Yes, we'd need one team of pioneers to breed one good strain and distribute the seeds.

You have to write and introduction essay or post to the forum (just to show that you are not a bot/troll) in order to be allowed into the trade sections at STS.

I don't know of anyone/anywhere offering Turkey Red seeds, generally these named strains will be distributed as clones to maintain their genetic profile. It looks like you are already on that. I can't vouch for random clones ordered off ebay, but I suspect they will likely be the clones they are purported to be, not a lot of incentive to mislabel em as they are both cheap and readily available from multiple sources. I can absolutely vouch for the clones available from Companion Plants as they were the original source of the clones analysed in The Phalaris Analysis Thread. They do not carry the Turkey Red variety at CP however.


Actually this is exactly what Johnny Appleseed, Jim Dekorne, and others did way back in the 90's Entheogen Review daze. "Big Medicine" "Turkey Red" etc... are the result of this. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when the breeding work has already been done. Now it's a matter of people getting these strains, propagating them, and taking careful notes on environmental factors such as fertilizer regimen, clipping regimen, season/time of day of harvest, etc.

Thanks for the explanation of STS.
And thanks for the link to CP.

Well according to Appleseed, it seems that Turkey Red really breeds true to seeds (which seems absolutely not to be the case for the others). Therefore it would be really interesting if anybody would seed them.

Also Jaimie said on page 15 in this thread that some analysis showed that other phalaris A, where Turkey Red was found also have this profile (an ACK for Appleseeds suggestion). Indicating that it seems in this area all plants have this profile. But I have no idea, where to get these seeds.

But I'm really wondering if all the clones around are really clones from Appleseeds original plants strains. But I guess it's hard to determine that. Or is Appleseed still around?
As they are sold sometimes for quite some prices, I think there is some momentum for fake clones. You basically have to trust the whole clone-chain back to Appleseeds original (also that it hasn't been contaminated by seeds in the meantime).
Also some people could just be uninformed and sell such wrong offspring plants.
E.g. as an example. Many of the big (online) smartshops here in the EU sell Phalaris Arundinacea seeds (no specific strain). That's basically completely useless...
So much about people being not informed about Phalaris...



I rather understood it that way, as he was saying someone should seed the Turkey Red strain.

As I said earlier. To me it seems like Phalaris will not really be the big breakthrough for DMT, as MHRB is (still) just too widely available.

But there is basically almost NIL availability for natural 5-MeO-DMT, if you don't want to hold some toads captive (good Virola theiodora material is also basically almost not available and BTW also impossible to import, where I live).
So there I see big potential. And if the breeding true from seeds of Turkey Red is really the case, it would be extremely simple to plant bigger plots without any effort, if there are seeds.

And as it needs much less 5-MeO-DMT than DMT, the smaller gains wouldn't matter that much.

I found the reference you are referring to and it does indeed appear that Turkey Red should breed true from seed.


I actually did some inquiring to see if I could manage a long-term follow up with Johnny Appleseed. He has long since past doing this kind of work and settled down to live a nice quiet life with his family and professional practice. He left us with all the resources and information we need, at this point it's up to us to carry that torch.

Whether or not the clones available today are direct descendants of Johnny Appleseed's grasses (which I suspect they are), the ones we sent in for analysis absolutely did contain dimethyltryptamine. The main factor appears to be that the right fertilizing/cutting regimen is used while growing the plants. My own TLC analysis on the exact Big Medicine and Yugo Red plants that we determined to contain DMT via GC-MS tested completely negative for tryptamines when unfertilized and harvested as mature specimens. There is lot to take into account with cultivation of the grasses, and proper timing and fertilization is key for maximizing tryptamine content. This is all outlined in the scientific literature from when they were studying the role of P. arundinacea alkaloids in "sheep staggers". The old Erowid vault has some good information in this regard as well. What we really need now is for multiple people to test different growing conditions and compare notes to find out which methods work best for the home cultivator.

If you really need seeds, you can easily get a couple clones and allow them to pollinate one another and go to seed, but I'd suggest the cloning method outlined by JA above is going to be much faster and far more genetically reliable than growing from seed.

Turkey Red isn't necessarily the best source of 5-MeO-DMT either. There are 5-MeO-DMT dominant varieties of Phalaris that have much higher average alkaloid content than P. arundinacea, such as P. Brachystachys and P. aquatica var. stenoptera.


There are also several species of Acacia that have been tentatively identified as containing 5-MeO-DMT. I'd suggest these as much moar realistically viable sources of the molecule than the grasses.

Yeah, that was the part from Appleseed I referred to.

I think you also don't know which analysis Jaimie referred to about the alkaloid profiles of phalaris at the location origin of Turkey and Yugo Red?
I mean this post: https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=525186#post525186



Sure if I have to go by seeds myself, I can just as well go by cloning. Both are long term projects, if you only have a few clone plants.
The idea would have been, if there is somewhere anyone who does the seeding, or collects the seeds from the origin in Turkey. Then it would be a very quick job in getting a large plot of Turkey Red.
I also think it probably is very difficult for a private person to seed them properly. You would have to shield them completely from the outside, as otherwise you would get cross-breeding-contamination with local phalaris pollen.
I have no idea how professionals do this, or how I would do this.



This is surely a very nice topic for research. But you would basically have to start again from zero, like Appleseed, and first find the strains with the desired alkaloid profile. E.g. AFAIK some Brachystachys showed mainly DMT, others 5-MeO-DMT...

But definitely an interesting topic.

But if I now would want to start, I would prefer a strain, where I at least know, the alkaloid profile is the correct one and yield not that bad.
I personally also absolutely do not like Brachystachys, because they are not perennial. You would always remain seed dependent, and as said above, seeding oneself with no cross-contamination seems difficult to me.

Similar points speak against Acacia for me. You would start almost from zero research to find one with good profile for 5-MeO-DMT, and then I would have the problem, that I cannot grow it in our climate.
And as said before, I basically cannot import any such plants, as customs is very eager.
E.g. many people here got an invite from the police for an interrogation, instead of their MHRB package... (and they were all later sentenced guilty in court)
Here even the non active seeds of all these plants are illegal!!!
But I don't see a problem with phalaris, as it is just grass, basically growing everywhere.
Customs would only start to get on it, if really many people would start using phalaris. But by then local propagation between growers anyways couldn't be stopped anymore.

From a personal POV, I would think "Evodia leptococca" or especially "Pilocarpus organensis" could be the best plants for 5-MeO-DMT, but they are not available anywhere and I couldn't import them anyways without danger.
So for my situation I only see phalaris as a viable option. But if seeds aren't available, it is a long term project...
Only if I have a big patch (I have enough space), I could then treat different areas differently and compare yields.
E.g. I asked myself if in the studies done on phalaris, if also the oxides have been taken into account in the extraction. As it has been suggested, that more oxides get built, when the plant gets sun. E.g. this could explain strong variability over the year as just a measurement problem...
Also especially 5-MeO-DMT showed according to some fellow Nexians (especially 69ron), that only extractions with DCM or Chloroform seemed to give good yields, and only if no strong acid or bases have been used. For him, only the combination citric acid (pH4), sodium carbonate(pH10) and DCM worked for a good extraction.
One would also have to take this into account when judging analysis' which have been done.

Edit:
E.g. as I understood the nexian analysis of Yugo Red only showed a minor amount of DMT. But it should actually contain mostly 5-MeO-DMT. IMHO it could very well be, that the extraction mainly separated the DMT and the 5-MeO-DMT was discarded.
Could that be the case? That would at least explain the outcome of the analysis.

Edit2:
@dreamer:
Jaimie mentioned in the phalaris analysis thread that you did some analysis of Turkey Red. Unfortunately I couldn't find it. Could you indicate a link to the thread?
Would be very interested in a GC/MS of Turkey Red.

@dreamer or anyone who knows more about it:

You said, Aquatica isn't as cold resistant as Arundinacea. What is the source for this? As I would very much like to know, about how much cold AQ1 can withstand.
E.g. winters here usually go down max to about -20°C. With very rarely in some years going for short times -30°C. Would this be too cold?

The thing is, that at least under current conditions (pot, window) AQ1 is certainly the fastest growing grass and by far the most spreading.
It also develops much more leaves in relation to stems than the Arundinaceas. And AFAIK the leaves contain most of the alkaloids and the stems just make the extraction more problematic.

If you cut them, Arundinacea immediately shoots up stems with barely some leaves, whereas AQ1 first builds a lot of leaves and only then starts to go up. So if one would wanna go by mowing every now and then, Aquatica seems to me to be much the better option (it behaves much more like a normal lawn grass). But this is only the case for me, if it can survive the winter...

Yes, Nexus GC/MS analysis of the strain labeled as "Yugo Red" contained only DMT and no 5-MeO-DMT. The old literature states it should contain 5-MeO-DMT. Some have mentioned that it's possible there is enzyme activity creating differences in fresh and dried grasses (the samples were sent fresh, but had dried by the time they were tested) however I think that's unlikely or we'd see that effect across the spectrum and not in just this one strain. It's not likely that the equipment missed 5-MeO-DMT or the extraction method (soaking in methanol) destroyed it, as it picked up 5-MeO-NMT in the batch of wild arundinacea that Jamie sent in just fine. I expect that the "Yugo Red" clone commonly avaiable from botanical vendors is different than the one that was tested as containing 5-MeO-DMT in the Entheogen Review days.

I would not put too much stock in 69Ron's information. There was a severe conflict of interest in most of his info as he was running a vendor site and selling products of questionable quality (in this case supposed virola resin) then using that information to rationalize why members/customers were failing to obtain the 5-MeO-DMT purported to be in this resin. It's been well demonstrated time and again in the Entheogen Review and all over the older literature from the sheep staggers days, that a standard A/B just like that used to obtain DMT also works for 5-MeO-DMT. Those are much moar valid sources of legitimate research than Ron's hyperbole.

With Brachystachys you would need to find the variety high in 5-MeO-DMT rather than the one high in DMT, but it's absolutely the best grass candidate because seeds are pretty easy to obtain, it yields much higher amounts of alkaloids than any other variety of Phalaris, and the fact that you need to reseed it every year is simply not true, it can be cloned as well, as Intezam has demonstrated earlier in this thread. Also, you would not be starting from scratch with Acacia or other grasses like Stenoptera or the other plants you mention because we have already identified the presence of 5-MeO-DMT in these plants, it's absolutely no different than starting from Turkey Red, except that they will yield on the order of (at least) 10x as much alkaloid for your effort, and the fact that these are much moar readily available than bulk seed from wild strains in Turkey, which would actually be starting from scratch because we would need to confirm the presence of 5-MeO-DMT all over again in a wild strain, while this work has already been done for the Acacia's and cloned strains.

GC/MS has not been done on Turkey Red by the Nexus (yet). I did some TLC work with it and tentatively identified the presence of 5-MeO-DMT but was unable to confirm the identification with re-agent testing. It's likely it is there, but this requires moar follow up work before we can make any definite qualifications.

The source for aquatica not being as cold tolerant is my own experience growing both grasses, sustained (it takes about 2-3 weeks of exposure to snow) freezing temperatures below 0°C will kill the grass and unlike arundinacea, it will not grow back the following season. -20°C is far too cold to grow it outdoors through the winter. I have tested both in pots and in the ground and observed this trend every single year, though I am an individual case study, it would be interesting to have others confirm or confound my findings.

Thanks a lot for your answer. I really appreciate that you put some of your precious time into answering my questions.



Yes, I read that too. But he also said, that the "Timer" of the plants remain in the clones. That you can keep them for next year by cutting the flowers. But has anyone tried this over several years?
I personally would be very suspicious, if you can keep such a non perennial plant like that forever by cloning. I would think that sooner or later the plants will die off, due to this internal timer. (I have no knowledge about this stuff)
AFAIR someone in ER once wrote something like that.
Would really be interesting if anyone has tried this and can confirm that one really can keep Brachys forever like that. But then the question would also be about the cold resistance of Brachys.

I asked myself if this cloning tek of the Brachys doesn't also work for the Arundinaceas?
I have no knowledge in this realm, so I now just tried it with a few ones. No, idea if it will work.

With other plants I just have the problem, as I see it, that they will not grow at all in this climate. E.g. I don't see how any Acacia can grow here. Or is there any other cold resistant plant?

Thank you for the info about the cold resistance. It's a bit a pity. But what can you do...
So from this POV Arundinacea would be the way if you go outdoors.
As I said, space is outdoors not really a big problem. So even if it isn't the most effective, it could still be the most practical.

That's a very good question. I'm not sure of any long term projects with cloning brachy, maybe Inte has kept up the work and will chime in? I do know that this is moar or less what happens with cannabis, keep taking vegetative cuttings and cloning ad infinitum, but grasses and cannabis are fairly different plants. I expect brachy isn't very cold hardy as it seems to generally be distributed around the warmer climate zones.

I now had a look on Wikipedia (german one), where all the phalaris are listed with where they are located naturally. From this I think that probably Arundinacea is really the only Phalaris that will be able to withstand longer and strong cold periods, as it's the only one growing worldwide, whereas the others always seem to grow in warmer climates around the globe.

Also interesting that they say, that the roots of Arundinacea go down up to 3.5m. Wow that's deep, for a grass IMHO.

Edit:
Had a look about the Arundinacea, and it has been classified to survive in temperature zones with -34,4°C as max (Z4 zone).
So it seems to be really tough in relation to cold resistance.

Also Aquatica is nowhere available here in the gardening shops, whereas Arundinaceas are. Probably because, as you said, it gets too cold here for them.

I already mentioned that the supplier of my plants also gave me a picta, which he said, is a 5-MeO-DMT plant. Now at the window I can see the following:
It makes much more leaves than the other Arundinaceas (Turkey Red and Big Medicine), but spreads really really slow.
So from a harvesting POV it seems the picta variant could be more interesting. From a spreading POV not.

I also remembered this Erowid report:
https://erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=28201

He said to have used Picta, but OTOH he names it "tricolor ribbon grass", which actually would be Arundinacea Feesey and not Picta. Feesey has been bred from Picta by Mervin Feesey (therefore the name), but made so that it is whiter and has more pink in it. Also it is a much poorer spreader (a goal was to make it not as invasive, for planting in the garden).

From his effects description IMHO he surely had DMT and 5-MeO-DMT in it. But his described dosages seem way off: "half an ounce of phalaris grass" delivered for him quite a trip. That's almost nothing???

So IMHO it could be interesting to look into some Picta's and Feesey's, to see how their content is.

I have the following problem with my Arundinaceas, which are currently in a pot at the window:

They shot up so fast, that after they gained about 30-40cm height they cannot bear anymore their own weight and collapse...and die off again.
Is this normal?

Thanks for this! I know where there is some naturalised in my locality, I have harvested a specimen sample of it some months ago but have not done anything with it since. I had a good feeling about it though and this ID seems to be a key step in moving things forward. Roll on spring...

So, with P. 'Feesey', do we have any other data? All I can say is that it appears that it will naturalise in Germany and is very pretty. It prefers a wet environment - stream bed/edge. Temperatures in my region do not typically go much below -12°C, these days at least. I'll have to dig out that sample in the morning! (I mean, from a box somewhere, not the stream bed!!)

(here)
Actually it looks as though I will have to dig out a bit from the stream. Will the typical seasonal alkaloid variation apply here, one might wonder?

I planted 6 strains of phalaris grass last summer and did multiple tests with gas chromatography.

One live plant that was shipped half way around the world way did not survive.

All clone only plants did not match expectations. I think they were not clones of the original plant. Some strains produced compounds I did not like. These were removed from the garden.

That left me with one strain that produced good levels of DMT and one that produced DMT with a little 5meo.

We had a cold winter but lots of snow to protect the garden. The DMT only strain is poking through the snow and looks like a winter hardy survivor. In the fall I split the clump into many and hope to have 60 healthy clumps under the snow.

I did not do careful potency because I need to learn to harvest and extract. However I got a little better than 0.3 percent on some tests.

Hopeful.

What strains did you test? What compounds showed up that you did not like? Which strains had sufficient amounts? Also would be interested in any info on growing conditions/fertilizer regimens.

This is very useful info, you wouldn't happen to have still have the spectra readouts available, would you?

^^ Full Ack.

We really would be very interested in more information about your tests. There can never be too much info about this topic.

Edit3:
OK, I saw now your posts here:
https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=743599#post743599

and here:
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=745710#post745710

Which answers a lot.
What happened to your Turkey Red plant? Did it die? We still don't have a proper Turkey Red analysis.
Also interesting would have been, where you got your wrong BigMedicine clone from. But this is probably problematic, as sourcing isn't allowed. Maybe you could just indicate the country.
I also think that in Phalaris probably there is much potential n-oxide, which doesn't get pulled with naptha. Could one just add some zinc in the first acidic plant extraction?

As it seems the Arundinaceas are really very tough (all of them, normal, picta and feesey), so I suspect the one surviving was an Arundinacea?

Edit:
@downwardsfromzero:
That is really interesting! It would actually fit the breeding goal, of not being invasive anymore. So by not being able to seed propagate anymore, would massively make it less invasive.
That also explains, why I nowhere could find seeds for it, but only plants.

But that would actually also mean that all Phalaris Feesey out there are clones of Mervin Feesey's original plant! And if the Erowid report is really about a Feesey it seems to be quite a potent strain.
I also saw on the net, that Feesey is often called Picta Feesey. So that would match his description from the report again.

So there's a possibility of a potent cloned Phalaris strain out there available everywhere from basically every bigger garden vendor. That could really be interesting.
Unfortunately, as it seems from the report, it would be a mixed alkaloid type.

I actually ask myself if maybe my Picta is actually a Feesey. As it really basically does almost not propagate at all. Could this indicate, that it is a Feesey?

Lol, maybe Feesey was not only a botanist and grass specialist, but also an underground trypt guy, who thought: How can I make people all over the world plant a potent phalaris strain in their garden and make sure it remains the same strain?
Make it beautiful in appearance and make it unable to propagate by seeds.

Edit2:
A few things are strange: E.g. some vendors sell Phalaris tricolor as well as a Feesey as well as "Strawberries & Cream". Other vendors say that "Strawberries & Cream" Is Feesey.
So now I don't know what to think anymore???
So are there other tricolor strains?

^It is of course entirely possible that there are other tricolor strains, and I have a feeling that alkaloid production is not going to be intrinsically linked to tricolor expression. We shall see what the specimens provide.

A search would surely tell me but, may I just ask what would be a good time of year to harvest the tricolor grass?

I planted
Short Spike of French origin from seed (removed)
Short Spike not of French origin (DMT plus a little 5meo) from seed
AQ1 (DMT) from seed
Yugo Red from clone (removed)
Big Medicine from clone (removed)
Turkey Red from clone (dead)

Plants were removed for gramine or bufotenine.

When I learn how and when to harvest, I will post test with GC and post results.

An interesting note is that after a few months of triple 16 fertilizer, I gave them some full spectrum cannabis food and got great growth.

Thanks so much for the info.

Thanks, to you, rild!

In relation to Feesey:
I read further, and as it seems all more sophisticated sources say, "Strawberries & Cream" is a synonym for "Feesey". But still it seems some vendors didn't get this and sell both, sometimes even for different prices...

According to this post,the user Ilex even used this strain seemingly with effects (although detailed info is lacking):
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=435290#post435290

Unfortunately he no longer seems to be active. Otherwise he could have shed some light on this.

So I will definitely order some, and as soon as they grow enough, will do an extraction, to finally know, what is really inside this strain.

Edit:
Did some more research and found the following commonly available strains bred of picta:
* Arctic Sun (Golden Garters)
* Dwarf Garters
* Feesey (Strawberry and Cream)
* Luteo-Picta

I'm now just wondering: Picta itself is already infertile (cannot be propagated by seeds), as I read. How the heck can one breed further strains with such a plant???
Anybody an idea?