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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure



Registered: 03/26/03
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Doc_T]
#11784753 - 01/07/10 04:30 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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I've had stellar B+ and bunk PE before too. The biggest problem confusing people is in labeling prints as strains, which they're not. There's enough genetic variation in a sporeprint to create strains that are across the spectrum. Even if someone ran a series of GC scans, it wouldn't mean anything unless it was an isolated strain they were working with, and then the next guy might get a bunk strain from the same print.
That's the problem when growing from spores. I've seen some very intelligent people have retards for children, and some skinny people have kids that grow up bigger than their parents. Mushroom genetics are just like that. From a single print, I could isolate for large fruits, small fruits, individual fruits or clusters, and potency from nil to where you'll grow scales and howl at the moon. RR
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Doc_T
Random Dude




Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 42,395
Loc: Colorado
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^^^ and that's why MS gives a different answer than an isolate. Assuming the sources are valid, is PE better than 'just shrooms'? On average, in the hands of an average grower. Does it or does it not tend to produce more potent fruits on average?
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nachohippie
asshole



Registered: 09/19/09
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i want scales i allready howl at the moon
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Rose
Devil's Advocate



Registered: 09/24/03
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Yup... I am inclined to agree with you.
I am quite fond of B+... my experiences with it have been quite positive... but the number of bunk B+ reports (as compared to other brand name cubes) is compelling.
PE on the other hand, has an uncanny amount of positive reviews. Flocks of people seem to believe PE is more potent than average.
It is enough to break your brain sometimes.
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
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Doc_T
Random Dude




Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 42,395
Loc: Colorado
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Rose]
#11784796 - 01/07/10 04:36 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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Quote:
Cervantes said: People seem to believe PE is more potent than average.
Are we all agreed that it seems harder to grow? Or is it just that a lot of overexcited newbs choose this strain while failing independently?
-------------------- You make it all possible. Doesn't it feel good?
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Rose
Devil's Advocate



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Re: Potency Project [Re: Doc_T]
#11784819 - 01/07/10 04:39 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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I find PE to be a fickle friend.
Harder? Not exactly... but IME PE does like to grow and fruit on its own plodding and unpredictable schedule.
In other words, I have no clue.
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
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electrics
wave rider



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Re: Potency Project [Re: Rose]
#11784890 - 01/07/10 04:51 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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So you want me to start a PE grow??? I can and will if this will help gather some info on this strange strain... I haven't done one in awhile only because like you say potency intrigues me as well!! and Finding culpable ways of growing P.Weilii or any of the Baeocystin producing mushroom indoors to some easy degree has been really giving me a hard time....e
-------------------- "Listen now I'm talking I've been here for weeks, waiting in this growing crowd staring at my feet, The world around me is Turning I'm just standing still, The time has come for changes do something or I will" Phish
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Rose
Devil's Advocate



Registered: 09/24/03
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said: I've had stellar B+ and bunk PE before too. The biggest problem confusing people is in labeling prints as strains, which they're not. There's enough genetic variation in a sporeprint to create strains that are across the spectrum. Even if someone ran a series of GC scans, it wouldn't mean anything unless it was an isolated strain they were working with, and then the next guy might get a bunk strain from the same print.
That's the problem when growing from spores. I've seen some very intelligent people have retards for children, and some skinny people have kids that grow up bigger than their parents. Mushroom genetics are just like that. From a single print, I could isolate for large fruits, small fruits, individual fruits or clusters, and potency from nil to where you'll grow scales and howl at the moon. RR
Silly Rabbit, you got me thinking again! Now I am going to reply to your post a second time.
While I completely agree with what you stated, I also feel like you missed half the story.
Genetic irregularities are a part of life. BUT they are the exception and not the rule. Penis Envy usually looks like a penis. No? More often than not, PE's look like PE's. It is not a huge leap of logic to expect a well domesticated commercial cube like PE to have similar potency from one MS grow to the next (with the occasional irregularity). PE is SO inbred at this point that it yields fairly consistent results. It no longer has the genetic diversity of say a wild Texas cube growing on a damp cow patty.
Irregularities happen... but this is not as common as you've made it sound.
Of course, potency may be widely varied, I just want to see what can be uncovered through meticulous testing.
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
Edited by Rose (01/07/10 05:44 PM)
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Doc_T
Random Dude




Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 42,395
Loc: Colorado
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Rose]
#11784979 - 01/07/10 05:09 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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Bunk flushes: how common in general? More common with B+? Or not? I don't think I've had one. Yet. Anybody else have any experience either way?
-------------------- You make it all possible. Doesn't it feel good?
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Rose
Devil's Advocate



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Re: Potency Project [Re: Doc_T]
#11785004 - 01/07/10 05:11 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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Quote:
Doc_T said: Bunk flushes: how common in general? More common with B+? Or not? I don't think I've had one. Yet. Anybody else have any experience either way?
They are uncommon... but in my research I have noticed more reports of low potency B+ than any other 'Strain'.
Seems 9 out of 10 times (yes I am pulling that number out of my ass), when I see a thread about low potency, the OP has grown B+. Still, more often than not, B+ yields potent cubes.
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
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TacoHerder
Bluedavenger



Registered: 06/10/09
Posts: 10,107
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Rose]
#11785084 - 01/07/10 05:21 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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too bad you cant use one of those machines they use to where they turn a food or whatever you want into a gas to determine whats all in it chemical wise. Not really sure what its called but wouldnt that be able to tell you how much active chemicals are present?
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SillyBilly
Professional

Registered: 03/05/09
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I was actually thinking about why they were perceived as more potent and I thought of something plausible. Unlike most cubes you do not know when the veil is tearing which is an indicator of when it is supposedly stopping its production of the actives and just adding water weight. This leads me to thinking that perhaps along with its usual pattern of growing slower than most cubes(which I think a lot of people will agree with) and its absence of a veil people are picking them presumable earlier in development. And for another bit of info, compare the Peurto Rican variety which is also believed to be strong. I have given friends some and they said it was the best, then without telling them the next time I gave them a different breed and so on. So this leads me think that it supports the claim that a cube is a cube as well as a large placebo effect is in place. Because each time they said that it was the best, after giving them different varieties and telling them it was indeed a different one before. What good are friends if you can't use them as lab rats?
-------------------- By the livin' Gawd that made you,
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Rose
Devil's Advocate



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Well said Silly!
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
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SillyBilly
Professional

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Re: Potency Project [Re: Rose]
#11785212 - 01/07/10 05:41 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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Thanks, I actually just thought of that a day ago and almost made a thread but didn't think it would go over too well.
-------------------- By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din
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Rose
Devil's Advocate



Registered: 09/24/03
Posts: 22,530
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I also suspect the PE's unique looks may impact the mindset of many trippers, often making it seem more potent than it actually is.
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
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NoOneKnowsHowToAct
Stranger



Registered: 07/23/09
Posts: 521
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Doc_T]
#11785391 - 01/07/10 06:13 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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Quote:
Doc_T said: Whaddaya mean? Extract a measured amount of dry material with ethanol, reduce to standard dilution. 20 grams into the extractor, 20 mL out. Easy-peasy.
If you do that, you are left with 20mL of ethanol containing an unknown amount of psilocybin. You are then left to the reports of consumers of the concentrate to determine potency. Trip reports, as stated earlier, do not contain any quantitative value. A person could eat 0.25ml and reach level 3 and another could eat 1ml and barely reach level 1. It's not scientific since there are WAY to many variables. Brain Chemistry, Food Intake, Tripping Frequency, Tripping Environment, Mood, and more all play a part in how hard someone trips. You couldn't even use the same person with a week in between. To even get REMOTELY close to any useful quantitative value from trip reports, it would have to be the same person every time, with a week or two between trips, on a CONSTANT FIXED diet, in the SAME place at the SAME temperature for every trip, and even then the person's mood or what kind of dreams they had the night before would factor into how hard they trip.
Now, if you somehow could measure the concentration of the actives in the tincture then sure, that could work. Otherwise it's pretty much useless because of the variables. If you want to eliminate those variables you would need THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of trip reports from BLIND testers (don't tell them which it is). To be honest even then I would still consider the results anecdotal at best...
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Doc_T
Random Dude




Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 42,395
Loc: Colorado
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Disagree on your math, statistical methods show correlation sooner than that.
But even so, why can't you dry the extract? Sure you'll have other things besides psilocybin, but that will be fairly constant. So if you get 10 grams of residue from a kilo of 'just shrooms', will you get 15 from PE?
-------------------- You make it all possible. Doesn't it feel good?
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badman


Registered: 06/14/06
Posts: 4,039
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Doc_T]
#11785646 - 01/07/10 06:55 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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Why dont people just grow more potent species even if the yield if significantly lower. Its not like were selling drugs that we must have the large quantities that cubes give us.
Thousands seems excessive but i see your point about the results being highly blag... "anecdotal at best"

HPLC anyone??
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Necco
Thread Killer


Registered: 08/05/05
Posts: 608
Loc: west of a white house
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said: ...Even if someone ran a series of GC scans, it wouldn't mean anything unless it was an isolated strain they were working with...
...I could isolate for large fruits, small fruits, individual fruits or clusters, and potency from nil to where you'll grow scales and howl at the moon. RR
It would not take very many scans before you had a nice smooth bell curve. I may be going out on a line, but I think that most cubes have relatively similar potency, and that bunks and howlers are outliers.
I think it is safe to say that "we know" P. cyanescens contain more alkaloids than cubensis. The same argument could hold: RR could probably isolate bunks and howlers from cyans too, were he so inclined. Yet people have done the tests and shown that different species have different titers and we believe them.
Even pennies are different in weight from one to another. Take 100 and you will get 100 different weights, but you will see a solid average (actually two solid averages, pre & post zinc pennies). Some will be really light and others very heavy (comparatively), but weigh a couple hundred and there is no doubt about the spread. I can't tell you how much the penny in your pocket weighs, but I can tell you how much a penny weighs. We might very well find there there are two different averages for cubes too (PE and others, etc).
Chromatography is NOT the only way to measure psylocybin, just a very simple and reliable method if you happen to have the very expensive equipment. You could achieve a similar result by choosing a standard extraction protocol, treating the extract with a colorant and measuring the absorbance at max for the indoloid/colorant complex. There are available indole colorants (e.g. Kovács reagent) that could be mixed with extract samples and measured with a spectrophotometer (not all that expensive). Certain correction factors would have to be made for background (inactive indoles, e.g. tryptophan), but problems like these could be alleviated with a selective extraction.
I'm sure there are other methods too.
My conclusion: I think it is worth the effort to check it out. Also, if we had a reliable way to identify howlers then we could selectively breed them, and finally make some progress.
--------------------
"Now ether was substituted for chloroform, and the difference of their phenomena noted, and now some other exhilarant, in the form of an opiate or stimulant, was the instrument of my experiments, until I had run through the whole gamut of queer agents within my reach..." I can do everything!!
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NoOneKnowsHowToAct
Stranger



Registered: 07/23/09
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Re: Potency Project [Re: Necco]
#11785732 - 01/07/10 07:12 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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What would be ideal is something like this:
from http://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/psilocin.extraction.html
Quote:
A representative sample of 2 to 10g of dried mushrooms is ground to a fine powder by mortar and pestle. The powder is mixed with 100 mL of dilute acetic acid in a 250-mL beaker. The pH is readjusted to pH 4 with glacial acetic acid. After standing 1 h, the beaker is placed in a boiling water bath for 8 to 10 min or until the internal temperature of the acid mixture reaches 70°C. The beaker is removed and cooled to room temperature under running water. The acid mixture is separated from the mushroom powder by suction filtration using glass wool. The filtrate is brought to pH 8 with concentrated ammonium hydroxide and quickly extracted with two 50-mL portions of diethyl ether. Gentle mixing instead of shaking should be used to prevent an emulsion. The ether is dried over sodium sulfate, filtered, and evaporated under nitrogen with no applied heat.
Crude psilocin will appear as a greenish residue. Recrystallization from chloroform/heptane (1:3) yields white crystals. The resulting powder can then be submitted to infrared and mass spectral analyses.
So, i can do everything but the diethyl ether, sodium sulfate, and nitrogen evaporation lol.... The first part is actually pretty simple.
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Edited by NoOneKnowsHowToAct (01/07/10 07:16 PM)
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