I have some cactus that looks kind of off (bridgesii, spines cut short).
Almost all the areoles have greyish-blackish fuzz on them as well as some black "pimples"



However, when I cut into the cactus, it looks fresh.


I was thinking of drying this out and performing CIELO tek on it. It seems safe to do since CIELO creates very pure mescaline crystals, but do I need to worry about extracting mycotoxins this way?

Basically I'm worried other possibly dangerous alkaloids generated by the mold might get extracted with any given tek.

Since mold usually has mycelium deep inside whatever it is growing on, I suspect this one has grown all over my cactus

The fuzz on the areoles is normal with trichocereus. Those black spots are fairly common with bridgesii. I'm not sure what type of fungus it is exactly, but I don't think it produces anything harmful that you would extract with the mescaline. The CIELO tek is pretty selective from what I've seen/heard.

Since you are drying before extraction I wouldn't worry about it much. You could cut off the black spots, they are mostly a surface infection from what I've seen.

I'd still use it. That cutting has a nice thick green outer layer, which is usually a good sign for potency.

As reDeMpTion rightly points out, it's not (especially) mouldy. The areole fuzz is one part of what gives Trichocereus its name. [When I've overcome some technical difficulties I'll attach some pics of areoles from various Trichocereus species.]

Depending on the species, and on the age of the areoles, the colour of the fuzz can vary from white through beige to grey, and it can tend to turn more blackish with age. And while this blackening to my eyes also resembles Aspergillus niger as found in damp houses, I'd say it's trivial and could equally be down to atmospheric dirt. FWIW, I tend to burn off the spines with a blowtorch before processing anyhow.

Regarding the black spots, I could be mistaken but my understanding was that they can be due to a bacterial infection too.


Either way I'd agree with reDeMpTion that a CIELO extraction on dried material would be as close to guaranteed purity of product as anyone could hope for.

Thanks for the replies, yeah the main reason I was afraid was the grey/black trichomes, I have other bridgesii cacti that have yellow areoles. Good to know it is natural. I already dried the cactus into chips, but that's a good tip about burning out the spines, I will do that next time!

Here's a selection of areole photos as promised. Maybe your specimen came from somewhere more damp than your area.

The last photo shows the greying of the older parts of the areoles contrasted very nicely against the pale colour in the newer growth.

Great examples downwardsfromzero! I'm guessing those shots are from your garden? They look awesome, I really like the 5th one down. The contrast on the matucana area perus with the blue frost and the red/blackish spine color is always nice to see.

I agree the color on the areoles is likely just dirt. Sometimes when I foliar feed it will stain them temporarily too. I also agree that on some plants they just seem to darken or grey with age as do the spines.

I also think you are right that the black spots can also be caused by a bacterial infection, but shouldn't be an issue either way with extraction.

Thanks, I did a few more photos in the garden but decided to limit my data usage until I do a montage of them all.

Fifth one down that you highlight as a matucana peruvianus was obtained labelled as a macrogonus (and, incidentally is my wife's favorite besides the TBMs).

The last pic, identified as AWC 342, has interesting spination that combines a terscheckii (and beyond!) degree of spininess with a Matucana-like, dark-tipped appearance to the spines themselves, whereas (in my limited experience, at least) the true terscheckii spines tend to appear somewhat stripey. It does have the yellowish cast common to terscheckii but the notch above the areole is even deeper; the sinuous outline of the ribs catches my eye too, as well as the way the areole has developed in two separate phases.

I'll be interested to see how these ones look in a few years. They're already stretching out a lot more than the confirmed tercheckiis which by comparison were a lot more globular-looking at first.

Sorry, gone off on one there a bit - but here's a picture of my big terscheckii for comparison. It's just the very first pic in the OP seems to have rather prominent areole fuzz for a bridge. Second photo below is a bridgesii for comparison.

(If anything, a bit of rot potentially helps an extraction by weakening the cell walls and maybe even stimulating additional alkaloid production.)

Cool! Yeah, exact id on trichocereus can be hard to be exact sometimes. Peru/macro have some overlap and may be slightly different versions of the same species depending on who you ask. There's a lot of intentional hybrids and wild collected stuff that's open pollinated and can be a mystery mix too.

I think your last pic, the AWC 342 looks like a taquimbalensis... that was my first thought anyways. Terscheckii has variation in spine looks from what I've seen, but the only one I have got really round and globular too before starting to get tall a few years later.

I have a few bridgesii phenotypes/forms with larger areoles like that one in the OP...