Hey guys, have been busy lately, so not posting anything, but back again with some info.

I have already degrafted and taste-tested 267 pieces. About 160 are still waiting.
Average weight of one piece is 147g raw. Average growth is 0,83g/day. This is an average over all species, I am pretty sure it may be over 1g without any problems with optimal conditions and proper genes.
The yield for 1m2 is 27,62kg of raw material for half year period. For specimen containing 0,1% of mescaline, this is providing not bad 27,5g of mescaline per m2.

56% of the specimens were without any sign of bitterness, 27% had very weak bitter taste. So all these specimens (83%) were discarded. 10 specimens were selected for their bitterness quality. The rest was not disposed, but stored in dark place to increase mescaline content before extraction.

The specimens were cut with about 1:2 ratio, leaving 1/3 as a rootstock. I don't see any reason not to use it as long as possible. Pereskiopsis lost almost all of its leaves, but it doesn't seem to lose it's growth vigor. Why not use it for years this way?

The body of selected specimens was cut into 1,5-2cm stars and these were slab-grafted onto the aforementioned rootstocks. The rootstocks were without any bevel, just flat. Rubber band rocks here. Stretched parafilm helped to keep the moisture for about two weeks. First week without light, second with half light. The scions shrivelled up quite a lot, but were back to normal withing about a week. Most of them pupped withing 3 weeks from grafting.
Slab grafting of whole stars is not as convenient. It is much better to cut these stars into two pieces, so twice as much clones are propagated.
One specimen can be propagated to about 15-20 clones this way
The take rate here is very good, more than 95%.

2% 6-BAP in lanoline was used to induce pupping. This works wonders, but as the scions seem to pup even without that, it seems to be unnecessary. 2% 6-BAP seems to be quite strong, I would suggest to go rather with 1%. I believe young areoles (my are max 6 months old) are puping very readily. Maybe older areoles might need some help of this miracle tool.

The description of taste testing and bitterness results will be published shortly in another thread. They were very surprising for me, not as good as I expected, but still providing some potential for the future.

Some imagery...

lol, you’re really taking it to the next level!

What is the game plan for the ones you’ve grafted the half slice onto? I’ve never seen anyone do that before.

The aim is to propagate as fast and as much possible. The half star slab graft seems to be perfect. It provides enough material for 15-20 new grafts from 180 day old specimen, leaving 1/3 of the specimen as potential rootstock.
The only faster propagation I can imagine is areole graft, but this is is not as easy and takes much longer.

Good work Pete! Looking good. It will be interesting to see down the road how the 10 that you selected will turn out in terms of potency. Good to see you back on the forum.

Thanks GF. As we all know, the bitterness is not a guaranty of high mescaline content, but at least some of them should be good. Anyway, I am not planning to finish my endeavours, so even when none of these will be good enough, there are some odds in next season(s).

Yeasteray I have cut about 25 commercially available cuts acquired last summer from various vendors, proceeded with taste testing and unfortunately none of them was selected for propagation. Not to say they hadn't contained any alkaloids, they just weren't exceptional. Half of them were discarded (contained too little of medicine), the other half was stored for extraction.

The 10 most bitter that you selected, are they primarily the same species? Are you finding a specific species to be the most bitter?

SS02 is the most bitter that I've tasted. And it was strong. But I've also tasted PC and Peruvianus that were quite bitter but ended up not being very strong. I guess bitterness indicates the presence of alkaloids, but does not guarentee high amounts of mescaline in that alkaloid profile.

GF, check this thread

I just checked it out Pete. It looks good.

I have an update to the feeding protocol. I would like to change my recomendation from suggested feeding configuration here

The configuration :

1 : 125mg tenso + 5g fertilizer (once or twice after flush) - TDS 447

has been used for last two months and the plants are very happy with it. That in fact means doubling the feeding intensity and very likely better growth increments. But it was used only for the biggest specimens and regular flushes once a month are more important as they can help to diminish possible negative effects of fertilizer buildup.

From now I am going to use linear setup, with zero fertilizer at the beginning and stated configuration after 4 months and onward.

Today I moved all my grafts indoor into the growing box. The weather is not going to be offering much in the next weeks, so I think it is the right decission.
Most of the grafts are not grafted seedlings, but already scions preselected by taste testing.
20 grafts were too big to fit into the box, so I have cut them, leaving the originally grafted rings with enough areolas attached to rootstocks (pereskiops + 7cm of another tricho).
These 20 grafts are 3 selected specimens with the most bitter taste (4.5, 5 and 5.5) from Koehres, so the expectations are high
I have cut one specimen and took 3 samples for taste testing - bottom, middle and top. And let me tell you, the bitter taste is almost disgusting for all 3 samples, so there definitely are alkaloids in whole body of the cactus. Now the main question - what alkaloids?

Answer : very likely no bitter alkaloids. After extraction and titration the result water lacks any bitterness. I have done just the first pull and very likely won't continue with this cactus. After evaporation there should be something, as titration consumed some acid, but not much - about 0,6ml of 3,7% HCl for 560g of cactus. So I am expecting about 100-180mg of "something" without taste.

What a disappointment

Sorry to hear that Pete. Bridgesii has never let me down and I would strongly encourage you to focus on that species. Scopulicola and non-pc pachanoi have also been good for me. Those are the 3 most promising species IMO, especially the bridgesii. And keep in mind that the bigger and older these plants get, the stronger they become. Best luck.

At least you've got a working setup that will grow other genetics in a fast and reliable way. I'm focussing on SSO2, Lumberjack, Scopulicola and Huarazensis. They taste bitter as hell and get good reviews here on the nexus extraction-wise.

Keep up the good work!

I knew this can happen, I just hoped it won't
I still have 2 other hybrids from last year with quite strong bitterness, so hopefully they will be better hit. I should know within month or two, once the grafts grow up.
And for this winter, I have already sown 48 other hybrids, inluding bridgesii, pachanoi and peruvianus, so there are some odds there will be some success.
I had some bridgesii last winter, but they weren't much bitter, some of theme weren't bitter at all. Scopulicola was growing quite slow and the taste tests were not very positive too. You likely saw it here.

Are you sure about the correlation between the age and size and alkaloid content? Have you got any reference or have you done any experiments?

My target list is now :

T. bridgesii Eileen
T. pachanoi 'Yowie'
T. macrogonus 'Fields'
Bridgesii Bruce
Torres & Torres
Trichocereus peruvianus SS01
Trichocereus pachanoi "Kimnach"
Lumberjack
Huarazensis
psycho0
Roseii #1
Roseii #2
John
Sharxx Blue
SS02

Sopulicola, SS01 and SS02 from Zelly were tasteless. Huarazensis and Lumberjack were much better.

Pete I dont think that taste testing is the most reliable way of determining potency. As you are finding out, bitterness does not guarenteed a large amount of mescaline. However, it has been my personal observation that potent cacti do tend to be bitter, although weak cactus can be bitter too. SS02 was the most bitter cactus I ever tasted. I have 2 of them growing now. It is a beautiful clone.

You know Pete, it has long been understood that the biggest, oldest peyotes are the strongest, and that small, young specimens are weaker. I believe that this same principle applies to Trichocereus cacti. In fact I believe that this principle explains to a large extent why the PC clone is considered to be so variable. Some people claim to have had strong trips from PC. When photos are posted of the plant that was used it is almost always from a large, old specimen, usually growing in the ground in southern California. But other people claim that PC is weak or inactive. These are the people who used plant material from skinny, young PC specimens. Thats what happened to me. Twice I made tea from small PC plants. One time it was weak and the other time it was inactive. But people who I know and trust have made tea from big, old grandfather PC plants and had strong trips. PC is a below average plant in terms of potency, but in big, old PC specimens the potency has built up more.

Here is a trip report on Youtube from an individual who was given tea from a very old San Pedro and he was shocked at the potency: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RiIF-of_xxs
There are other reports out there on Erowid, drug forums, and youtube in which people use material from big, old plants and are surprised by the potency. You can do the searching if the topic interests you.

Furthermore I have personally observed that the same plant becomes more potent over time as it grows larger and older. I have seen this with bridgesiis that I grow. I have also observed that when ordering cuttings from online, that fat, large cuttings from big plants have a high potency. Soon I will be making tea from my Juuls Giant, which is larger and more mature now than the last time I harvested it. I fully expect the potency to have increased. Thats how these plants work.

Thats why chopping up small, young plants and making determinations based on taste tests will not lead to the most accurate assessments. Do yourself a favor and get the biggest, fattest cuttings you can afford from bridgesii and scop and non-pc pachanoi. Grow them out as big as you can, at least 4 feet tall, before you harvest and test them. They will probably all be more than adequate. Best luck.

I am aware of a lot of uncertainty in that area. I have searched the internet and found a lot of contradicting experiences and opinions. Some people say the most active part of the cactus is the fresh flesh at the top, some that it is the old part of the plant. But noone has really tested that.
The same is true for grafts of older plants. Some say they are plain, others say the opposite. Again, no real testing.

I get what you are telling me. Unofrtunately I can't afford growing cactuses in the ground, as my climate is not very friendly for them. There are about 4-5 months with weather suitable for growing. Then they have to be put into dormancy, so they don't have much time for growing. Moreover I don't have any space for the dormancy period where I could store them. Thus all my 50 ungrafted species will be liquidated this month. Sad, but this is reality for me. I have seen your plants growing in the ground. I have seen many gardens in similar parts of the world and I can imagine how my own garden would look like if I had the luck living in similar climate. But I haven't.

So I have to go the different way - growing indoors. Even with the risk of finding blind alleys like that one few posts back. I need to find strong enough specimen, which will provide enough alkaloids even in my imperfect environment.

The result is 101mg of something that could be mescaline, but it can be something else as well. It is bitter. Though I am convinced there was something else much more bitter in that plant. And likely it is not alkaloids.