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Psychotria 'Nexus' Ayahuasca admixture suitability testing

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rahlii

rahlii

Rising Star
This report outlines tests undertaken to determine the activity and suitability of the newly developed Psychotria 'Nexus' clone, for the brewing of Ayahuasca, an Amazonian plant medicine.

The interspecific Psychotria hybrid 'Nexus' was developed by Darren at Herbalistics online nursery (www.herbalistics.com.au), with the intention of creating a Psychotria cultivar exhibiting the cold hardiness of the P. carthaginensis parent and the tryptamine active content of the P. viridis parent. This plant was developed to test a theoretical hunch that hybrid offspring of the two aforementioned species would provide a more suitable plant for folks wishing to grow their own Ayahuaca source plants in a more temperate climate. Currently the only viable option is growing traditional Amazonian species which require a humid tropical growing environment. Given the current laws restricting the use of this amazing medicine for spiritual and personal growth in Australia, the cv. Nexus was never intended to be used for this purpose. The author of this document has therefore taken on the task of testing this clone within a modern psychonautic context to determine if the leaves of the Psychotria cv. Nexus does indeed provide an alternative to the tropical Psychotria viridis Ayahuasca admixture plant.

Testing was undertaken using subtropically grown P. 'Nexus' of which 46g of dried leaf material was acquired for the purpose of the study. The method of determining activity of the admixture material was through addition within a controlled volume of Ayahuasca vine brew, which was consumed by a lone study participant over a number of weeks. Subjective effects and time experienced was noted down throughout the study to provide an indication of the activity and suitability of the source material for addition to the Ayahuasca brew. Preparation leading up to consumption of the brew was also noted. A total of 525g of fresh Banisteriopsis caapi vine section was brewed, reduced and separated to give three doses of Ayahuasca, containing 175g fresh weight of vine per dose. For the study one dose was consumed without P. 'Nexus' (control), one with 16g (low dose) and one with 30g (moderate dose) of dried P. 'Nexus' leaves. The following notes were recorded upon consumption of the three test brews –

Test Brew: Control
Contents: 175g fresh vine = 100mls brew
Date: 21/12/2009
Time and experience:

5.30pm - Ate chicken pasta, 2 slices of bread, apple and water.

7.45pm – Started meditating.

7.55pm – Drank Vine, alternated between meditation and playing the Dan Moi.

8.25pm – Shift. Sudden shift in consciousness while meditating.

8.30pm – Purge. Had a walk around to gauge the effects better and was overwhelmed with nausea. Vision was blurry and experiencing vertical lines of light when exposed to a bright room. Tried to purge but there was no release.

8.40pm – Dizzy. Lay back down and tried to purge again. Started to feel an intense spinning sensation that lasted for around 5 minutes.

8.50pm – Waves. Gentle relaxing period lasted for around 5 minutes. Intense waves started to go through my body that was in time with my pulse.

9.00pm – Twitches. The heavy body load is now gone but I still feel nauseous. Continued to lie down. Started to get minor twitches.

9.10pm – Sleep. Rolled over and went to sleep.

1.20am – Woke up. Still a little dizzy. Went back to sleep.

8.00am – Woke up. Still dizzy.

9.00am – Dizziness gone.

Test Brew: Low Dose
Contents: 175g fresh vine + 16g dry P. 'Nexus' leaves = 100mls brew
Date: 28/12/2009
Time and experience:

4.00pm – Ate spaghetti and meat balls.

6.00pm – Drank water.

7.55pm – Started mediating.

8.10pm - Drank Aya, alternated between meditating and playing the Dan Moi.

8.45pm – Slight shift.

9.00pm – Minor open eye visuals

9.15pm - Close eye visuals. Blue and green phosphorescent shapes. No nausea.

10.30pm – Lightly tripping, laughing, happy.

11.00pm - Tried to sleep but can’t. Experienced confrontational introspection. Hear the Aya haunting sounds inside my head but I am imagining it.

1.00am – Starting to ware off.

2.00am – Went to sleep.

8.00am – Woke up feeling great.


Test Brew: Moderate Dose
Date: 08/01/2010
Contents: 175g fresh vine + 30g dry P. 'Nexus' leaves = 100mls brew
Time and experience:

8.00am – Ate 4 Weetbix

10.15am Started meditating.

10.32am - Aya, alternated between meditating and playing the Dan Moi.

10.50am – Got a strong sense of the Aya smell.

11.10am – Got a strong sense of the DMT smell.

11.30am – Lightly tripping.

12.30pm – Open eye visuals, opalescent rainbow hues over everything. I can hear the haunting Aya sounds. Experienced calm introspective, no nausea.

1.00pm – Visuals stopped though still lightly tripping and introspective.

6.00pm – Can still feel the effects of the Aya. Ate some mushies and smoked changa. The Aya seemed to maintain some control over the mushies and low dose changa. High dose changa produced a crazy trip as always.

The results of these tests subjectively confirmed that the P. 'Nexus' plant does have an active triptamine content which is suitable for addition within the Ayahuasca brew.

Further tests were undertaken to determine the active triptamine yield of P. 'Nexus' compared to that of P. viridis.

Results of these further studies showed that when grown in similar conditions P. 'Nexus' has an active triptamine yield approximately 70% that of P. viridis.

The P. 'Nexus' was grown for 10 and a half months and pruned right back, harvesting a total of 501g wet weight in leaves. This dried down to 143g and a lextek_v1 extraction produced a total of 1.11g active triptamine with a yield of 0.77% that of the dried source material.

The P. viridis was harvested off large mature plants and produced a yield of 1.1% active triptamine.

The results of the following studies has determined that Psychotria 'Nexus' leaf material has a reasonably high active triptamine content (approximately 70% that of P. viridis), making it a highly suitable Ayahuasca admixture plant.
 
Thanks for the feedback nen888.

I'm glad the report adds to the ever growing pool of plant knowledge.
 
Hey obliguhl,

Given that I live in a tropical location, I personally can't comment on the cold hardiness of this plant and therefore focused attention on its suitability as an admixture plant.

I can direct this question to the plants creator and post his response within the thread. As this plant has been established for around four years, I'm sure he will have some pretty reliable feedback from growers situated in a range of different climates.
 
What a fantastic development! Would this variant do well in, say the UK? Also, where might one attain some seeds?
 
The clone is available from the Hebalistics online store, located in Australia. So far what little seeds that have been produced have all been sterile. A few back crosses to P. viridis have resulted in small number of fruit but I'm not sure if the viability of seed contained within have been determined yet.

Info copied from the webstore page (http://herbalistics.com.au/shop/cat...d=606&osCsid=f92e74baca142aaf98db3efb450edba7) -

Psychotria 'Nexus' is an interspecific hybrid of Psychotria carthaginensis and Psychotria viridis bred by Darren @ Herbalistics. P. carthaginensis is the pistillate parent, P. viridis the staminate parent.

Nexus has a fast growth habit, large leaves and makes a welcome addition to any garden. Nexus is self-sterile (as per our observations so far) and will not produce fruit and viable seed under normal self-pollination. Back-crossing to Psychotria viridis has produced a small number of fruit.

A report on the internet found that Nexus had a concentration of 0.77% DMT whilst P. viridis had a concentration of 1.1% DMT. Nexus would therefore be 70% strength of P. viridis.

Care and Cultivation Quite a good growth rate when compared to P. viridis, as fast or faster than P. carthaginensis. Prefers a part shade, moist, well-drained site and a rich loam soil with adequate fertiliser. Nexus has performed well in our climatic extremes experienced here in SE QLD, unknown frost tolerance and about as drought tolerant as the parents, please share your cultivation experiences with us!
 
Ah this is great, it will be easy to take care of pretty much anywhere in the states. However Im a little concerned that it blatantly states on the website of the average dmt content of each plant.
 
I agree that there is a level of risk associated with posting this information in the online shop. There is also risk in writing the report and posting it on the Nexus. There is considerably less risk in you signing into the DMT nexus and contributing to this discussion, but this is the risk we take to further knowledge on plants and entheogens in general. Without folks willing to take these risks this amazing forum would not exist and we would not be moving towards a more accepting future where folks have the right to explore their consciousness without the threat of being imprisoned. Here is hoping.

I'm not sure if the P. 'Nexus' clone has traveled outside of Australia yet but I'm sure it will be on its way soon. Given its infertility it should be safe to let loose on the world without fear of corrupting native Psychotria sp. populations. I very much doubt it will make it as far as the Amazon though as only live clone are viable and they already have a traditional alternative.

Best of luck guys in this plant finding her way to you.
 
obliguhl said:
Very interesting work! Has it been verified that this plant is indeed cold hardy? To what temperature ?
Click to expand...

Here is the response I got.

"i guess there are reports of it doing quite well down south, Melbourne, other Victorian locations. I still don't think it is a plant that could be planted outside down there unless the microclimate was workable for it. It would still need to be sheltered in the cold months, kept dormant and wait. The point with it is I guess that it will produce comparably more biomass than viridis in sub-tropical and warm temperate conditions, leaves are larger and growth more vigorous, in season. When compared to P. carthaginensis, Nexus is not as hardy, but it is actually usable."

if you would like to discuss this further please contact Darren through the online store.

I hope this helps.
 
Yes, it does help very much thanks. So it is basically a viridis which is easier to grow in colder climates and compensates it's diminished alkaloid content with more biomass. The viridis i had once was very sensitive to humidity and would easily develop brown spots which would kinda destroy the leaves over time...
 
I'm thinking that if you have grown chacruna in your current location (although unhappily), P. 'Nexus' should have a good chance of supplying you with a usable admixture. At least it is worth a try.

It would be nice to see more folks able to grow their own admixture plants to both ensure supply and increase plant knowledge. We can only be all the richer for it I say.
 
I missed this thread when it was posted, I was just directed here from a link Rahlii provided in another thread.

I just wanted to add my results growing nexus in a temperate zone.

I got a few leaves from a mate at the Corobboree about three years ago and propagated them. They spent the first winter in a mini greenhouse and grew to about 6 inches tall in the first year.

Winter temps here can get to zero deg Celsius and the highest summer temp I've seen since I've lived here was 48 deg Celsius. Typical winter overnight temps are normally around 5-8 degrees and occasionally dips down below zero for short periods if we get a frost.

Now the plants are established and about 2 feet tall and I have them in an unprotected area that gets full sun almost all day. They do struggle a bit in the heat but if I keep the water up to them they can tolerate it quite well.

I propagated some P. viridis at the same time and they were growing fine in same position as the nexus until winter and they all dropped dead in very short time. For me viridis is just not an option but nexus has been almost what you'd call prolific - a very hardy hybrid indeed.

The only issue I've ever had with them is the ants around here love to use them as hosts for the scale that they harvest. So in some areas they might need a sticky barrier around the main stem to stop the ants. The scale doesn't seem to be too detrimental to the plants so I'm not too concerned about it.

So to sum up

They can easily tolerate overnight temps of 5 degrees Celsius and lower
They can survive a light frost if it's not for an extended period
They are very tolerant to extreme heat and low humidity if they are well watered.

All in all an excellent plant.
 
Thanks for the great growing info Hieronymous. Sounds like the P. 'Nexus' is living up to the intentions of her creator. She is a nice admixture plant to brew with. I bet your hoping to grow her to a usable size soon. You should only need 80 leaves per dose for a brew.
 
Yeah I could easily do that now. I have 20 plants left from the first batch I propagated. I had over 50 of them & I gave a lot away to other forum members. The plants are starting to get too bushy so I might have to thin them out again soon :d

I'd love to see a GC-MS analysis or TLC of this plant, or even a side by side comparison with viridis analysis results. If anyone is keen to do it I'd be happy to send them sample to test. I'd love to know if there are any complimentary alkaloids ect that add to effect of nexus, for me it always gives me a slightly challenging trip that just works perfectly for me.

The spice from these things is special stuff, possibly not quite as potent as purple dye but that's a just a matter of dosage. As you mentioned it lends itself very well to an admixture. Mixed with about 20% of purple dye spice I reach nirvana every time and have the most introspective & meaningful comedowns after I come out of hyperspace which I don't get from purple dye or other forms of DMT. I can't help thinking there must be something else in there there that adds to the experience.

I love this plant she has won a special place in my heart.
 
Perhaps endlessness and Snozzleberry would be interested in getting some samples to analyze. I sent some viridis and several other species of Psychotria last summer and while I got word back that viridis is positive for DMT (no surprise there) there has been no other follow up. There was supposed to be HPLC done to determine percentages, but I don't know if that has been done. So perhaps if they were willing to test nexus, it might prompt them to finish up the viridis analysis and verify or refute the 1.1% and 0.7% figures posted above.

It's worth a shot! :roll:
 
pinkoyd said:
There was supposed to be HPLC done to determine percentages, but I don't know if that has been done. So perhaps if they were willing to test nexus, it might prompt them to finish up the viridis analysis and verify or refute the 1.1% and 0.7% figures posted above.
Click to expand...
Pinkoyd, sorry for the lack of updates, our testing schedule was put on hold by the work that the agency needed to do in order to remain open. We will have numbers for you at some point. I'm still waiting for follow up, but they have not forgotten (they indicated as much to me last week). I hope you're not too annoyed with us, we're dependent on their resources and availability. It's all a labor of love...which at times means slower turnarounds than labors of grant funding 😉

Testing the Nexus clone would be highly desirable and I am happy to check into the current availability of the lab if people would like.
 
No worries man, I thought maybe it was someting I said...:shock:

Really, I figured something had happened so I tried not to bug you all too much about it.

And a big :thumb_up: on testing the auspiciously named Nexus clone.
 
Whew...I'm glad to hear it! I thought the delays on our end had been so irksome as to sour things with you. I'm incredibly relieved to hear that's not the case. Sorry for not updating you sooner. I will get in touch with you within the next week or two and will share any updates on the old stuff and coordinate the Nexus specimens with you :)

Look at that...communication...helping people figure out what's going on :p
 
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