I just read in a book that lousewort (pedicularis) an edible plant found all over north america will take on the characteristics of whatever plant it is attached to...
Including picking up alkaloids!!!
This is great news if it could potentially grab up things like mescaline...dmt...ect.
more research is needed this could be an excellent breakthrough in the cultivation of those yummy alks

Let louse wart do the work

Hi archaic_arcitect,

sounds very intresting!
Is there stated which strain has this capability. Wiki told me that there are about 600 different varieties in the northern hemisphere.
And in addition what´s the name of this book?


In Lak´ech
Garfield

The book is "Edible and medicinal plants of the west" by Gregory L. Tilford
the strains mentioned in the book are pedicularis groenlandica and pedicularis contorta.

Not to mention that the lousewort will probably be a lot less inconspicuous to keep around than a bunch of MHRB

Exactly, more for less is always better plus they are small and probably grow alot faster.

i think this is why perhaps - potency varies - mine did nadda - perhaps if it were nexto a brugmansia suaviolens or soemthing

Phlux are you saying potency of mimosa varies because other plants steal the alks?
Have you tried growing the lousewort with mimosa?

For a while, I have been wondering about plant cross breeding for the purpose of creating new species that carry actives. I didn't make a new thread about it because I assumed that since no one seems to be doing, there must be some obvious reason why no one is doing it, and so the question would be a stupid one.

But now that the topic has arisen, why can't people simply use cross breeding of plants, like the Tomacco episode of the Simpsons, in order to get other plants that produce actives? The idea would be to get plants that are easy to grow, and are easy to grow in most climates, and also make them alkaloid producing/ Would this not make plants truly unstoppable? Or, if cross breeding doesn't work for whatever reason, what about actual genetic engineering? Is any scientist out there close to identifying the genes in any of our beloved plants that produce their actives? Then mix that gene in with some other plant.

So, I was just wondering, why hasn't this really been done yet? And is it possible at all? THANKS!

Im no expert but im sure for cross breeding the plants must at least be of the same genus. There is always blanching but it wouldnt help with dmt because its mainly in the roots, maybe psychotria. Im not sure about genetic modification, seems creepy though.

Creepy? Explain. I believe it's already being done with foods.

My first thought on cross breeding plants and genetic modification was that if it hasn't been done with weed, it probably can't be done. If it were possible, I wold think someone would have done it by now. Unless, by some miracle, people have just overlooked this possibility????????????????????????????????????????? anyone???

Ya creepy, personally I stay away from GMOs if possible I dont really like the idea of replacing dna. I think nature takes years and years of evolution to change things like dna for a reason. Changing an organisms dna instantly like that just seems bad. Just my view though who really knows.

Really? So just because it's being done you think it's not creepy?

Do you know that Monsanto is taking legal action against farmers (to the point of putting them out of business) whose crops have been "contaminated" with round-up-ready seeds that they never wanted in the first place? Have you heard of the terminator gene? Are you aware that they're modifying fish and that scienitific research shows that if a mere 60 genetically modified salmon are released into the wild, they would have the potential to overrun the entire natural population? Have you heard about the manner in which US GM corn has started leeching into the MExican gene-pool...and corn (of something like 600 varieties) is Mexico's staple crop and is now under full assault?

Yea...I'd say it's pretty creepy.

Anyway back to the subject, I was thinking cacti might be a good starting point for the lousewort trials.
Does anyone have some cactus growing that wants to throw some lousewort in the pot and when you are ready to harvest and extract, do a separate extraction on the lousewort and see if you get any mesc?
Im thinking you could just follow the same tek used for the cacti.
Any thoughts on this?

Hmmmm, interesting stuff. But is any of that really in the context of what we're talking about? We're talking about genetic modification of plants, not for food production, not so they will be stronger, more competitive, or resilient species, but just so they will produce medicinal alkaloids. It's just science to me, I don't find the idea of genetically modifying a plant so it will produce a certain substance any more creepy than growing a plant with the intention of using it for a certain substance, or using a solvent to suck alkaloids from a plant. I would probably find it creepy if I were against using plants as medicine, but I am not against using plants as medicine. Plus, cross breeding plants has been done as long as there has been agriculture, as far as I know. Again, not to suggest that since it isn't new, it isn't potentially bad. Just trying to say that cross breeding isn't some kind of new emerging mad science. So are you saying there's a danger that if a pine tree was modified to produce thc, it might kill all the other pine trees or something? No, I didn't mean to offend, or suggest that just because it's being done on food, it's not creepy.

Still though, interested in knowing why this hasn't been done, or if it can be done.

Good luck, Archaic, if you try this experiment.

Well, as you referenced that it was being done with foods as evidence for it not being creepy, I felt that those were relevant examples to show how it was creepy in relation to foods. I'm sorry if I've been snappish; lately there's been a lot of stress in my life.

As to GM alkaloids...I haven't heard of any such work being done...then again the vast majority of the compounds we discuss are hard to research due to the necessity of Sched I permits. I hear what you're saying, no matter how you slice it it's most definitely interesting and if I come across some lousewort I've got some cacti that I'd have no problems "leeching" from. Cross breeding's not quite what's going on here and imo, the "risk" here is significantly lower than either gm or crossbreeding, at least as far as having "escapes" into the wild population. Let's see what we can find out

Archaic, I think that you could follow a cactus tek and the general method proposed...do you have any idea on the time needed for lousewort to suck up x amount of alks?

Chacruna is part of the coffee family....
now THAT'S a great candidate for the dmt gene.

I don't know how long it would take or how much alkaloids would be leeched, I would assume it grows relatively fast and by the time it flowers it should have already sucked up any alks.