Hi all Nexians,
I had done many successful extractions on mhrb and harmal seeds

I had been working on a project of cultivating Phalaris Arundinacea on the hope of trying 5meo dmt

So I had cultivated an area of about 2sqm in my balcony with high density of P.Arud seeds, apparently germination is very light dependent so not all the area germinated but got some (after a month) a decent high density large spots were there

Giving up on the empty areas I thought to harvest my first flush so expecting the second with high alkaloids

Having 560g of fresh leaves(each plant is a single leaf at this stage), I thought to consolidate my extraction technique(I have a genuine idea to overcome fats/chlorophyll that I expirement Ed before) even though the guidelines for maximizing alkaloids were not followed

The plant material were put in the blender to become a mushy clumps that I had put in 2litre of acidic water(80ml anhydrous acetic is added to 2litres)and boiled for an hour
The smell is stinky


Plant material removed/strained then my new idea followed
I kept adding CaCO3 to the acidic water raising pH and saturating the solution with CA ions, which I think will cause the fats and all u needed stuf to precipitate once we go alkali

After solution was no more bubbling with adding CaCO3 I added NaOH while monitoring pH to about 9

At that stage shit load of precipitate made it cloudy, so left to settle down(green/Grey) and decanted (the regular procedure) to get rid of it

Ph was raised to 13+ new cloudy precipitate formed(greenish white) that was left and got rid off, leaving a briwnish/greenish clear solution with a smell that is no more stinky but not the usual indole smell I'm used to

I extracted whatever with 3x100ml xylene, (my plan was to extract any actives into acidic/salt water that will be combined with future harvest and do a/b on the total and exclude gramine by cold naphtha extraction), but to my doubt I thought to verify if any alkaloids extracted In xylene, so I bubbled hcl gas into the xylene and there seem to be nothing there, is that possible zero yield??

Yes, zero yield is entirely possible from Phalaris - especially P. arundinacea. Alkaloid production is dependent not only on the genetics but even on time of harvest, to the hour.


So, where is the precipitate that came out at pH 9? And around ph 13? There's a high chance any alkaloids will have been in that grey sludge and/or the greenish white stuff you describe.


Once again, we must restate the Golden Rule - never throw anything away until you know you've got the goods.

The dark greenish sludge is the first precipitate at ph9
The precipitate at ph above 13 is the creamy light one(the other side)
I am referring to the sludge on both sides of the plastic jar in the first image

and actually these were not all the precipitates i kept (may be half) just for reference may be further study

I am attaching a photo of the plot I cultivated, in 2 weeks I am expecting the second harvest
I am adding Urea fertilizer, will keep watering for 10days then will deprive of water for the last 4-5 days, will harvest early morning(6am)

Any more advices?

If you still have the sludge it's worth mixing to a paste with lime and pulling with some suitable solvent, q21q21 style. If you're concerned about fats and soaps then running it through another A/B cycle is also a sensible option. The pH 13 sludge would be the most promising to start with.

It is thought at present that the highest alkaloid concentration occurs in the actively growing tips of the plant, at sunrise. However, others have reported success with mature plants after they have started to die back from frost. This kind of information is found in the main Phalaris threads on the forum.

I've invested alot of time/effort in this project and ofc had read the phalaris thread and the teks many times

the stressing and timing techniques are to maximize(double or triple) the alkaloids and possible selectivity of the dominant indole,i was expecting a 0.01% (50mg total alkaloids of 560g fresh,may be 20-30mg excluding gramine),so having none was a big disappointment

the problem with phalaris is significance : the shit that can go through a regular a/b extraction is 100x in magnitude of the required actives,i've weighted the sludge sample and estimated a 50g(give or take) compared an anticipated 50mg of alkaloids

the most promising tek was the one to downsize the volume of water to min then add alkali(ph13+)then extract with alcohol,i've already tried it on a prior batch,the downsizing was a bitch with possible waste of the actives and again the shitload of same sludge in alcohol,may be the positive side here is the high solubility of dmt in ethanol

my novel idea of having calcium anions in solution to force the shit to precipitate works great,but if the actives were to stick to the sludge then boomer i will be back to the issue of significance

would you kindly mention any phalaris successful extractor that could give this method a try and post results