I wanna grow cactus

Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
canndo said:
Yep, but I didn't dry them. It is a genuine pain in the ass and in the fingers (and feet for me).
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Oh I’ll bet; got some nice sharkskin gloves that might help make this project slightly less painless. Was thinking that by dehydrating the cactus “stars” & processing them into dust in a coffee grinder the water content is eliminated making a pure solvent extraction easier. I mean sure I could just make a simple tea but the thought of gulping down cactus juice makes me gag. Plus there’s no way that SHE would try that unless it’s easy to get down; capsule form or whatever. Would be nice to have a pure crystalline alkaloid that we can store for when we have ample time to trip out.
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
Oh I’ll bet; got some nice sharkskin gloves that might help make this project slightly less painless. Was thinking that by dehydrating the cactus “stars” & processing them into dust in a coffee grinder the water content is eliminated making a pure solvent extraction easier. I mean sure I could just make a simple tea but the thought of gulping down cactus juice makes me gag. Plus there’s no way that SHE would try that unless it’s easy to get down; capsule form or whatever. Would be nice to have a pure crystalline alkaloid that we can store for when we have ample time to trip out.
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You misunderstand. I didn't make tea but simply started with a wet mass.
 
Bongify.eu

Bongify.eu

Well-Known Member
We have been growing these for about 10 years, made cuttings and all but still never harvested them for use. It feels like the right time hasn't come yet to consume them, although they are definitely old enough by now
 
B

bluegill

Well-Known Member
I ordered Bolivian torch, bridgesii, and actual peyote seeds once. I had awesome germination results. Look up my username on shroomery - I have pics there of that grow. Unfortunately, I gave them too much sun and they all died. Would do it again for fun.

My advice would be get a cutting and go from there. Bridgesii grows decently fasts once it's well established. If you want to grow williamsii - that will probably need to be grafted and hydro'd if you want to trip in this lifetime lol
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
All good things in all good time….
-JG
Started this thread in June 2016. It has taken all this time for the 13 cacti cluster to become so large I need to cut some of them down. The tallest plants on the outside perimeter of the cluster shade out the smaller ones near the center. My plan is to take the 4 largest cacti which should end up around 7 ft total; more than enough for a few good doses.
If I like the effects of the alkaloids I’m about to extract I’ll try to grow some Williamsii and graft them onto this cluster. Seems like a fitting way to wind this almost 5 year thread down.
My first question btw was how long will it take to get cactus mature enough to pull doses from. Turns out the answer is about 5 years. Special thanks to clowns on RIU for not answering my Q and forcing me to grow it anyway and find out myself. Special shout-out to the NAC road man. Almost called once in a drunken stupor….rest in peace
Step one…
I will begin by trimming/pulling off the spines and then cutting each plant at the base. I have a cordless saw that should work perfectly to cut cactus into star slices and dry in my dehydrator. Probably will take awhile to process all 4 plants: doubt we can fit more than one full size cactus at a time in the dehydrator I usually use for cubes. That’s all for now I’ll be updating progress here as it happens. Stay tuned; the best is yet to come…
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Mandolin slicer is not recommended; got stuck by spines several times trying to use it even after cutting them back. The power saw was good for chopping them down quickly but using as a slicer made a gooey green mess. Turns out all I needed was a good sharp kitchen knife which did the trick quite cleanly. It’s gonna take a few drying cycles to finish all this plant material; time to get crackin…894056DE-4062-46FD-837E-C083F961F6FF.jpeg
 

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Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
It took all this time to fully dry; had to do three cycles. The 2nd cycle took over 26+ hrs to get the cactus slices to “cracker” dry. Have read that naturally occurring alkaloids can withstand temps of up to 300+ deg F. My trusty laser thermometer shows the dehydrator only pushes about 160 max. Should be fine…
So now I’ve got ziplock pillow sack of dry cactus; time to begin breaking it down into powder with a coffee grinder. I have heard that cactus powder can be irritating to eyes/sinuses and the solvent extraction tek I found uses fairly powerful reagents like lye and HCL so if you decide to try this yourself do take proper precautions (respirator, gloves, goggles). Once this step is complete we can begin full solvent extraction. Not sure I will lay out each of the steps to do this here in detail here but I will explain the process in general…maybe..next time. Stay tuned…
19C800B1-A48D-46CF-B163-0B1638AE6023.jpeg
 
Budz.Bunny

Budz.Bunny

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
Mandolin slicer is not recommended; got stuck by spines several times trying to use it even after cutting them back. The power saw was good for chopping them down quickly but using as a slicer made a gooey green mess. Turns out all I needed was a good sharp kitchen knife which did the trick quite cleanly. It’s gonna take a few drying cycles to finish all this plant material; time to get crackin…View attachment 5115677
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Looks like cucumbers lol
 
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