Potency question

[nicechrisman]

So I've been growing some San Pedros for a few years. I finally got around to cutting them. They are from a couple different sources, so I believe they are different clones. I notice that one has a quite bitter taste when I taste the juice and subdermal tissue, the other one not so much.

My only prior experience with trichocereus consumption has been from working with dried chips, never fresh plant material. Is it safe to assume that a more bitter tasting cactus is going to be more potent, or is this not necessarily the case? Have you found that cacti that don't taste bitter aren't worth fooling around with? I know that there are some San Pedro clones out there that are VERY low potency. I just wonder if that's what I've got my hands on.

Any help from those in the know would be much appreciated.

Can't wait for my bridgesii to get up to size! They got another year or 2 to go though.

 

[dg]

mescaline is biter, so yeah as a basic rule ive found biter cacti to be better

 

[nicechrisman]

I've read some information that conflicts with this, but it would seem to be a no brainer for me. Mescaline is bitter. Higher mescaline content is more bitter.

Do you have a fair bit of experience to base this on dg?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's even worth keeping the less bitter ones around. I guess there's only one way to know for sure, but I've only got so much free time to prepare and consume such things and only so much room for plants...

 

[mew]

dg knows whats up.

mesc is bitter

 

[nicechrisman]

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the info. I think I may just not bother with the less bitter ones, and get rid of them so I can have more space to propagate my more bitter specimen.

 

[dg]

i've been told there are potent non bitter cacti out there, maybe other less bitter compounds are responsible for the bio activity??
in my tests salty or plain ok tasting cacti were not potent