This has indeed been noted:

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.me/Phalaris_spp.#Extraction_teks

The "perhaps"'s are potentially infinite, that's why we need to restrict the possibilities by keeping everything as simple as possible. It's Spring time again, I am sure those of us dedicated to the grass will receive some gifts.

Grass is very complex, potentially having both potentiating or synergistic or welcome ingredients, and blocking or toxic ingredients... Season is a big factor in the makeup. The same grass that bathes you in love in Spring can pull you in chaos and threaten to kill you in the winter. Or perhaps just not work.

Hello dear nexus people,

i try to find Phalaris strains with interesting alkaloid profiles.
Last year i planted about 25 different accessions of mainly Phalaris aquatica, P. arundinacea collected all over the world (predominantly mediteranean P. aquatica) with 10 individuals each.

Now they have grown enough, but i do not have enough ressources to do a full extraction of all different accessions (or individual plants).

I plan to juice every individual in a wheat grass juicer and i want to do test crude extracts with test reagents like Hoffmann and Ehrlich.

The problem is the chlorophyll, so i can not check the colour properly with the green chlorophyll in it. I do not plan to ingest it, it would be just the really first step to see wich strains would be maybe interesting. Can someone please tell me how to remove the chlorophyll, i can remember egg white would bound it.

Thank you in advance and thank you i am reading years now and learned a lot through dmt nexus.

Cavo92 in the meantime, grow it out for seeds or clones til you know!
Having seeds stocked up comes in handy years later and sometimes you don't know what you REALLY have until your eyes can identify the different species more clearly.

If you have landrace accessions, those are so much easier to increase alkaloids than agronomic cultivars that were created and bred to have low alkaloids.

Active grasses include P. Angusta, P. Arundinacea, P. Aquatica, P. Aquatica var. Stenoptera, P. Brachystachys, P. Canariensis, P. Coerulescens, P. Minor, P. Paradoxa, P. Truncata and we're still learning about Native US species like P. Angusta, P. Arundinacea, and especially P. Californica, P. Caroliniana, P. Lemmonii. There are rarer types like the Arundinacea x Aquatica "Russian Grass" hybrids, the elusive P. Elongata(P. Aquatica var. Hirtiglumis) or the Aquatica x Minor hybrid, P. Daviesii, that lack useful info but are worth diving into and spreading seeds & rhizomes(Aquatica, Arundinacea).

Many Phalaris species also have nutritious edible seeds and the roots can be used for weaving baskets or other items. So even if you happen upon a type that is not providing entheogenic warmth, you can still make bread, cookies, flour out of the seeds or create floral altars with the lovely seedheads & flowers.

Also BUMP THIS THREAD
STOP KILLING TREES FOR YOUR TRYPTAMINES
Phalaris is the way to go, let's up our game

Get Phalaris Aquatica var. Stenoptera or P. Brachystachys seeds. Follow a good harvesting and fertilizing regiment around the time you'd like to use it. An A/B with Vinegar, Calcium Hyrdroxide & Naphtha or D-Limonene can work for getting a smokable yield. Defatting or recrystallization may be necessary to clean it up so good luck on the quest. Wild Phalaris Arundinacea is variable but is definitely worth working with from March-Late June/Early July and Early September-November. If you have a dog that you can take with you, go for the patches that they start munching on...


Please post pictures here if you're uncertain as to what grass types you have available in your area. We will help with identification since there's lots of lookalikes and it seems like many are still confused on the botany of grasses.

Chimp Z, while I agree that phalaris can serve as a very good alternative to trees and such, I am not sure whether cultivation is the way to go. It is clear that many species and cultivars are highly invasive, and it seems even growing them in pots the seeds can disperse elsewhere.

Do you perhaps have a technique that can avoid the release of specimens into the wild?

Brachystachys doesnt seem to be a species that takes over ime. Aquatica germinates more aggressively but still does not dominate ime. Arundinacea, with which I do not have exprience, is said to take over.

The biomass of Sorghum halepense in this region of the world is impressive. Who said that it has tryptamines? Are there any references to somewhat elaborate information?

Hello everyone! This is my first post, and I hope you like it.

I apologize in advance if there are mistakes, my English is far from perfect

So I tried an extraction on Phalaris caroliniana after several long researches on the most appropriate techniques for an extraction on Phalaris.
I combined all the information, and then I proceeded to the extraction (A/B) attempt.

Of course before proceeding, I had looked for the alkaloid profile of this plant, But I didn't find anything really transcendent, although its name is not mentioned on the list of psychoactive plants on Wikipedia, I gave it a try.

list of psychoactive plants, Wikipedia :
Wikipedia: List_of_psychoactive_plants

As you can see, they even mention the Phalaris that does not contain it, but do not mention once the plant in which I had placed so much hope. Indeed this plant grows REALLY everywhere.

But this plant finally broke the friendship that was formed between us, it betrayed my trust 😢…

After the extraction I was left with nothing.
Evaporate or freeze precipitate do not work both. There was nothing… just the smell of betrayal.

Actually I suspected it, but there was so little information about this Phalaris that I wanted to try, who knows, we could have found the best plant to extract Dimethyltryptamine.

Maybe I was just unlucky, and that the 20g of plants harvested at this location did not contain DMT, but that the plant itself can.
OR
I extracted wrongly and made some mistake, but this is very unlikely because I did some tests afterwards to make sure that it was not a handling error. Then I think I can follow a protocol correctly. In addition, the plants collected were fresh.
OR
The latter contains some, but such a tiny amount that it was lost during some stages of extraction. In any case it would not have been an interesting plant for DMT if such was the case.

So we can conclude that either I was unlucky or this plant does not contain DMT. I would lean more on the fact that it does not contain DMT, because I have subsequently redone an extraction with other harvested in another place and once again NOTHING.

So if no one says they have had success with this treacherous plant, I would advise you not to try extraction with Phalaris caroliniana because it does not contain DMT (and 5-Meo-DMT of course) (based on my results).



I'd like to try it with Phalaris arundinacea now, as many people report having success with it. So I have some questions :
-Many people disagree about freezing the plant and thawing it. Some people say that this causes the loss of up to 80% of the alkaloids, and that it is therefore not a brilliant idea, while others say that it just helps to release the alkaloids more easily and to mix the plant by breaking the cell wall.
Who is telling the truth? Is there indeed a loss?

- Some people put the Phalaris solution in a slow cooker, others don't and wait a few hours while simmering from time to time, and still others boil for 15 min three times
What do you think is the most effective? Are the three solutions equal?

- Some people wash the plants under water before starting the extraction, others do not prefer to wash them because they believe that this would affect the yield. Again, who is right?

- Tap water or distilled water? Is there really a difference on the final product?

Last but not least, here is, in my opinion, the best application if you ever have trouble recognizing a plant. Its database is rich, it is very precise and efficient, and it succeeds in 95 % to recognize the plant that I presented to it. That's how I could be sure that it was a Phalaris caroliniana. It is super simple to use, free, without ads, and offers sexy little badges (I have the golden plant hunter badge hehe)
Here is its name:

Seek by iNaturalist

I think it's available everywhere.


Thanks for reading, and sorry for the length of the text, and the potential mistakes. I tried to air the text as much as I could.
And don't forget, don't trust the Phalaris caroliniana. I would be curious to know if someone had other results.

Bye for now!

Hello Francium

Let me start off by saying, very well done. Such a nice first post, I've given my upvote and hope you become full member soon Good stuff!!!


Definitely try to post the pictures of the plant, just to make double sure its the good stuff, I've had multiple plants that I was confident are Phalaris and ended up not being Phalaris lol and that might mess up everything from the getgo

Also feel free to join the chatroom, its on the upper left side of the forum, it's best to leave the tab open cuz ppl can be afking a lot....

Here another Phalaris thread not sure if you've seen it but its definitely worth going thru it.


https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=93854

Welcome to the Nexus!

Hi justB612 !

Thank you for your reply !

I am already 99% sure that it was a phalaris caroliniana after having compared it to many photos. Moreover, the application I was talking about had confirmed it to me. But here is a picture of the plant, better to be sure (Sorry for the quality which is not ideal, since I had deleted the photos, and I recovered them):




Here is the photo of the phalaris caroliniana found on https://gailewagner.weebly.com/phalaris-caroliniana-maygrass.html (there are many pictures on the website if you want):




As you can see, it looks very similar. But I did some research on plants in my area, and there are three that look like it:
- Agropyron cristatum



- Dactylis glomerata



- Anthoxanthum_odoratum



I actually found them all and scanned them with the app, and it knew how to differentiate them. So I really think I'm not mistaken and I've picked up phalaris caroliniana.

Anyway, if anyone has had different results with this plant, I would be curious to know. Otherwise, I think indeed that there is no DMT in phalaris caroliniana, or at least no viable quantity that allowed me to extract it.

Goodbye !

Hi there
This is my forst post
Also i'm not native english..

I'm very interested in the whole Phalaris thing, since it's one of the most common grasses in my area. Which is why i registered.

In my field of work, it's mandatory to know plants, aswell as grasses - so i'm quite good in differentiating them
I don't know Phalaris caroliniana, since it doesn't grow here. But i can give you some advice for futere reference.

Dactylis glomerata:
It's the eseast grass of all to differentiate from others, since it has a very characteristic flower. Also it mostly grows on nutrition rich soils.

Anthoxanthum odoratum:
As the name implicates, it has an odero or scent. After a meadow is cut, the scent of freshly mown grass comes from this grass. It's the scent of cumarine, which is present in all parts of the plant, especially in the roots.

Agropyron cristatum:
Well the flowers again are very characteristic, with their nearly symmetrical arrangement of each flower.

Also, look up in which habitat the grass grows. This makes finding the plant easier and is a good starting point for determing the species. Also look up, how the leaves grow from the "stem" - this is easier for differentiating. ( I know, at first al grasses look the same, but after careful examination there actually guite different)

For example P. arundinacea is actually quite hard to distinguish from Phragmites australis, which not always grows bigger. But only P. arundinacea grows alongside river banks, P. australis does not like flowing water. Only very rarely Phragmites grows alongside flowing water. Also Phragmites is more dominant in still, not flowing water - so P. arundinacea rarely grows there.

Also: Try eating different grasses! Most grasses have quite different tastes. After couple years, I'm now able to differentate 15 grasses from taste Also Phalaris arundinacea for example tastes very different from most othe grasses (In my opinion at leas)

But apart from that... i actually want to get serioues about extracting. Honestly i fond it hard to believe, that this discussion is over 10 years old and everyone is still "waiting" for a solution
Other posts and references show, that Phalaris cleraly contains some dmt. What I'm worried about is gramine - like everyone else. What im asking myself, is gramin realy to worry about, since it's boiling point is nearly double the one of dmt? (Only for vaping)
And what i have a hord time to figure out, did some people succeed in extracting dmt from Phalaris?

Cheers!
Chumus

Thank you Chimp Z for your reply.

I made some extractions on some of the plants i grow and tested the crue extracts with reagents. My intention was to have a glimpse what could be possible with this individuals, is there any preferable alkaloids or not. Here a summary from my notes:

1.
Plant: P. aquatica (Sardinia (Italy), wild)
Harvest time: June, northern hemisphere
Material: tips and leafs from top of the plant to about 15cm/ 6 inch downwards; plant was not harvested before
Method:
Mix 150g plant material with 500ml water and blend until it is very fine (kitchen blender).
Add 80ml of 25% vinegar. Blend again.
Boil till chlorophyll coagulates. Then i filtered through a cloth and basified with about 25ml of 50% NaOH solution.
Then i made two Naphtha pulls an let them evaporate.
The residue was clear but oily. I tested with Mecke, Hoffmann and Ehrlich.
Mecke: nearly black (NN)
Hoffmann: yellowish (NN)
Ehrlich: weak purple

2.
Everything like 1. but plant was . aruninaceae (Iowa, wild?:
Mecke: brown-black
Hoffmann: green (5-MeO)
Ehrlich: bluish

3. Everything like 1. but harvest time was August and plant was P. arundinacea "Big Medicine":
very low yield, nearly not visible.
Reagents nearly no respond.
-> maybe not the right time in year, maybe accidently i made some mistake in extraction, maybe it was not "Big Medicine" but some commercial low alkaloid strain.


Sorry i can not upload photos of the reagents to some reason, maybe it would help.
Maybe you have some suggestions. Sorry i am not a native speaker.

Really interesting and well done Cavo92! Doing the groundwork for the future plant medicines.

It's been a while since I've posted to this thread, I'd like to share my thoughts about P. arundinacea genetics as it's important to the production of alkaloids in the plants as well as understanding which plants will have which alkaloids according to their genetics. What I've been able to find is early research on the Mendelian heritability of the alkaloids, and using a molecular view to determine origins of the species to a degree.

First the origin. Kavova et al. (2018 ) found P. arundinacea to be native to both North America as well as Europe. Most cultivated varieties were created from native wild populations out of Minnesota. This is interesting to me as this indicates that it's not an invasive exotic in many places. It can be invasive in well suited environments, but is likely to still be a native. In a less hospitable environment it can thrive, but isn't invasive. I've had it in my front yard for 15+ years in just such an inhospitable environment and it survives, but doesn't thrive. In wild populations it also is affected by Founder's effect and bottle necking, but I might go into some of that in a separate deep dive post on the genetics if there is interest.

Mendelian: It is proposed that the type of alkaloids that an individual plant will produce is controlled by 2 dominant genes T (DMT producing) and M (5-MeO producing) to establish a 3rd double recessive g (Gramine producing) genotype. T and M types will also produce Betacarbolines as an end point in the proposed biosythetic pathway. Now, the interesting part (that explains a lot of data in the literature about low numbers of T plants) is that they also propose that M is epistatic to T and that M and T are linked. Breaking this all down explains a lot about what is going on with this plant and possible ways to create (breed) desirable cultivars. Even ones that will have the selected alkaloid profile from progeny with seed. It would take some work, but would be doable.

Let me break this down. These studies show that in their experiments the percentages of such plants usually fall out at 1% T : 19% M : 80% G phenotypes. At first glance, this seems disheartening, and may be if you are just interested in wild collecting the plants. But, looking at the genetics with an eye toward cultivation, not so much. There is actually lots of interesting stuff in the view of cultivation.

M being epistatic to T means that the M locus will "over-ride" the T locus when present. So, if a plant is M/m:T/t (heterozygous at both loci) it will be an M phenotype plant. This is actually good news because any plant that has at least one copy of M and T at both loci has the +potential+ to produce some T plants from crossing M x M plants. This was actually the case in the literature despite the 2 having a possible linkage (typically inherited together because of proximity on the chromosome). For example, and not taking linkage into consideration, a crossing of M/m:T/t x M/m:T/t should produce a ratio of 12:3:1 (M, T, g) in the offspring [plants from seeds].

Researchers also found that alkaloid levels are inheritable in an increasing manner meaning that if a high alkaloid plant is crossed to a low alkaloid plant, the offspring doesn't land in the middle or below, but above middle (mean of the 2 percentages). This is also good new for selectively breeding for higher and higher alkaloid contents. This was done in reverse to create low alkaloid cultivars for grazing, and likely took more time to create low level cultivars than it might to produce high level cultivars.

Using this information, it is totally possible to put forth a breeding program to selectively breed high alkaloid strains that are selected for both T and M phenotypes. This could be done using all 3 phenotypes, M and g phenotypes, T and g phenotypes, or T and M phenotypes for crossing.

The phenotypes can be determined using either colorometric test or TLC with visualization via Xanthydrol or Silicotungstic acid. Figuring out exact genotype would require test breeding.

More to come if there is any interest.

-D.

See also:
Studies on Genetic variation in reed canarygrass, Phalaris arundinacea L., Ostrem (1987)
Inheritance of three groups of Indole Alkaloids in Reed Canarygrass, Marum et al (1979)
Genetic Variability of US and Czech Phalaris Arundinacea L. Wild and Cultivated Populations, Kavova et al. (2018 )

Dozuki wrote:


..i'm definitely interested, i just didn't see this till now..thanks Dozuki

this should be of great interest here..given a whole range of sustainability and climate issues, and the speed of growth for these grasses, i still believe phalaris is the way of the future...

Sorry if I'm posting this at the wrong thread as I'm on a short break so I'm on hurry to write this down.

I will be extracting from aquatica this weekend. Now I'm 100% confident that the extract will be active and my strain is a good yeilding strain and it has always yeilded nicely for me every single time.

However I've been mixing the oily extract with tabacco rolled into a joint. This time around I decided to build the machine for vaping the extract for better efficiency and there lies the challenge for me. I have never smoked phalaris extract other than in a joint.

I have read most of the threads on building and using the machine. My understanding is that copper mesh is a superior material choice than steel scrubber since copper conducts heat more efficiently.

Problem is that copper mesh/scrubber isn't available where am from.

Could I just roll thin copper wire into a ball to replace copper mesh? Or does it have to be a copper mesh/scrubber?

I don't own a mg scale at the moment and I'm worried I will dose too high. Especially that weather is getting warmer and from experience my aquatica extracts have been stronger at warmer weather (slightly visual but extremely powerful)

Winter extracts have been my most favourite. They were just the right potency for me. They were a lot more forgiving in terms of dosage.
So I felt safe eyeballing the does in a tabacco joint.

Autumn extract however was extremely powerful and even the tiniest amount eyeballed was too rough a ride.

I really don't want to repeat that autumn traumatizing experience again and I'm at loss as to how to mitigate this issue in the abscence of an accurate scale.

Any suggestions and tips would be highly appreciated. If there is no way around this than I can just go back to rolling the extract in a joint and use parsley instead of tabacco for a more interesting flavour (although tabacco contrary to what some members have reported in the nexus gave smooth pleasant smoke, it's just very wasteful)

Not doubting you, but what sources do you have for this claim?

Even if mimosa and confusa will be Indefinitely available, wouldn't it be environmentally friendlier and more economical to grow your own source sustainably, cheaply and without leaving a carbon print?

That post was from a dozen years back, and the member who posted it hasn't been here for over ten years.

Sidisheikh.mehriz's point still stands though.

^..i second that Sidisheikh.mehriz's point still stands..

..that really old post was from a time when there was a threat to some availability through law enforcement..supply chains are not guaranteed..self-sustainability or localised growing is always the safest long term bet..

and if we favour a growing it yourself model, then trees like mimosa and confusa can't be grown easily or at all in colder climates, or for people who live in urban environments, or don't own land..

Phalaris can be grown in tub conditions (in smaller spaces), and will grow to yield in faster time scales than trees..

when we go back to an early post in this thread (like widderic quoted), what we're seeing is the development and progress of ideas and data by the nexus collaboration...back in 2010-11 there were aspects of Phalaris that were not clear to nexians...we see in the the thread perfectly how various members worked together to find more answers on Phalaris...and now we see really developed, successful and ongoing cultivar work with the grasses..

we're now in the future, from the point-of-view of the early thread...and still learning and progressing