Research The Cactus Analysis Thread

[endlessness]

Cactus Analysis Results

Water content in Trichocereus cact (dry vs fresh equivalency)
62-95%, 90% being common (Trout 2018)
93.5% water (Poisson 1960 ref Trout)
94.4% water (Fable@DMT-Nexus)
95% water (Urtica@DMT-Nexus)
95% water (@endlessness dec2022)
96.9% (DansMaTete@DMT-Nexus)
96.2% (Skunk@DMT-Nexus)

Average Trichocereus mescaline content (n=130. Source)
(median values)
Trichocereus bridgesii: 0.76% dry (all results) - 0.56% dry (only GC/LC-MS confirmed results)
Trichocereus pachanoi: 0.71% dry (all results) - 0.59% dry (only GC/LC-MS confirmed results)
Trichocereus peruvianus: 0.30% dry (all results) - 0.22% dry (only GC/LC-MS confirmed results)

Other alkaloids in Trichocereus cact (n=50. Source)
Trichocereus bridgesii: Out of 8 samples, 1 found with unquantified 3,4-DMPEA, another found with 0.0025%-0.00025% 3,4-DMPEA, 0.0025%-0.00025% 3-methoxytyramine, 0.0025%-0.00025% tyramine

Trichocereus pachanoi: Out of 36 samples, 1 found with <0.0038% dry 3,4-DMPEA, another found with 0.01% 3-methoxytyramine, another found with 0.0025%-0.00025% 3,4-DMPEA, 0.0025%-0.00025% 3-methoxytyramine, traces tyramine, traces hordenine, traces 3,5-dimethoxy-4-hydroxyphenylethylamine, traces 3,4-dimethoxy-5-hydroxyphenylethylamine, traces anhalonidine, another found with unidentified minor compounds, another found with minor peaks,

Trichocereus peruvianus: Out of 6 samples, 1 found with unquantified 3,4-DMPEA, another found with Primary and secondary amines ++, free phenolics +, triterpenes/steroids +, +catechins +, another found with no mescaline but with 0.005% - 0.0005% Tyramine, 0.0005 - 0.00005%, 0.0005 - 0.00005% 2 unknown compounds, traces 3-methoxytyramine

Other compounds:
Pachanols A & B (kinoshita et al 1995)
Bridgesigenins A, B & C (kinoshita et al 1995)
Unidentified lactone-forming acid(Kringstad & Nordal 1975)
Cactus slime (mucilage) = Arabinose, galactose, galacturonic acid, rhamnose, xylose ) (Trout)
Spines are a composite of cellulosic microfibrils embedded in a matrix of arabinan.(Vignon et al 2004)
Controversial: lophophine, 3,4-methylenedioxyphenethylamine (homopiperonylamine),and N,N-dimethyl-3,4-methylenedioxyphenethylamine (lobivine) as minor alkaloids in pachanoi and in peyote (Bruhn et al 2008 , even Shulgin expressed doubts, should be viewed with caution)


Size to weight equivalency
1 foot (30cm) = 575 grams fresh = 21.8 dried grams (Skunk@DMT-Nexus)
1 foot (30cm) = 725 grams fresh = 40.9 dried grams (Fable@DMT-Nexus)

Increasing mescaline content with darkness
Keeping a cactus cutting in the dark for 3-12 months after harvest and before extracting doubles the amount of mescaline in most samples. (Experiment 1, Experiment 2, Anecdote: highest yielding confirmed pachanoi was also in the dark for several months)

Effect of grafting on mescaline content
Seems to mantain potency, so even if plant grows faster it doesn't reduce proportionately the mescaline content, but just 1 test with 1 sample and control (Pummangura & Mclaughlin 1982)

Location of mescaline in plant
Mescaline is concentrated in the green parenchyma closer to the top of Trichocereus spp., but on the sides and further away from the center in Lophophora spp. (Van der sypt 2022)

Nexus Analysis:
Tested with both GC-MS as well as LC-MS (unless specified), using pure mescaline reference standard and doing a calibration curve for quantification accuracy.

Sum up of our results (right click and "view image" to be able to zoom in)

Sum up of ALL results including journal publications, Nexus research, bioassays etc
Average Cactus Mescaline Content Mega-Thread

Previous analysis and info:


Cactus Chemistry by Species - Trout
(Trichocereus bridgesii, pachanoi and peruvianus analysis on pages 63-69)

Cactus Alkaloids - Trout
(Great info on cactus chemistry. Detailed info on Mescaline pharmacology, Mescaline physical and chemical properties , also distribution of alkaloids within cactus etc. )

Sacred Cacti - Trout
(Online book on cacti with notes on history, uses, chemistry etc)

Pachanoi or pachanot - Trout
Illustrated guide on diferentiating between true San Pedro and PC (Predominant Cultivar) San Pedro which has very little mescaline.

More tests to come in the future Im attaching the GC/LC-MS files too, as well as trout's Cact Alkaloids PDF for reference. Thanks to Energy Control for the analysis.

 

[DansMaTete]

wow, super interesting work, well done sir.

Few questions :
What's the tek used for extraction ?
Did you suppose the wet/dry ratio or is it something measured ?

Edit : i have my answers, i checked urtica thread. thanks

 

[endlessness]

Tek used for those extractions was Kash's mescaline extraction, and the wet/dry was measured by Urtica on his own tested cact

 

[urtica]

I decided to continue the posts over here.

#5 Trichocereus 'JS05' from Cactus Affinity (what a place!). The collector says this about the plant:

"I purchased this one from Sacred Succulents as Trichocereus peruvianus (...of the jungle seed planted in 1994).

Most would call it T. cuzcoensis, but it may well be an open pollinated T. peruvianus hybrid. I call it Trichocereus sp. JS05 for my collection."

It is very beautiful, picture attached.

I used a center cut, about one foot long, 3-4 inches wide, very spiny. It does have the swollen spines at the bottom like a lot of cuzcoensis.

The cut weighed in at 1340g fresh.

I used the same tek as I have been, however this time around I switched out D-limonene for the xylene because I fucking hate the xylene.

Real quick, the extraction is like this:

4 boils of the chopped fresh material with a few glugs of lemon juice, water to cover, about 20 minute boils. Mix boils and reduce to ~500 ml.

Let all the solids/waxes settle out for several days, decant & filter.

Base with a solution of 50g NaOH dissolved in 100 ml water, the solution turns much darker color.

Pull 4x with 200 ml's solvent per pull (either xylene or D-limonene). This is done with a hot water bath.

Combine pulls & back salt with 15 ml hardware store muriatic acid in 85 ml water.

Separate acidic water from solvent with a pipette.

Evaporate water to leave the HCl of whatever alkaloids were in there.

The product of this was a gooey oil that stilled smelled like oranges when I scraped it up, that smell faded however and now it smells like alkaloid.

The goo weighed ~ 125 mg. This weight may be very off because I tared the scale with a different razor blade than the one that the goo was on when I weighed it. Picture included.

I ran TLC on the goo.

There were 2 spots which had similar rf values to the mescaline & goo spots from the other tests. The lower spot reacted very mildly to Marquis reagent.

I am saving the goo to send off to Energy Control at some point, but I imagine it will be a low % mescaline.

I am considering running the extraction on the other cut that I have but using the xylene to see if it makes a difference.

Has anyone used both solvents and how would you compare them?

This would make a fresh yield of 0.000093%. If 95% of this cactus is water weight, than it would be 0.0019% from dry material...

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS: 1% of the crude extract is mescaline, there are also 3 other unknown alkaloids present

 

[kasvi]

I have many trichocereus cacti and want to test mescaline content relative to one another. I am thinking about using TLC because suplies for it is avaivable to me. How old cactuses must be before they start producing mescaline?

Should I just cut 0,5-1cm from top of each cacti or is there better method for collecting samples?
What is best way for visualization? I am thinking about getting some Ninhydrin.
What is correct spot size? 10 ul?

 

[endlessness]

Im on the phone but let me try and answer. 25% ammomia is exactly what we use. 2.5ml of that and 97.5ml methanol for 100ml eluent

Use fluorescent merck uv plates so you can visualize under 254nm uv-c light. Link in my signature of u dont have access to those. For mescaline, marquis turning red is good reaction, you can check others in the flowcharts ive posted in that subforum

Spotsize of 2ul is already good, 10 is way too much.

Dont take sample from the very top otherwise it may stop growing there and will pup to continue growth.. a bit below the top from the sides is fine, just do the same for all cact

Urtica thanks for sharing the results , ill look at it more thoroughly when im home

 

[kasvi]

Thanks for quick reply. I did take 150-200 mg samples from 18 cacti today, I will take samples from rest tomorrow or day after tomorrow. I try to take 100mg from the rest.
I was thinking about using home made tlc plates, but after checking shipping to europe I think I will buy one 60 tlc plate kit.
If I want to do quantative analysis using JustQuantify do I need mescaline standart for every plate or can I make mescaline standart later and compare it to pictures of other plates?

 

[Poekus]

Very interesting thread. #3 looks a lot like the pachanois that I extracted earlier this year. Those also had almost no yield.
Actually of the 8 strains I own, only a peruvianus strain is potent. Unfortunately this strain only grows 3-5 cm a year, while the non potent ones grow 20-30 cm a year.
Makes me wonder if bridgesii is a slower grower as well. Maybe growth rate is a significant potency factor for the trichocereus family.

 

[endlessness]

Thanks for quick reply. I did take 150-200 mg samples from 18 cacti today, I will take samples from rest tomorrow or day after tomorrow. I try to take 100mg from the rest.
I was thinking about using home made tlc plates, but after checking shipping to europe I think I will buy one 60 tlc plate kit.
If I want to do quantative analysis using JustQuantify do I need mescaline standart for every plate or can I make mescaline standart later and compare it to pictures of other plates?

I don't have much experience with software like JustQuantify or JustTLC, I helped using it for cannabinoid quantification but the margin of error was kinda high and in the end we started using gc/lc-ms for quantification. We were using some reagent to develop the cannabinoid plates (fast blue b salt) which is quite toxic, not a fan of working with that. Im not sure if you could instead of scanning the plates after developing with a reagent, just use the UV light and take a picture of it with a camera and import into the software. That'd help skipping the need to develop the plates using some reagent.

Not doing the calibration on the same day/condition will probably increase the margin of error. But you could easily just make serial dilution and have small vials with different amounts and then do the callibration each time you run it, you dont have to do the dilution each time. You could also just visually compare the spot size with your calibration plates instead of using software, for a basic semi-quantification. If all you need is to have a basic idea, then the margin of error shouldnt be too much of a problem.

Makes me wonder if bridgesii is a slower grower as well. Maybe growth rate is a significant potency factor for the trichocereus family.

My bridge is growing very fast, and so are all the other cact really lol (appart from the 'yote, that is)

 

[urtica]

Hey kasvi! Love to see someone else doing this work!

#6: Trichocereus spp "JS350"

This is also from Cactus Affinity, and looks to me like a cross between a peruvianus and a bridgesii. Some very long spines, but varied, also very blue. Pic included below.

I ended up running the extraction twice, once using D-limonene and once using xylene as solvents. I have decided that the d-limonene does not work well, or at least does not work well for back salting the product out of for the last step.

Extraction #1:

810g center cut, kind of woody, needed a serrated bread knife to cut it up. I did the same TEK as all the others, using D-limonene as the NPS.

I was excited to see a thick precipitate the moment that I basified the tea, then watched the precipitate clear from the tea and the D-limonene cloud as I pulled. I have included a picture of the precipitate in solution.

Once I backsalted and evaporated the water, however, there was only a tiny bit of goo. This seemed wrong to me so I distilled off the D-limonene and ended up with a thick, orange smelling goo.

I let this goo sit for several months, and when I scraped it up it came up as a goo on the sides of the plate where it was thickest, but in the center of the plate I scraped up 413 mg of a beautiful clear powder, picture included. This powder reacted to marquis by turning purple, which is not a positive for mescaline HCl, but I am assuming if this powder is mesc then it is still in the freebase form? Anyone have insights on this? There is also a pic of the presumed fb reacting with Marquis.

Anyway, seemed promising but weird, so I did

Extraction #2

Same procedure. The cut weighed 720g. I used xylene instead of D-limonene.

Again, there was a thick precipitate when I basified, and the solvent clouded during the pulls, and lo and behold when I evaporated the water after backsalting there was a nice layer of crystals!

Weighed out to 134 mg. Picture included.

So, 0.0186% fresh, maybe 0.37% dry. I am assuming that the cactus would dry down the same as the one that I tested.

I think there is still alkaloid in the solvent since an emulsion formed that has still not broken 2 days later, also I think that my home extraction is much poorer than the human bodies ability to extract. What I am saying is I imagine this clone is pretty active.

We have a winner folks!

The alkaloid tested very strongly positive to Marquis. Picture included.

I ran TLC on the sample and got nice, clean spots that seemed very pure. There was only a tiny smudge where in the past there have been impurity spots. The spot I tested had a strong Marquis reaction. I would guess that the more advanced analysis will show this to be very pure.

ENERY CONTROL RESULTS:54% of this extract was mescaline, with no other alkaloids present. So 0.01% fresh weight is mescaline, or ~100 mgs mescaline per kilo of cactus fresh. The powder from distilling off the d-limonene was 0% mescaline. 0.2% presumed dry weight of mescaline.

 

[urtica]

Also, to kasvi, my bridgesii grow nice and fast for me, especially with some feeding.

 

[urtica]

#7 Trichocereus werdermannianus

This is a big fat cut, ten inches long weighed in at 1820g, log cut, picture included.

Again, this is from Cactus Affinity.

I am excited about this species because I believe that it is a more cold tolerant one, and is known to be a vigorous grower. In their native habitat they can get huge, they look like sagauros.

Now, Trichocereus.net claims that werdermannianus is another name for T. terscheckii.

Premium Quality Trichocereus Seeds / Trichocereus Samen

I offer a wide variety of Trichocereus Seeds / Trichocereus Samen from South America. All my seeds are excellent quality and tested. I also offer a satisfaction guarantee and if there are problems, you can always message me!

trichocereus.net

But whatever, don't forget that taxonomy is a philosophical system, ay? Anyway, terscheckii is known to be cold tolerant, so great.

I ran the usual extraction on it, I am back to only using xylene which is a bummer, but results are important.

I got 230 mg of a nice looking tannish powder at the end of it, picture included.

The TLC run looks very nice, just one main spot with very little goo. Piture included.

The powder reacted positively to Marquis, although it was closer in color to how the original bridgesii 'kate' reacted, which makes me think that there are other phenethylamines in there in significant percentages, we will see. Off to Energy Control pretty soon.

So, this would be a fresh yield of 0.013%, assumed dry yield of 0.25%.

This is a little disappointing given net legend, but I was told that this cutting comes from a seed grown plant that is only about 4-5 years old, so I assume it has not reached it's peak alkaloid production years.

Also these plants grow very vigorously so I think you could produce a good amount of medicine in a relatively short period of time. Also this was only a ten inch cutting, so a two foot cutting would, I think, really get you there!

I am also starting to really suspect that there is alkaloid left behind in the NPS. I saved the xylene and I am going to backsalt it one more time to see if anything else comes out. I want to distill it off to see what is still in there, but god I do hate the smell of xylene. Maybe I will finally build a fume hood...

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS:48% of this extract was mescaline, another alkaloid was present which has been tentatively ID'd as hordenine. So 0.006% mescaline fresh or 60.65 mg mescaline per kilogram of fresh cactus. 0.12% presumed dry weight of mescaline.

 

[urtica]

#8

Trichocereus lumberjackius

This is the fabled 'Lumberjack' clone, originally found in a hardware store & found to be active. Trout mentions this clone in his San Pedro book. It seems to be a cross between T peruvianus and T bridgesii. Very spiny with a nice blue hue to it. Picture included.

This cutting was from Cactus Affinity, who says that they received their cutting direct from the person who named the clone. It seems that some folks just slap the lumberjack label on any old cutting to jack up the price.

I used two 10 inch cuttings, the two shown in the picture. They weighed 1430g total.

I did the same process as usual, but this time when I did my first xylene pull a thick emulsion formed that did not want to break at all. Most of the extractions have not had much in the way of emulsions, although the first bridgesii that I did had some bad ones.

I ended up adding several tablespoons of salt and sitting the jar in a warm water bath overnight to get the layers to separate enough to pull out the xylene, but I only got ~125 mls of my 200 ml pull back. The first pull was very yellow in color, looked like a Mimosa STB pull in a hot water bath.

I did 5 pulls in total, until the xylene was no longer coming out yellow or cloudy. I then did 3 backsaltings of 15 ml HCl in 85 ml H2O.

I assumed from what I know about the clone and also from the emulsions and color change that I would get a good yield, and o yes it was.

881 mg of a darker tan colored powder, picture included.

The powder had a nice Marquis reaction, picture included.

I have also enclosed a picture of the TLC plate under UV and with Marquis added.

So that is a fresh yield of 0.0616%, presumed dry yield of 1.23%

Cue the Monty Python 'I'm a Lumberjack' song...

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS: 62% of this extract was mescaline, and there was another unknown alkaloid peak. So 0.038% mescaline fresh, or 380 mg mescaline per kilo of fresh cactus. 0.77% mescaline from dry material (presumed).

 

[urtica]

#9

Trichocereus macrogonus 'RS0004'

I used two separate cuttings to achieve my desired weight of ~ a kilo for this extraction. One I got from Cactus Affinity as usual. It was fat and very blue. A four inch cutting weighed 375g. Cactus Affinity originally got their clone from Kakster.

The other came from Kakster, who I believe named this clone. It was sixteen and a half inches long, weighed 610g, and was very skinny and green colored.

This is a good example of how different a single clone can look when grown under varying conditions.

Picture included of the two cuttings used in the extraction side by side.

I did the same extraction procedure. There was a visible precipitate upon basing.

I used xylene and did three backsaltings, which I think is the new procedure.

There were barely any emulsions this time, I think mostly because I allowed the cooked tea to sit in the fridge for over two weeks which allowed a ton of sediment to settle out.

I ended up with 458 mg of a light tannish powder, smells right. Picture included.

So that means these RS0004's had a fresh yield of 0.0468%, and a presumed dry yield of 0.9299%, pretty good! This is the closest that I have gotten to an alkaloid yield that equals that of bridgesii in a non bridgesii species!

It reacted very nicely with Marquis, a stronger/less muddy color change, more like the JS350. Picture included.

I ran TLC on it, which looks nice and clean, maybe there is some plant goo in there.

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS: 57% of this extract was mescaline, so 0.027% mescaline by fresh weight, presumed 0.53% mescaline by dry weight. 267.9 mg mescaline per kilogram fresh plant material. No other peaks.

 

[urtica]

#10

Trichocereus pachanoi 'LER'

This is a nice looking pachanoi. I got this cut from Mallacht's Plants.

I used a 12" cutting which weighed precisely 1000g, my goal weight for these extractions. Picture included.

The tea was a much lighter/creamy color than most, but darkened up upon basifying.

I did 3 backsalts again.

I got 255mg of tan xstals, pretty clean looking. Picture included. They reacted nicely to Marquis, pic included, and the TLC looks nice, also pic included.

That is a fresh yield of 0.025%, presumed dry yield of 0.51%. Much better than the PC!

This last batch of samples just went out to Energy Control so we will have some analysis results in the next couple weeks I hope.

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS: 43% of this extract was mescaline. So 0.011% mescaline by fresh weight, 0.22% mescaline by presumed dry weight. 107.5 mg mescaline per kilo of fresh cactus. No other peaks.

 

[pinkoyd]

Highly interesting stuff from our friends over at The Nook:

Last fall in November, after the growing season in ended, Tom cut a T.bridgesii column with a length of approx. 50 cm. Nothing is known about the strain, it is a plant grown from seeds with unknown origin, approx. 4-6 years old. After harvesting the column he cut it again in two equally sized pieces, and then he cut a 4 cm piece from the originally middle part of the column. This 4 cm piece was deskinned, decored, dried, pulverized and put aside. Both remaining column pieces were wrapped in a towel and put for 3 month at room temperature (20-25°C) in a closet. After the 3 months storage two additional samples were taken from both columns (directly from the neighboring positions where the first sample was taken). These samples were also deskinned, decored, dried and pulverized and combined. Finally two different samples were present, both from the center part of the same T.bridgesii column, the only difference is that one sample was stored for 3 month in the dark before drying.



Now to the quantification: Luckily Tom is living in Switzerland, in Switzerland it is possible to let test drugs anonymously for free. The most prevalent drugs, including mescaline, can be analyzed quantitatively and the less frequent qualitatively. This drug testing service is financed by the government to reduce risks for drug consumers (even though the drugs are prohibited by law). They also do publish warnings on their web-page in the case of dangerous ingredients, too high concentrated pills or if something is sold with a wrong labeling etc. The result is communicated in an analysis report which is sent by email. This means that the assays they are using are validated and reproducible.



Tom brought the described T.bridgesii samples to this institution for testing. The results he got back are just amazing:

Sample collected and dried in end of November: concentration = 2.0% mescaline-HCl

Sample collected and dried in beginning of March: concentration = 4.1% mescaline-HCl



This is an increase of more than 100%, and this just because of storing the column for 3 month in the dark before drying!



We are quite proud of this finding and I think you might be interested in it as well. Its the first time that this behaviour is confirmed with a validated chemical analysis.



Entire original post here:

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EDIT: You have to be signed in as a member to view posts on the Nook. Well worth it though IMO!

 

[urtica]

That is really interesting!

Most of these cuts have been sitting for a little while, usually not in the dark though.

I will have to start stashing cuts in my closet!

I would be curious to know if the % increase would happen just from the stress of being cut, or if the darkness is crucial.

 

[urtica]

#11

T. cuzcoensis/peruvianus 'KK338'

I got this cut from Cactus Affinity. They are a beautiful deep blue color, and certainly have the swollen spines at the base that to me imply a cuzcoensis.

The collector got it from Sacred Succulents as a peruvianus. Presumably SS got it from Karel Knize.

Pictures of the cuts used in the extraction and a close up of the spine bases included.

I used 2 cuts, about 18 inches in total length. They weighed in at 1340g.

Extracted same as usual.

Yielded 191 mg of brown goo. Picture enclosed.

This goo did not really react with Marquis, it turned the liquid muddy brown.

I ran TLC on it & there was a spot that moved, but it did not react with the Marquis at all. i have included a pic.

I am starting to be able to spot an inactive cutting pretty well now!

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS: 2.8% of this extract was mescaline, with one other unknown compound, MW = 163. So fresh % mescaline = 0.000392, presumed dry % mescaline = 0.00784. 3.9 mgs mescaline per kg fresh plant.

 

[urtica]

So, yield of 0.014% of presumably inactive goo, fresh.

Presumed 0.28% dry.
I bet there is some mesc in there, just barely any. So far none have been totally devoid.

ENERGY CONTROL RESULTS: 2.8% of this extract was mescaline, with one other unknown compound, MW = 163. So fresh % mescaline = 0.000392, presumed dry % mescaline = 0.00784. 3.9 mgs mescaline per kg fresh plant.

 

[DansMaTete]

Entire original post here:

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I can't get to the thread linked, is it because i'm not a member or something else ?

I'm runing an experiment about this exact subject and i will post my result soon.


And thanks for your work urtica, i like this thread a lot.