Honestly curious. SWIM's garden is entirely PC cut (minus a couple young monstrose bridgessi). SWIM's worried they wasted their time and effort for nothing but grafting stock. Is SWIM justified in his worries?

Certainly! Here in South Africa PC Pachanoi is relatively rare, so we don't quibble when we find it. There are several strains with slight differences in shape. The amount of alkaloids seems to vary with age, season, climate and soil conditions.

I read a report somewhere online that tabled an analysis of several pachanoi strains which showed a very wide range in the content of mescaline.

You won't know until you given it a go. Either way it is a beautiful plant and worthwhile keeping as a member of one's garden.

Mescaline from San Pedro can offer a fairly strong and long lasting body load (can very pleasant) with a low level of visual activity. However I have had full on visual experiences from PC, the trick was to get enough brew down and keep it down. Overall I would recommend making a proper extraction for just the alkaloids.

No worries, SWIM, the cure for mild cactus is to use more! Nearly 6 pounds of one of my PC pachanois gave a long, wonderful, visual, healing trip for one. Split 4 ways, the same poundage was very mild, though definitely mescaline. As I acquire new specimens I do make sure to not get any more weak varieties.

I would process an extraction on a sample de determine how much mescaline is in a length (or by weight, prolly more accurate). Like this i would know how much i need for a trip. Of course, if your cacti have different genetics, you have to test all o them.

In fact, i would process a huge extraction to get pure (or not if full spectrum) mescaline as i prefer to ingest 0,5g of it than 300g of disgusting tea.

I've performed an extraction on 4ft of PC and I got a small yield that was still able to offer me a comfortable and glowing low-dose experience that lasted all day.

It was funny actually. I had assumed it hadn't affected me much and all I felt was placebo...until I left my house to run errands and meet some people. I realized the effects were definitely not placebo and though it wasn't a visionary experience by any stretch of the imagination, the psychoactive effects were impossible to ignore.

After today I would say yes it most definitely can. This morning I was reducing down some PC Pedro tea (2ft) I had made a while ago but hadn't drank yet because I didn't think it would do anything after reading what others said about it, had a 100ml bottle and 125ml of liquid and rather than trying to reduce further which I felt might burn the tea I drank the 25ml of tea left over to compare the taste to the other brew I'd tried (it was actually worse and the other Pedro I'd tried was made with vinegar!). Not thinking it would do anything I went on with my day which included drinking an iced coffee. Within half an hour of drinking the coffee I was feeling it, very pleasant although wasn't too strong. If I had consumed all of it I would have been well and truly in the presence of Mescalito

Something to keep in mind with this is that prior to brewing it sat for at least a few weeks in the shed which may have increased alkaloid content. I also prior to this didn't know coffee potentates mescaline but I learned pretty quickly today!

A.

I think people are often a little quick to jump to the PC conclusion. I think there are multiple cultivars out there that have similar appearances.

It all really depends my pc clones give me nice experiences.
there active but some could be stronger then others depends on the cultivator and source.

Have a good one....

There are far stronger ones but countless thousands of people have relied on nothing other that this one for at least a few decades. Not by their choice of selecting this one but for sake of lacking another available choice. People typically cease employing it once they get something better but it can work just fine. Especially if starving the mother for water for a few months prior to harvest and making sure they have a good history of ammonium intake during their lifetime.

Thank you everyone for your input. I find the PC beautiful and useful to have in the collection. PC love

For ammonium, a quick search gave me explainations but about water starving i don't know cause some cacti pro advocate it and others say it's detrimental or at least no usefull.

If someone could shed some light on that i would be eternally grateful (at least until next week )

I don't know of any published work with cacti outside of Obenmeyer's tissue culture work but when I can get a bit more time I will post some links or pdfs on what was done in Phalaris.
Within a reasonable range, increased available nitrogen favors plant growth in general. Nitrates towards vegetative growth and ammonium towards better alkaloid content. That *should* be in the Phalaris material in the Ayahuasca book online at Erowid at https://www.erowid.org/l...s_online/ayahuasca_apa/
This topic should see more work as it has seen good anecdotal support with cacti but I'm not aware of any published study.
Lush is not what is wanted as the end results but a balanced between really nice and harsh conditions seems to be a good suggestion.
If a person has a lot of that predominant clone it would be really easy for them to create a dozen sets of controlled looks at the impact of fertilizers and watering. It would not need to be a long study to be valuable - even 2 or more years with only a handful of study points could give that individual a lot of good knowledge. It is nice to post results. Most people seem to stop talking about it once they determine what works best for them.