Just out of interest I wanted to ask if anyone knows anything about boosting mescaline production in Lophophora or Trichocereus. I've heard this can be achieved by injecting dopamine into the roots several months before harvest.
As dopamine is in fairly short supply outside the human brain, in this country anyway, I'm wondering if the same results can be acheved using the dopamine precursor L-Dopa which is more readily available. If so what would it be dissolved in prior to injection - as L-Dopa is water insoluble - to avoid harming the plant?
Also what quantity would need to be injected?

Thanks

A "Truly Classic" thread, only rivaled in the internet by the popularity of "DMT/Tryptamines/tryptophan in mushroom substrate" , this is a question that keeps popping up at forums with mathematical certainty! What those subjects also have in common is that they are both based on a single "article" more or less (Gotlieb here Gartz on the other),many people ask it ,few try it, almost noone reports back conclusively. The previous sentece puts in a nutshell what is know about it.

I think the whole story started by Adam Gotlieb ,who proposed injecting cacti with dopamine or precursors , or alternatively passing it through the cacti skin using DMSO as a solvent. A very nice and enticing theory ,judging by the result -that is , the echoes of such method are obviously still around-.

What Mr Gotlieb did not take into account is that plants dont have a human vascular system and also that they have feedback mechanisms to keep their homeostasis.

If you try injecting a plant ,while in fantasy you press the pluger in and there your liquid goes in some kind of obscure "plant vein", you will find that reality is afar.Maybe you will find out that the plunger cannot be pushed in because something wont let it.Maybe you will manage to push it causing also tissue damage to the plant,only for it to squirt back out when you remove the needle. If you manage to inject it just below the epidermis , forming effectively a blister, maybe you will find out that the plant does not uptake it and that what you managed was to cause tissue damage.

If ,with the help of little magical fairies, one could transfer oh lets say a gram of dopamine or whatever precursor in the plant what would happen? Thing is , that most enzymic procedures in living organisms are tightly regulated or chaos would ensue: everytime you took a precursor of dopamine for example you would have a huge rise of dopamine in the brain ,and what if you had 3X that food item that contained it because you thought it was tasty? Havoc! So what would propably happen in the plant (and many times in human body) is that some genes get downregulated ,concentration of some enzymes fall so as to keep the homeostasis of the cell: It keeps the substance within what it considers "its limits" (negative feedback). So if X dopamine in the cell gives you Y amount of alkaloids, do not expect that 2X dopamine in the cell will give you 2Y amounts of alkaloids, it might even give you less in the long term or a very small increase temporarily. Here, notice that as an example i give Dopamine ,which is very close to mescaline and i do this on purpose: if you go "a step back" precursor-wise you will see yields falling even more, and the more the steps behind the target the bigger the loss. Remember, that conversion of the given substance will not be 100% for every step: not all X will convert Z ,and not all converted Z will convert to final Y.

Finaly, also the question of analysis/quantification methods must be addressed. How are you going to judge if it had any effect on the alkaloids? Eat some and go "Well...i think it might be stronger than previously"? Placebo is a bitch that you dont wanna sleep with! What magnitude of increase you could detect (0.01%? O.1%? 1%?) and how much should it be in order not be chalked up to "random variants/background noise"? Those are quite difficult questions but an answer to those is critical : without answering them you cannot know if your method worked!

/me here looks at "Attention All Shipping" looking at him slightly annoyed and saying in an Eminem voice "Ermm...Well Crystalito, if you dont have anything positive to say then dont say nothin'!"

Heh, we will get to that. There are possible ways to increase the alkaloids you have. First of all the easy one is if you have a collection for that purpose ,make sure that they are high yielding plants : Get cuttings of known potency or species that are famous to be potent like Bridgesii. If you want "to do something" to the current stock of cacti, well to tell you the truth i havent seen anyone claiming dramatic increases with any method : some support stressing and injuring will up alkaloidal levels ,others support the opposite - that tender loving care ,fertilising and water will do it. The only method i know that *could* work and it seems there are encouraging documented results is propably infection with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. I made a thread on it which i detail my thoughts on this subject.

Bottomline more or less ,whichever way you pursue you will be treading in mostly unknown area that experimentation is its main theme. So , personally i would not expect someone having a protocol ready (as more or less you are asking for one), you might have to make your own and experiment.

TLC and absorption spec for analysis

I suspect highly variable genetics are a major factor in irreproducibility in these sorts of experiments, regarding both p.cubensis and t.panachoi, respectively. worth a shot, though (NPI)

there's also been a proposed procedure to dissolve said precursors in DMSO, as it readily permeates cell membranes.

I propose a new Idea and possibly a theory i wont explain cause i dont know how too.

First off i would try not sticking a needling in and just injecting it , but injecting it and leaving the needle inside of it feeding it as it absorbs it.

Also maybe possibly feeding it via the roots , just by wattering it or even foilar spraying it.

My idea is if all that Crystalito said is true and most of it does , then maybe you can graft a cactus to a succulent like pereskiopsis or maybe some other kind that can absorb and feed the cactus being grafted more readily and proficent. (feed L-dopa threw succulent)

I have just ordered 1000 peruvian torch seeds so once they are about a year old i will start testing it and i will return here , lol.

So, so, so, so, so, true.

Whoever dreams of injecting any precursors to a cactus he should think HOW exactly to inject them. The thing that Crystalito describes here is utterly true.