There’s been a little bit of talk as to whether vine thickness and age play a role in potency, but most believe the older vines contain more “magic”. I’m under the impression that this may be more suggestion than reality. If Banisteriopsis Caapi displays the same distribution of secondary metabolite concentration as other well studies plant species, then one might assume that young material from old plants should be plenty potent. For example in the tea industry in China, tea from ancient trees is highly revered and thought to possess a very high concentration of “energy” or “cha qi” as they put it. The large root systems of these ancient tea trees is believed to be able to pull in large amounts of minerals and nutrients, thus contributing to a higher concentration of alkaloids present in the leaves.

Typically, the leaves harvested from these ancient tea trees are very young, usually the first leaves of the new spring season are thought to be the most potent In terms of flavor and “cha qi”. Similarly, coffee distributors favor high mountain beans harvested from older trees, but after about ten years it is said that the coffee produced begins to become too bitter, possibly supporting the theory that a large root system is synonymous with a high concentration of plant metabolites.

So, I plan to put it to the test here. I don’t have a control unfortunately but if the vine proves to be weak it will be evident that this theory is false. I was sure to ask my friend only for smaller diameter vine in order to at least bb able to provide some validity to the results. Looks forward to hearing anyone’s thought or experience on this subject. Hope everyone’s staying healthy during these crazy times.

HC

It's indeed an interesting subject; taking cannabis as an example, the earlier you harvest the more of a "high" you typically get while the later harvest usually feel more "stoned". Although thicker buds are generally not seen as a sign of potency.

Judging how much the same alkaloids would differ in any given sample depending on their age sounds like the job for an extraction on a much larger scale.

How will you go about testing their potency?

You might also consider avoiding pictures with scan-codes & serial numbers on; those can be a safety/privacy hazard although I suspect that the pictures are murky enough to censor them.

Looking forward to see more of your experiment!