So last winter I acquired seeds of reed canary grass and planted them in late February. I live at latitude 30 so the summer sun is very intense and the rainy season began a couple of weeks ago, it rains every day now. Annual rainfall is >65 inches. Now I've read a lot of conflicting information online (ie. it's a cool season grass/ it's a warm season grass, it won't grow in tropical & sub-tropical climates/ it does grow in the tropics, etc).

I have them growing in 3 separate spots as an experiment to see what works best.

Here's some pictures:

First is some in pots, which are growing directly under a large swamp maple and get about an hour of direct sun in the early morning.
Second is a patch which is growing in the ground, these get direct sun till about 11:00 am.

These look great so far, but

Third is a patch which gets direct sun all day, they looked awesome, and I was able to harvest quite a bit from this patch until about a month ago.

Is the sun too intense for them, or do they really go dormant during the summer heat?

Also, has anyone had success using the brown leaves of this plant?

I have no experience with this. But you're doing great work. AS far as the whole experience I mean. Planting and caring. I hope this plant will get you closer to what you are looking for. It's so nice to raise plants.

I have 3 varieties of P. arundinacea growing both in the ground and in pots.

In the first year or so the direct summer sun was a bit much for the clones and they would tend to stall, go yellow, and dry out till the weather cooled down. However once they had a year to get established the following years spring/summer regrowth does just fine in full sun, this grass is very adaptable.

I've found the biggest factor in how well they grow for me is the quality of the soil. The one's I have planted in the local rocky clay heavy earth have stayed rather small compact. I planted one using hugelkultur techniques and it has outgrown every other one, even ones that were have been established much longer.

The yellow/brown/dead leaves do still contain alkaloids, you definitely should save them.

mine is anything but summer dormant.

Same here! My "Big Medicine" and "Yugo Red" clones have been growing like crazy in the last month or so. I live at latitude 43, so the sunshine may be a little less intense than that of latitude 30, but it has been around 90° F for the last two weeks. My patches get full sun in the morning and early afternoon, then a little shade in the late afternoon. They seem to be thriving!

Those plants are absolutely beautiful BundleflowerPower, they look incredibly happy!

I myself am not cultivating any P. arundinacea at the moment, however it grows wild in my area in quite large quantities & in varying light ranges. I observe it quite often as I believe it to be a very powerful plant teacher, I once performed a VERY crude extraction on some P. arundinacea that I had collected from my area & yielded the tiniest amount of beautiful yellow crystals, was proof positive enough that this grass has great power.

I don't see any signs of dormancy in my climate during the summer months, currently we are averaging high 80's during the day, 65-75 at night, and rainfall every afternoon, so far we've had three days of heavy flooding as well, the grass seems to love it seeing as it's typically found in a wetlands climate. I notice the largest, and happiest clumps of grass here grow in areas where water collects, and along the banks of the Platte River, we have absolutely massive quantities here.

Corresponding to light, there is a specific patch that I will go take a picture of tomorrow, growing underneath a patch of trees, right at the base of a drainage ditch, I believe it receives sun only in the afternoon for about 2 hours & it is absolutely thriving, I am 6'5" tall and the grass actually comes up to my neck & even higher.

I also notice that the areas where it is growing on the river banks, where it receives light all day grow at the same rate. I truly think it is more water dependent than anything, P. arundinacea seems to eat up all the available photons it can and absolutely loves the summer months!

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. I think I'll let them do their thing till fall. I was planning on letting one pot grow flowers, because I'm not 100% on id'ing them in the wild.

Update. My potted grass is doing great, but the brown patch in the ground is still the same. Of course summer just ended here about a week ago so we'll see.

To my knowledge neither p. canaris neitheir arundinacea contains enough and clean dmt. SWIM could not extract any alkaloids from arundinacea at all.
If try extracting from phalaris I would go with brachytachys or AQ1

I really haven't gotten around to working with it. Once I brewed about 10 grams and basified it with sodium carbonate and a large amount of precipitate fell out. Never bioassyed it though.

I have never extracted phalaris arundinacea and not ended up with active tryptamines, personally. Low yields are offset by the fact that the plant grows so damn fast and spreads all over the place.

It does grow fast, I moved my potted grass into my greenhouse along with one potted mimosa and they're all growing in overdrive now.