Documenting a simple experiment here to test the following hypothesis:

"Stressing cactus in the presence of ethylene gas increases mescaline content".

This hypothesis has been brought up by user modern. See spoiler for more details as I understand the latest status.


My attempt at investigating this:

11/30/2023: Found two twin basal pups. Assuming they have the same mescaline content beased on symetry. Harvested the top 2/3s. Harvested cuts where divided again, middle thirds for the stress experiment, and the top thirds for replanting/propagation.

Middle cuts where put in large paper bags, and 3 apples (ethylene source) which will be changed out weekly where added to one of the bags (cactus cut A). Cut B is alone per the usual stress aging.

Will extract after a 1.5 months with CIELO and report results towards the end of January.

Attaching a review paper ( "Plant development, stress responses, and secondary metabolism under ethylene regulation" ) with some related info. Phenolic compounds and Alkaloids can be modulated by ethylene. Usually more metabolites are produced, but can also be less.

How long do you plan on keeping the ethylene gas going? I don't think more than 2 weeks is needed; considering most fruits ripen within that time frame and going by the BRIX measurement after 2 weeks most of the sugars are depleted. I doubt that the plant would be able to do much after the depletion of the sugars. I didn't check the BRIX during the ethylene experiment.

The results from my extractions were inconclusive since I did mess up a bit BUT the extraction that did have ethylene treatment visually had much more precipitate.

I'll be repeating this once I have enough material since my scale can't accurately measure under around 80 or so mg.

Also adding to this we are supplementing extraneous ethylene but during any stress plants increase ethylene production to regulate growth. There is a point that you can add TOO much ethylene causing similar to adding too much CO2 or anything else.

In my experiment I added water to calcium carbide which produces acetylene. However plants convert or use this in the same manner as ethylene.

1.5 months since a normal stress is my control.

I will change the apples weekly.