested (exploiting the different melting points of N,N and 5-MeO), but this is sketchy as well.

⠀2. Presence of significant quantities of DMT N-oxide​

It seems that phalaris grasses may contain relatively high quantities of DMT N-oxide. See: HERE and HERE

Besides the desirability of N,N-DMT over DMT N-oxide, the N-oxide is reported to be practically insoluble in naphtha, heptane, and many other commonly used NPS. For this reason, the yield could be dramatically affected if not reduced to N,N-DMT before pulling. This can be remedied by performing a zinc reduction during the acid stage, but elemental zinc dust is often difficult to acquire.

Please see this important thread regarding DMT N-oxide. Much of the information circulating about DMT N-oxide appears to be incorrect, but the initial presence of the N-oxide in phalaris may still be a problem.

According to this thread, ascorbic acid could be capable of reducing DMT N-oxide to N,N-DMT. It would be helpful if somebody could confirm or disconfirm this, or otherwise suggest some more accessible methods of reducing the N-oxide to N,N without the use of elemental zinc dust. Besides phalaris, this would also be valuable for general use.

⠀3. Presence of other potentially undesirable compounds​

Gramine and hordenine no longer seem to be a problem, since they appear to be barely soluble in naphtha and d-limonene at room temperature. See: HERE, HERE & HERE

There are still some uncertainties with other compounds, however, and though some of them may only have been detected in negligible quantities so far, the high variability of relative alkaloid levels warrants further investigation. See: HERE

Some prevalent compounds are 2-MTHBC, 5-MeO-NMT, and 6-MeO-2-MeTHBC(?).

Anecdotal reports suggest some pronounced differences in the effects of vapourised phalaris extracts (vs. MHRB extracts, etc), and it's unclear how much of this is attributable to 5-MeO-DMT, or to other compounds that weren't able to be separated during the extraction. Significant quantities of NMT may also be a problem, as well as bufotenin.

These various compounds need to be ruled out as benign, separable during extraction, or only ever occurring in negligible quantities.

⠀4. Initial processing technique​

Some (unspecified?) enzymatic action appears to degrade N,N-DMT (or the N-oxide?) once phalaris is harvested. This process appears to be halted by freezing, and also by soaking in ethanol, but in either case it seems optimal to extract from fresh material. See: HERE

One strategy for processing the wet material is to put it through a wheatgrass juicer, boil the resulting liquid, and remove the layer of chlorophyll that forms on the surface. The solution can then be washed and basified as usual. See: HERE

It's currently unknown whether or not significant quantities of N,N-DMT/DMT N-oxide remain in the discarded material - in either the drained grass, or in the layer of "chlorophyll" removed after boiling. The drained grass can be acid soaked/boiled to recover any remaining alkaloids, but this could be unnecessary.

Considering the abundance of phalaris, the juicing method saves enough time and trouble that it's probably worth sacrificing some yield for the convenience. A simple experiment to confirm this would be to perform a separate extraction on the drained grass, and see if it yields anything substantial.

The alternative would likely be blending the entirety of the wet material to a pulp, acid soaking it, and decanting. Some further experimentation will be necessary here.

This problem is relatively minor, but could be partly responsible for some of the pitifully low yields.

If any of these problems have been solved already, or if I've overlooked something, please set me straight and I'll update the thread. As far as I can see, once these problems have been solved, it'll simply be a matter of maximising the alkaloid content of the plants.

Thank you to everybody who has worked on phalaris issues so far.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯~⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯​

Useful sources:
Endlessness' analysis thread
rild's Brachystachys Test Report
fourthripley's phalaris pdf
Phalaris ID thread
Erowid - P. aquatica analysis
Erowid - P. arundinacea analysis
Erowid - Phalaris strain info
Erowid - Effects of drying (or freezing) versus fresh material
~Phalaris = The Way Of The Future~
Paper on factors affecting tryptamine content in phalaris
Propagation and Cloning of Phalaris Grass

And,

Very nice summary :thumb_up: Have you sought out current research papers on the topic should there have been any? A collection of references would make a nice addition to this thread.

Your whole post would also be suited to publication in a pdf format.

Thanks! I'm still digging, but I'll be adding any references that I come across. Perhaps I'll create a pdf once it's been refined a bit.

After processing through the juicer, the material is masticated, largely dried, and compressed. A quick boil on this material should recover most anything that would be left (would be good to test this to see if it's even necessary).

Right. As you said, it's a matter of figuring out if it's actually necessary. A simple experiment to confirm this would be to perform a separate extraction on the drained grass, and see if it yields anything substantial.

:twisted: Check this one out. We simply spike the tryptamine content with ammonium sulfate and harvest regrowth. This should work well on a wild patch (being mindful of introducing large amounts of ammonium sulfate into natural environments) and especially well on the selected already high alkaloid strains for home cultivation.

Thanks a lot, I didn't see that paper. I'll add it to the references.

 

[PsyDuckmonkey]

The thread about separating N,N and 5-MeO has an interesting idea floated.

Separating 5-MeO-DMT from DMT - Bufotenine and 5-MeO-DMT - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

The easiest way for people at home to do this has to be using prep plate TLC IMHO. This should allow you to separate up to a gram or so of material depending on the plates one uses. Granted this isn't going to be a good method for bulk production...for that I'd use a regular silica gel column and spot checks with TLC.

In any event it almost certainly is going to be cheaper to find an online vendor that will ship you 5-meo.

Peace.

I think this is, at the moment, the most promising approach to separating active ingredients, so it's probably a good thing to call it out. It sounds quite feasible for amounts one typically works on for personal use. I'll definitely be looking more into this as I explore the grass path.

(And cheaper 5-MeO is no longer a consideration, especially since we're primarily trying to get N,N without the 5-MeO here.)

 

[Subtlevibrations]

I was sifting the forum looking for information on phalaris; thank you for this extremely helpful compilation. Everything I wanted to know right in one spot

 

[donfoolio]

I just wanted to add an experience concerning "picta" phalaris. Some twenty years ago, a guy gave me a picta variety of phalaris and I started to bioassaying on it. It seemed to be a pure 5-MeO profile, which would become clear later when a friend made some analysis via a chromatograph on it.

Just to say, these things exist. When you find an interesting strain, go on and work on it. Next step would be massale selection to improve its properties.

If it is a picta, aquatica or what - good quality strains can be found everywhere.