I stumbled across the attached paper recently, and I was surprised that I haven't seen it discussed here before, especially because the data presented are quite interesting. The authors present two lines of analyses: 1) analysis of tissues from 6-year old mimosa hostilis plants in either winter (january) or summer (june) and 2) analysis of microcultures of mimosa hostilis, especially calluses and plantlets. In their experiments they also quantified levels of tryptophan, tryptamine and serotonin .

The "meat" of the paper is not only in the seasonal variation but also the type of tissues analysed; surprisingly there is not root bark included in their analyses, but rather bark, flowers and leaves. The gist of their results is that bark contains an average of 0.35% dmt during the winter and that drops to 0.11% during the summer. Leaf dmt content on the other hand raises from an average of 0.01% in wintertime to a 0.09% in summertime. Unfortunately the seasonal differences they observed are not statistically significant, however their study is seminal in that it deals with dmt, mimosa hostilis and seasonal variations.

Now, I could not stop thinking; doesn't this paper basically suggest that growing mimosa hostilis is an excellent candidate for self sustainability? Contrary to phalaris grasses that require a horizontal space or chacruna/claliponga that require some tropical microclimate, mimosa hostilis can be grown pretty much everywhere where there is some sun and room temperature, and it requires vertical space. And mimosa hostilis is a sure-fire when it comes to alkaloid content.

Put in in other words, if one starts growing 4-6 mimosa hostilis plants, in just 6 years he will be able to start making a fair amount of harvest in bark, rootbark and leaves per year to sustain himself for life. On the other hand I hardly believe that grasses will catch up with the ease of maintaining an upright, more biomass-producing, dmt-containing plant with clean alkaloid profile. As a matter of fact I think I should start growing mimosa hostilis as soon as possible!

Yep, I mentioned this paper in this thread, but it probably did not have much visibility.

And the implications for sustainability are interesting, as you imply... further information related to season alkaloid variability and growing conditions (humidity, temperature, pruning and others) is covered in the piece iracema and I are preparing for the #1 of the e-Zine... although, if the e-Zine is delayed much further, I might not be able to hold back and post it here instead.

Brilliant - I suspected that such a study couldn't have gone unnoticed from the nexus crew! And the results therein most certainty need to be "advertised" more, because they are so relevant to us...

For the moment I am also interested in more intelligence re the growing of mimosa hostilis and I am now really awaiting for the ezine article. Whilst phenomenally "easy" in theory, I'd be interested to hear from people who have actual experience growing mimosa hostilis indoors especially in not so friendly climates, let's say in the UK. Even though I am enthusiastic about growing mimosa hostilis at this moment (considering the advantages as outlined above) it is almost impossible that there are no culprits.

I live south from the UK, but the mimosa pictures I posted in my indoor garden thread show plants that have spent two thirds of their time indoors in their first year. Temperature doesn't need to be blistering hot in summer... if between, say, may and september you can find them a sunny spot in a balcony or a windowsill, that will give a nice boost... but surely they can thrive indoors in Europe with decent light and temp.