~Phalaris = The Way Of The Future~

[neurobloom]

Some thoughts on breaking dormancy...

I've also heard of smoke breaking phalaris seed dormancy. While wondering how sulphuric acid might be breaking the dormancy, it occurred to me that maybe ethylene was being produced (very) locally from some kind of reaction with the seed coat. Ethylene (ethene) is thought to be one of the components of smoke that contributes to breaking dormancy, so here's an idea - what if putting the germinating seeds with a ripe banana might help? Bananas are well known for their ethylene output inducing ripening in other fruit, so there is a chance it can be applied here.

It may be that this only applies to the temperate phalaris species, I don't know. Nor can I see how this might relate to cold germination, not that it needs to.

I have already done the smoking step before mixing the seeds with soil. I have a beekeeping smoker I put dried and crushed up phalaris panicles inside the smoker lit it up and smoked the seeds in a container.

I have no question that bananas skin releases ethylene however the skin tends to rot very easily and grow mold in wet envirement. That's bad news for germinating seeds. This is why I have heat treated the soil before mixing in the seeds and adding water so no mold can form.
This is how it's done in agricultural laboratories. I used a small styrofoam box with a tight lid as container to retain a stable temperature. And bought a good thermometer poke a hole with it into the box till it reaches the soil to check the Temperature and know which is the best spot in the fridge for a 9 celcius at night and 15 celcius at morning. I end up moving this box up at day and putting it down lower in the fridge at night where I keep vegetables around 14/15 celcius.
Anyways it worked.

The sulfuric acid breaks dormancy by etching the seed coat which helps water permeates it. You only need about 2~3 minutes to break dormancy this way then wash the seeds and set for germination. It would have been much quicker this way.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

OK, thanks - I see you're way ahead of me on this one! :thumb_up:

 

[neurobloom]

You're welcome. This method has worked like a charm:thumb_up:
These pics were taken last night and the night before. Last night i flushed the styrofoam box with water to remove all the soil and captured the seedlings with a sieve. Placed them in a shallow dish with some water to not dry up while transplanting them to a big clay pot. I just used a fork to dig small holes for each seedling. When I got tired of doing this I scattered the remaining seedlings all around the soil surface and covered the base of the stalks with a shallow layer of soil and watered with a bottle that has small holes in its cap to not disturb the delicate seedlings.

 

[neurobloom]

Surprisingly some of the seedlings roots have poked through the styrofoam trying to dig deeper and were hard to remove intact. They sticked like glue. The key to succeeding in germination was the alternating temperature between 9 and 15 celcius between day and night. Once germination starts you no longer have to maintain this temperature control.

I tried to germinate some seeds from the same batch in a stable one single temperature around 9 day and night and only very few has germinated this way.

Some scientific literature suggests germinating at 4 celcius for three days in the dark on a Petri dish covered with wet filter paper as efficient (this was done in Iran) when I tried this in our Mediterranean climate it failed miserably.

So I followed a Spanish research paper where the experiments were performed in southern Spain a semi arid climate similar to ours in North africa and it was the same guidelines which I followed in this last successful experiment.

So I guess one germination guideline might work for some in a certain region and not work for others. Each strain of grass has adapted to its own climate and the sweet spot in humidity and Temperature within the year to germinate for its best interest.

 

[neurobloom]

A bit of update

 

[neurobloom]

So about a week ago I harvested some new growth tips from my small patch of phalaris brachyatchys I shown in my previous post it just grown quiet a bit since that picture and grew fast!. It was around 10 grams. Left it to dry up halfway through. Today I used a scissor to cut this small batch into tiny pieces the size of Tabacco and kneaded it using 50/50 isopropyl, ethanol mix (a couple millilitres, it's sold this way as a mix 98% food Grade. My logic behind this was to speed up the drying process and it seems to have worked to an extent. I took around 70% of this semi dry batch and rolled it into a joint. Expectedly it wasn't easy to light up but it still worked.

I couldn't believe it! It was active :d the oncet was very fast. While not as strong as the oral brachys with rue, it still had a nice headspace, everything had a deeper colour. Euphoric, a substantial decrease in anxiety, smooth ride, similar headspace to the oral experience just lighter with no panic. I didn't smoke much either as it was difficult to smoke properly. I should also take into account the tolerance build up effect when smoking it that slow and that inefficiently.

The take away home from this experience is that this grass is high in tryptamine alkaloids. Am not sure which kind or at which ratio. I never tried extracted neither synthetic DMT or 5-meo-dmt to compare with this experience. All I know is that orally with rue it was very active and had quite a trip. Smoked at this ammount it gave an unmistakable headspace and visual effects similar to the oral route just substantially lighter experience and didn't last that long.

I think this strain of brachys is sure worth extracting from and I believe it will yield pretty well something around the yields from acacia confusa, mhrb or aquatica AQ1.
Just very pleased to share this here with you guys I'm looking forward to bioassay an extract from this grass properly vaped.

One more thing. I've been on paroxetine for three months and been off it for two weeks now. Is it that enough time being off paroxetine to drink a preparation of this grass with rue once again? Or should I wait maybe another week to be on the safe side?

Edit:
Initially upon smoking this grass joint the smoke was exceptionally smooth and tastes great. As the joint was nearing halfway through the smoke was getting harsher and started to increasingly smell and feel like mothballs in my throat. Also near the end of the joint is where I felt the most activity from the joint. My logic is that the tryptamines were vaporising (partially breaking down also) and condensing near the end of the joint near the paper filter. Once I finished the joint I smelled the filter it smelled like feces!!! So I did some reading on break down substances from decomposing tryptamines and found that one particular decomposition byproduct does indeed Smell like feces and is the same substance that gives feces it's bad smell! The filter also still had a faint mothballs smell!

Can't wait to harvest something like 500g of fresh regrowth and see what I can extract from it with dichloromethane.

 

[John.Brown]

this is my aq1 plant, how many grams are recommended to extract for a dose and can you just smoke aq1 straight?

 

[John.Brown]

additionally from the research i have done, fertilizing with ammonium sulfate is the best, basically give them as much as they can take, im not sure how much that is exactly. also fertilizing with tryptophan can increase alkaloid content. i only have one house plant and some local patches, i have fertilized the wild patches with ammonium sulfate and will harvest more this weekend if i have time.

 

[neurobloom]

I hate to sound pessimistic here but the AQ1 you got there in the picture isn't enough to be worth extracting neither for an oral brew . It's going to take quiet some time for that one seedling to grow big enough for its rhyzomes to be divided and for those divided rhyzomes to grow and devide Into enough biomass that's worth extracting. It's probably going to take several years. As for the wild patches of arudinacea it can still yield some spice it's just going to take a lot of biomass (at least a 1kg) for very little unknown ratio of tryptamines. Your best bet is to buy something like 20g of phalaris brachyatchys and sowe outside directly into the soil and cover with a thin layer of seived soil to protect it from ants and from being flushed by rain water. It's more efficient to germinate the seeds first in a styrofoam box just like I described in my previous posts then sowe at the earliest sign of germination. Ants are usually after the seeds not the seedlings. This will guarantee the survival of the seedlings.

To answer your question regarding how many grams of biomass are needed of AQ1 to be worth extracting it will probably be something like 200g. Leafy plants are usually harder to extract than Bark so more is always better. Festi & samorini has noted that AQ1 was active smoked for some volunteers while for others it wasn't active. Heating the fresh cuttings instead of burning it has also worked for some. In their research article 60 g was enough as a regular oral dose of AQ1 with rue.

Two days ago I sown 40g of germinated brachyatchys in rows of 3m Square area. I watered the area to be sown. Mixed the germinated seeds with wet sand and scattered the sand in rows. Then I covered these germinated seeds with a shallow layer of seived soil each day as it grew up. This was to stabilise the seedlings. So far so good:wink:

 

[neurobloom]

Today I decided to increase the density of the seedlings in these rows so I scattered some seeds I got left (something like 20g) and went to sieve some soil to cover the seeds from ants. Once I finished sieving I found that half the scatters seeds were already being foraged by ants I had to follow the ants to their nests digged a hole in their nest and collected the seeds they (ain't going to get robbed!) gathered and scattered back these foraged seeds along with some soil and covered with a thicker layer of soil to hide them from these hungry ants.

Also there was a lot of weeds germinating in my sowing area. Had to dislodge the weeds too. And used a graminacea herbicide to kill the weeds weeds surrounding my sowing area so they don't occupy and choke my seedlings.

I never thought growing some phalaris grass can be this much work! It's very easy in pots but on farm soil that's been occupied by local weeds and ants it's turned out to be quiet a challenge. And this is just 3m meter Square area!

 

[Era/is]

this is my aq1 plant, how many grams are recommended to extract for a dose and can you just smoke aq1 straight?

Hi John.Brown ,
from 20 grams of grass you can obtain a good quantity of alcaloids. The important thing is to remove the fats and oils that prevent the extraction of all tryptamines.

I think ammonium nitrate is better than sulfate for this plant. Be careful with the quantity of fertilizer.

However, it is always necessary to try small quantities gradually increased to determine the concentration of alkaloids in the extract. Once this is done, the quantity suitable for the trip must be weighed each time.

If done right, the extract leads to very beautiful creatures / entities ...

 

[neurobloom]

90g of brachys was simmered for 4 hours with some vinegar. Freeze and thawed it once then simmered again for 30 mins. Tea reduced, filtered through cotton and further reduced to a small volume. To this I added unweighted amount of sodium carbonate and used a hot water bath to dry it completely.

Color instantly changed to coffee grounds and smell resembled tasty nuts. 60/40 isopropyl/ethanol dry mix was used to pull spice out in three portions with the help of a hot water bath and mixing with a spoon. Collected the three alcohol portions and left it to settle it's sediments. Run t through a cotton filter and got clear golden yellow solution.

Now I took several spoonfuls of this alcohol and evaporated it to dryness and was left with an oily semi crystaline product that smelled floral and DMT like. More DMT like when hated.

I mixed some Tabacco into this extract and tried to inhale it in one toke and held it in for few seconds. Instant effects, a surge of energy slight rise in heart beat and a clear sort of headspace but it was threshold effect common from a threshold dose.

I placed the remainder of the alcohol in the fridge in case some further sedimentation takes place. I am thinking to dry the alcohol to that oily semi crystaline extract and so a mini acid/base on it and see what I get.
Based on the few spoonfuls of alcohol I dried it seems like a decent yield but don't know yet how much fats and non-alkaloids are in there yet.

 

[neurobloom]

Evaporated the alcohol to an orangy yellow viscous oil and added a saturated solution of oxalic acid to it. It instantly turned milky then a white sediment appeared. A noticeable change of smell occured that resembles the change in smell when salting freebase full spectrum bredgesii. Then I added more water and the sediment dissolved. I added sodium hydroxide and the solution turned milky white. About to add a mixture of dichloromethane and hexane to pull the alkaloids.

 

[neurobloom]

Hexane dichloromethane mix seems to have lost most all its dichloromethane from sitting around in a not well sealed container but I used it anyways. Upon pulling with this solvent it instantly turned milky white and all the white sedimentation in the basic solution has migrated to the non polar portion. Evaporated this pull to dryness. Dissolved it in some alcohol and added some Tabacco. Left to dry and rolled it Into a joint. Still waiting for it to fully dry.
Here's a pic of the pull evaporating turning increasingly milky with some sedimentation as it's drying.

 

[neurobloom]

For some reason I only experienced euphoria and tingling all over ..warm.. no headspace like when I drank it or like when I had the full spectrum alcohol extract.
This is kinda sad.
Teaches me that not everything has to be extracted to be enjoyable.
It's a bummer because I am on antidepressants and can't take any form of MOI inhibitor for an oral route. Worked like a charm drank before with harmala same grass..shame it doesn't have the Same tones when extracted

 

[neurobloom]

Feeling disappointed I performed am extraction on some bredgesii. Pulled with chloroform.. salted with vitamin c. Perrrrrfect slowwww come up crystal clarity that reminds me of the oral phalaris. They both are similar in euphoria and clarity. Phalaris more mind twisting

 

[neurobloom]

I did another extraction on 300g of regrowth. Used chloroform this time. Literally nothing. How can this be. How can it be very active with harmalas orally and makes for a strong trip yet nothing comes out from an extraction using a wise spectrum solvent like chloroform?!!

 

[Dirty T]

It's possible it contains mostly 5meo and from what I've read it can be very hard to extract without destroying. I would approach it the way another user developed a technique for 5HO. Something about lye destroying the molecule. I believe they used magnesium sulfate as a base and very carefully monitored the PH. I would read through that thread and try to apply those techniques to your grass, it's worth a shot.

I cant remember the exact name but it was something like "advanced Bufo extraction"

 

[dithyramb]

There is also seasonal variation. Grass needs extensive systematic study...

 

[neurobloom]

Interesting point you make about meo while I used hexane for the first extraction which I got something from using sodium carbonate for basing that was mildly euphoric I haven't got anything using chloroform for pulling and sodium hydroxide for basing. I thought maybe I didn't base it strongly enough with the carbonate so I tried lye for higher pH and used chloroform to make sure am pulling everything in there whether classical or novel tryptamines whatever is in there but nothing came except the tiniest brown wax that smelled almost like mescaline freebase but had a plasticy synthetic smell with some floral notes but also like some synthetic cheap perfume. I heated this tiny residue in a spoon on the stove and inhaled this. It did taste bitter like an alkaloid would. Unfortunately I can't do an oral test with harmalas because am still in the process of coming off paroxetine an antidepressant it's been 3 weeks off so far and don't think that's enough. I am almost sure orally it would be just as active as my last oral brew and I definitely find it amazing and deep orally just a bit pushy. It's more frustrating because I had high hopes in this last extraction thinking it's the solvent that was the issue.

On a side note I tried dissolving some harmalas freebase into Warm chloroform and some has dissolved then crushed into clear amber needles. I used the same solvent for bredgesii pull and it seemed to have performed less efficiently than dichloromethane. Vitamin c salting gave a much slower come up than vinegar which has very fast come up. Formic acid salt had a medium speed come up. The excess formic acid is a bit stubborn to fully evaporate.

Probably in late April/beginning of march I will try another oral brew of the grass with harmalas and see if it's still as potent as last time. I'm thinking what if the grass indeed has very little tryptamines in it and some novel beta carbolines that synergise well with the harmalas and might be the active alkaloids responsible for the amazing oral brew the last time. The second extraction was done in the first regrowth which is supposed to have higher tryptamines content but the result was the opposite.

Brachyatchys maybe dosen't work the same way as arudinacea or aquatica. Am also wondering if the oral brew I had that worked wonderfully might have worked because it had some phalaris truncata in it and the brachyatchys was inactive? I will have to try truncata again alone this spring and see if works the same. I'm not giving up on the grass yet. Maybe it's just not meant to be extracted and just drank as a tea only. I really miss the tea from this.
I wish Dithy would send some of his grass tea evaporated to a residue for analysis and see what's in there.

I just remembered the active grass in spring had some substantial violet pinkish sap when cut wether at the leaves or the stalks. Some patches had this colouring while others had none and this colour disappears after couple harvests.