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Confessions of an Amateur Grass Gardener Options
 
Rundar
#1 Posted : 6/15/2015 3:28:15 AM

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Hello Nexus! I'm Rundar. I thought I'd introduce myself by way of a discussion of several summers worth of attempted Phalaris brachystachys extractions, and hopefully shake out some personal details along the way. I assume there are other threads for specific discussion of such teks so I'll have to look around for those. At any rate, here we go!

I first met Dmitri under "not-Nexus-approved circumstances", and immediately I realized the wonderful gift that the universe had given me - and began a quest to pay off that debt. I want to understand this experience, I want to heal and grow as a person. I want to take this seriously and integrate my experiences. And, as a student of chemistry, I yearn for the satisfaction of a job well done and a system working in harmony.

So I got some P. brachystachys seeds and grew them up big and strong. The stuff's invasive (at least where I live) so it has no problem getting situated, especially in a pot in a growth chamber. The first picture I have attached is of the two current plants, the one that's flowering is about 6 weeks older than the other. you can see the huge difference in the shape and size of the leaves (probably partially due to over-enthusiasm on the part of the harvester) in the younger and older plants, I find that the biggest leaves come just a week or two before the flowers. I really like these plants, they keep me company. I tell people they're my roommates.

So when the time comes to harvest I drought-starve them for a day or so and sometimes gently rasp the bases of stems with a safety razor. Then I wait for "civil twilight" and harvest one to two cereal bowls stuffed full (yeah, lack of accurate measurement is a running theme here. It's pretty cringeworthy, I know), which are then vacuum-sealed and frozen. After four such harvests I thaw the grass and push it through a wheatgrass juicer. It's really tough and stringy so I have to use some distilled water to get it moving – but only a little! About a cup or so. All told I'm left with maybe a cup of thick green juice and a dry mass of leftover fibers about the size of a small prescription bottle, which then gets refrozen for a day.

The thawed juice gets mixed with an equal amount of 5% white vinegar and thrown in a little 1-quart Crockpot for a couple days, heating for periods of 8-18 hours at a time with occasional stirring. I do acid pulls from the dry mass as well, double-boiling it in a small beaker inside the Crockpot. Saves space! A thick dark amber liquid comes out and goes through a coffee filter which picks up all the chlorophyll and gunk. After it settles a little I might do another filtration – the longer it boils for, the easier it is to filter. Once the liquid is cool, I add NaOH pellets until the solution turns dark red (eyeballing it at probably 30-40g). pH paper confirms we're in business as does a beautiful tan precipitate that begins to crash out. It's my favorite part of the whole process, I regret not taking a picture.

The whole bottle smells like spice. Now I do pulls with heptane – heating the liquid in a double-boiler setup, or heating the heptane, or both – and set the heptane out on a plate to deposit a uniform sheet of waxy crystals (this is the second picture that I have attached). I get about a gram or so of this stuff, but it seems much much denser than the fluffy crystals I've seen around the site. These smell like spice but won't melt, instead just puff up like burnt marshmallows and fade away. Very sad! Now, I've tried sandwiching this between some cannabis and I got some okay effects – just above baseline, no oevs, no chrysanthemum. I also recently tried recrystallization with double-boiled heptane and that didn't really redissolve it – maybe I didn't get it hot enough? That can't be it, it was bubbling. Okay, so the super-cloudy hot heptane is decanted, leaving gross orange goo (which is my third picture) behind. Evaporation under a heat lamp yields a meager amount of whiter crystals, still very waxy and still not melting. They don't even really smell anymore.

So that's where I am right now. I'm currently gearing up for some 100g ACRB extractions using basically the same routine, but with more attention to getting solvents hot and saturated. I think that should be a lot easier than the grass (I don't see a lot of threads on here of Phalaris success stories, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places). I would love to get this tek to work though – I have enough seeds to become totally independent if I can just get the spice flowing all the way through. My current hypothesis is that the alkaloids are being broken down because of all the time spent sitting in the freezer (sometimes for a month!). I should get a big jar and some ethanol for future harvests, probably.

Sorry about this big wall of text, I hope I made it at least a little interesting. As I said before, I'm super psyched to be a part of this community and expand as a conscious being. Hopefully we can chat about this tek and help share the wisdom!
Rundar attached the following image(s):
Image_01.jpg (393kb) downloaded 157 time(s).
Image_02.jpg (236kb) downloaded 156 time(s).
Image_03.jpg (184kb) downloaded 156 time(s).
 

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Rundar
#2 Posted : 6/15/2015 3:34:31 AM

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Last visit: 28-Jul-2015
oh no, I posted this twice somehow! :C and this one doesn't have any pictures. dang! I'm sorry, I can't find the button to delete a thread.
 
TGO
#3 Posted : 6/15/2015 3:38:35 AM

Music is alive and in your soul. It can move you. It can carry you. It can make you cry! Make you laugh. Most importantly, it makes you feel! What is more important than that?

Welcoming committee

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Hello and welcome!

You are definitely is n the right place! Phalaris grass is being researched all the time here at the Nexus. I, personally, haven't had the pleasure of working with these grasses but there are many who have and they are only a click or two away!

Welcome once again and may you find everything you seek at the Nexus! Smile

Peace

-The Grateful One-
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One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

 
TGO
#4 Posted : 6/15/2015 3:42:21 AM

Music is alive and in your soul. It can move you. It can carry you. It can make you cry! Make you laugh. Most importantly, it makes you feel! What is more important than that?

Welcoming committee

Posts: 2562
Joined: 02-May-2015
Last visit: 04-Sep-2023
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*to delete a thread, there should be some boxes in the upper right corner of the post that say "quote" "edit" "delete" etc etc.*

welcome, btw but in case you delete this post, have no fear! I welcomed you in your double post as well!!

Laughing

best of luck to you
New to The Nexus? Check These Out:



One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

 
Rundar
#5 Posted : 6/15/2015 3:46:42 AM

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All I can see is quote, edit, and attach, unfortunately. Must be a new member thing? Oh well. Thanks!
 
LSDvibes
#6 Posted : 6/15/2015 3:58:04 AM

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Lovely to hear you're growing what you're extracting from! Pretty neat! I'm sure DiMiTri will appreciate your efforts in the long run, as long as you extract responsibly and with respect to your grass! Wish I could give tek-specific advice but I only know the basics and have run into issues with yields not precipiting as I'd like in the past. I would keep the goo, if I were you and it smells like spice. And also try searching on here for other members who have done grass extractions as they might know more about what the goo might or might not contain like gramine and other things that root bark doesn't.
?


Looks like your double post got figured out as I'm only seeing one original post but without the pictures attached.
 
TGO
#7 Posted : 6/15/2015 4:00:42 AM

Music is alive and in your soul. It can move you. It can carry you. It can make you cry! Make you laugh. Most importantly, it makes you feel! What is more important than that?

Welcoming committee

Posts: 2562
Joined: 02-May-2015
Last visit: 04-Sep-2023
Location: Lost In A Dream
Hmm that is strange. I could have sworn that I could delete posts as a new member...maybe I was hallucinating...?

Laughing

perhaps someone else has the answer...
New to The Nexus? Check These Out:



One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

 
Rundar
#8 Posted : 6/15/2015 5:02:43 AM

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LSDvibes wrote:
Lovely to hear you're growing what you're extracting from! Pretty neat! I'm sure DiMiTri will appreciate your efforts in the long run, as long as you extract responsibly and with respect to your grass! Wish I could give tek-specific advice but I only know the basics and have run into issues with yields not precipiting as I'd like in the past. I would keep the goo, if I were you and it smells like spice. And also try searching on here for other members who have done grass extractions as they might know more about what the goo might or might not contain like gramine and other things that root bark doesn't.
?
.

Thanks for the good vibes! I'm definitely going to keep the goo, maybe I'll try and find someone with an HPLC setup in the fall. That'd be crazy!

Also, I put the pictures back up! Enjoy!
 
jamie
#9 Posted : 6/15/2015 6:51:47 AM

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Salvia divinorum expert | Skills: Plant growing, Ayahuasca brewing, Mushroom growingSenior Member | Skills: Plant growing, Ayahuasca brewing, Mushroom growing

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I will likely comment more later, but for now..welcome!
Long live the unwoke.
 
Ufostrahlen
#10 Posted : 6/15/2015 8:57:12 AM

xͭ͆͝͏̮͔̜t̟̬̦̣̟͉͈̞̝ͣͫ͞,̡̼̭̘̙̜ͧ̆̀̔ͮ́ͯͯt̢̘̬͓͕̬́ͪ̽́s̢̜̠̬̘͖̠͕ͫ͗̾͋͒̃͛̚͞ͅ


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Welcome!

A grass researcher, chemistry student and some good answers on the questionaire? Promo upvote from my side!
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LSDvibes
#11 Posted : 6/15/2015 1:46:50 PM

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Nice pictures! The extractions do look promising even though they aren't crystals (the nexus has a thread on psychoactive goo as well, I'll link it if I can on my phone later.) My school's greenhouse grew some P. Arundinacea to research its invasive traits. It reeked of DMT right outside the door but the public couldn't go in the room because it was private for researchers. I wish I could find the pictures I took of it, it was glorious! Love
 
LSDvibes
#12 Posted : 6/15/2015 6:48:39 PM

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https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=41652 Goo-d thread lol Smile If you find that the too can be used, you can read about making changa which I think the thread mentions as a viable way to measure and dose it. I imagine things would get sloppy if you tried to measure directly on a scale any who. If you do make changa with it, you can use a sensitive scale to weigh your leaf and then weigh the chnaga leaf after with the goo dissolved in and subtract the weight of the leaf fr the weight of the changa. Sorry if there are typos, my phone loves trying to change the DMT terms I use to regular words Confused
 
The Traveler
#13 Posted : 6/15/2015 7:46:45 PM

"No, seriously"

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I merged the threads.


Kind regards,

The Traveler
 
BongWizard
#14 Posted : 6/15/2015 10:16:40 PM

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Good to see you growing your own grass. That extract looks much like some of the early spice I made from wild p. Aquatica. I'll share some of my observations and experiences and try to give you some advice.

Firstly, grasses extractions require a lot of material to get any appreciable amount of DMT (I would get a yield of about 0.1% of wet mass). When I did my first couple grass extracts I tried doing an A/B. This is not the way to go, ime. which brings me to my next point. Grasses have loads of fat and chlorophyll in them, that's what your last pic is of (and based on an estimate that's likely 80+% of the weight of your extract). All these nonpolar compounds mean you end up wasting a lot of nps if you're not smart about it. And my final point of experience, the purified spice from grasses as close to no smell. If you get you nose right down in there it might have a faint whiff of fresh daffodils or some other flowery aroma, but not much. Also, I could never get sharp crystals out of grass. I could get it to a snow white goo that went waxy when scraped from freeze precip, but not crystals (definitely worked tho, vaped well and would launch me).

The way I developed for doing this in an efficient manner was a base-acid-base extract. While I like the grass juicer idea, you likely leave a bunch of goods behind in the fibre and it sound like you've used very little water to liberate the alkaloids. So here's the method I settled on for grasses (don't use it much now, I've moved to harvesting wild a. Maidenii root bark).

1) chop 1kg of freshly harvested grass as fine as possible. I usually just used a big knife on a chopping board. I'd lay the grass in a tight bunch all facing the same way and cut it into 5mm confetti.

2) to a 3L+ glass vessel with a good watertight lid (you could probably use your crock pot as long as the inside isn't exposed metal, but a big glass bottle will make it easier later, I always used a 4L Erlenmeyer flask) add your chopped grass and enough water to fill the flask (with 100mL space for later).

3) slowly add 125g of NaOH per litre of mixture. Take the appropriate precautions when handling lye and the resulting solution as the pH is going to be above 14.

4) if using your crock pot, put it on a very low heat setting and allow the mixture to digest for a good 24 hours, mixing occasionally (I used to leave it 2 or 3 days, but I didn't heat this step either). Over this period the alkaline solution will break down the grass, turning the mixture a deep green-black colour.

5) place your flask in a hot water bath (if you haven't already done so) and add 100mL of xylene (or any other light phase nps, but it's best to use and aggressive solvent so we don't waste money dissolving fat and chlorophyll).

6) stopper the bottle and gently mix the contents (roll, swirl and invert, but don't shake). Allow separation of the nps and repeat at least 3 more times.

7) remove the xylene layer with a baster, syringe or siphon and place in a collection vessel for later (I would use a 500mL Erlenmeyer flask)

Repeat steps 6 and 7 at least twice more (you can do more if the solvent is still coming out yellow)

Cool add enough dilute acid (pH = 2) to the nonpolar pulls to fill your flask (vinegar is fine here, I use 0.01M HCl, because it's cheaper). Gently mix the contents over a period of 20 minutes. Remove the acid (bottom) layer and place in a flask for later (1L erlenmeyer here).

Repeat step 8 until you have at least 3x the volume of acid solution as you do nonpolar solution.

9) add 40g/L NaOH to your relatively clear acid solution.

10) add 50mL naphtha (or hexane if you like) to the now alkaline mixture. Gently mix and allow separation at least 4 times. Remove nonpolar and place in evap dish. Repeat. Two pulls should be sufficient here because there should only be alkaloids in the solution at this point.

11) evap to about 20% of original volume and freeze overnight.

12) decant or otherwise remove the solvent from the evap dish and allow to dry completely.

13) scrape up your spice Big grin

I hope this helps you get some spice out. I'm always here to help if you need any more tips, tricks or advoce.

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Rundar
#15 Posted : 6/15/2015 11:41:47 PM

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The Traveler wrote:
I merged the threads.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Thanks so much! And a big thank you to everyone for the warm welcome!

BongWizard wrote:
Good to see you growing your own grass. That extract looks much like some of the early spice I made from wild p. Aquatica. I'll share some of my observations and experiences and try to give you some advice.


Wow, thanks for the detailed tek! Breaking the cells down with a base first sounds like a good idea. I also appreciate how the forum code autocorrected step 8 to an emoticon Smile

LSDVibes wrote:
Goo-d thread lol Smile If you find that the too can be used, you can read about making changa which I think the thread mentions as a viable way to measure and dose it. I imagine things would get sloppy if you tried to measure directly on a scale any who. If you do make changa with it, you can use a sensitive scale to weigh your leaf and then weigh the chnaga leaf after with the goo dissolved in and subtract the weight of the leaf fr the weight of the changa. Sorry if there are typos, my phone loves trying to change the DMT terms I use to regular words


Making changa is a lovely idea! Thanks for the URL to the goo thread!

 
jamie
#16 Posted : 6/16/2015 3:35:41 AM

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Salvia divinorum expert | Skills: Plant growing, Ayahuasca brewing, Mushroom growingSenior Member | Skills: Plant growing, Ayahuasca brewing, Mushroom growing

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my extracts look similar..from either aquatica, arundinacea and high alk arundinacea clones

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=48635

if you can track down a copy of the winter 2015 issue of dragibus, I have a picture of some stuff from aquatica in my article that did crystalize

Ive been using the stuff for almost a decade and still trying to get it dialed. Im glad more people are getting involved again.
Long live the unwoke.
 
 
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