Alright I asked him what the specifics are for harvesting these cacti (Time of year, how long to let them sit in a pile, etc) I finally heard back from him and he said this,

"I'm sorry I am not at liberty to say, we just sell cuttings to grow. "

I then pushed him a little and got this response,

"With ALL plants, they produce the most alkaloids when they are stressed- whatever time of the year that is.

Best of Luck,"

I think he's avoiding the question for legal reasons, who knows. But it seems even the natives who harvest this sacred cacti stress them a bit. And from pictures on his website the cacti are definitely stacked in piles, but they only sit long enough to where the cut(exposed) end is fairly brown, but not calloused yet (see attached picture for reference). Or maybe some of them are calloused and others are just heavily brown, its kinda hard to see.

Shrabbit420 thanks for the update and congrats on the promotion! SWIM plans to test whether aging one of two cuttings from the same mother before drying it will affect potency as well. SWIM has experienced explosive root growth after giving cacti a dry spell. SWIM's not sure if the analogy is valid, but feels that moderate water stressing (not taking it to the brink of death) may be akin to athletic training... although it may not be the most pleasant at the time, it leads to greater water efficiency in the plant, and aerobic/strength efficiency in the human. Any thoughts?

I was thinking of how you could accurately test how the aging process would affect potency, and I was worried about differences in the cuttings. So taking two from the same mother might be a good way to go about it.

I was thinking of getting 3 to 4 cuttings and chopping them in 3 to 4 pieces, then using one of each pieces for an extraction to gauge the base potency (extracting the logs separately of course). And use the other pieces to do an aging test on, each piece could be aged a different amount of time and compared to the other cuttings of the same age as well.

I don't know about your analogy though, I think the stressing is creating a stronger defense mechanism in the plant. Because the alkaloids are used to deter bugs/animals from eating it, in times of stress the cactus knows it needs to make itself stronger since it can't compensate by growing more, (i.e building up its defenses until it can grow again)

Think that you are right on here. Just wanted to point out that imho, mild-moderate water stress can be beneficial to the plant in some way. Is it possible that greater alkaloid concentration make a better defense for the cactus after normal growth has resumed? Would cyclical mild-moderate stressing increase pest resistance through increased alkaloids which would benefit both the mother plant and harvester?

SWIM is thinking about harvesting a two comparably sized offset tips to test a few months aging vs. no aging on at least two different plants. Perhaps some individuals respond differently to aging/stressing etc. It would be also be possible to test different aging times, but alas that experiment will have to wait until more stock becomes available. An A/B extraction sounds like a good measurement.

As always thanks for your feedback!

Maybe, either that or the plant would stop producing as much and let its current supply spread out and be its defense. Or it would just leave it as it is and resume normal alkaloid production on the new growth. Or maybe each time it is stressed it would produce even more, thus adding even more alkaloid protection.

This is all speculation of course, it depends on what the cactus actually does with its current supply of alkaloids. It may be able to break it down and reuse it as nutrients to allow growth to resume/get better.

I wish there was someway of testing the amount of alkaloids present in a growing cactus so that it could be harvested at its peak, something like this http://www.enasco.com/product/C08709N , but these only test for nutrients not alkaloids, on top of that I doubt they would be able to tell you concentrations.

I think it would just need to be done through harvesting and experimentation, like what we plan on doing, to figure out what works best.