Growing peyote cactus

Okay so I'm looking into a long term project growing peyote...
I can get hold of a 6 year old potted peyote plant... and was looking for tips on growing it, how to grow it, harvesting it, etc...
any links would be more than helpful.
I have a few questions if anybody can answer them:
How old will it be before I can start getting an experience on it?
Which part of the plant do I use to actually TAKE it?
How is it prepared?
Is it worth grafting a 6 year old plant already?

Thanks

Christofeser

check out the erowid Peyote vault
http://www.erowid.org/plants/peyote/peyote.shtml

I don't believe a 6 year old plant is worth grafting as it is pretty mature already.
you could eat it raw, make a tea, or extract the mescaline.

6 years should be plenty to get an experience on it.
Some are ready 3-5 years i believe.


but dont take my advice, I had ten healthy peyote seedlings sprouting up, and I killed them by placing them in direct sunlight in the middle of summer(not good for seedlings i learned the hard way)

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the mescaline occurs in buttons growing on top of the plant. No buttons, no mescaline. Also, it takes a very long time to mature to the button phase.

The mescaline is in the flesh of the plant.

The part of the peyote plant that is above ground is referred to as the button

also whether to graft or not will depend on the size, not the age.

tebor said:

The part of the peyote plant that is above ground is referred to as the button

also whether to graft or not will depend on the size, not the age.

Click to expand...

You're right, I checked the pictures at your link. The second picture is what I was thinking about.

grow the yote for love, one won't get you anywhere anyway., and grow some san pedro or peruvian torch for mescaline...

Okay cheers guys. Do the "buttons" grow in clusters though? I've seen some pictures where they do, and some where it literally is just a button on the surface soil. Forgive me if it's against the rules to post links, but I was looking at the one on http://www.everyonedoesit.com/online_headshop/Peyote_Cactus_6_Years_Old.cfm?iProductID=5809 which is already 6 years old. As you can see, there is only one "button". Is it possible to like have a plant and it to make multiple buttons (i.e. be sustainable?)

Cheers.

I've seen pics of both solo and clustered. i don't know the reason.

but I do know that if you harvest it properly and leave the root in the ground, a new button will grow.


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Different Lophophora species or variations of species grow clusters of cacti at the areolas. Also, when you go to harvest the peyote make sure you leave several areolas on the plant. The new growth will be diverted to the areolas and will ensure future harvests. Never cut the cactus below every areola, this will kill your cactus.

You can start out with one peyote and after a few years of harvesting(leaving areolas below the cut) you will end up with tons of cacti. here are a few examples
This first one is of a young grafted Lophophora williamsii that my friend rooted the top. He left a few areolas behind.




Here are 3 cacti that my friend used the tops late last summer as scions(grafts), he made sure to leave a few areolas behind so not to waste the roots. now he has twice as many cacti to use as scions for this comming spring.




I hope this helps you out a little, i don't want you to kill that peyote trying to catch a buzz. I highly doubt one six year old peyote will give any effects anyways, you might want to buy three just to be on the safe side and make sure they have an established root system before you do even consider consuming them.

Okay so in conclusion, we recommend buying a plant and grafting it? After grafting, the button grows quickly right? And then when I cut this off, how long should it take for the button(s) to grow back? If I have a grafted plant with one button on, and I harvest this to eat, will two buttons grow back?
Moreover, on the last video, are the things he's cutting off buttons? I.E are they the things you prepare for ingestion?
Once again, cheers for all the help. This is by far the best forum for friendliness to a new grower...

Chris

please do research to see how many buttons you will need, to avoid disappointment.

christofeser said:

Okay so in conclusion, we recommend buying a plant and grafting it? After grafting, the button grows quickly right? And then when I cut this off, how long should it take for the button(s) to grow back? If I have a grafted plant with one button on, and I harvest this to eat, will two buttons grow back?
Moreover, on the last video, are the things he's cutting off buttons? I.E are they the things you prepare for ingestion?
Once again, cheers for all the help. This is by far the best forum for friendliness to a new grower...

Chris

Click to expand...

The whole cactus is the button. As for grafting peyote, there is no need to graft a six year old L. williamsii as it is already in it's reproductive stage of it's life cycle. One of the major reason one grafts peyote is to speed up the initial first few years of growth so you can have a mature peyote cactus(button) withing one to one and a half years from seed. as with grafting all mescaline producing cacti there are set backs. when you graft peyote the cactus does not produce mescaline because you are using a different root stock to make the plant grow much faster. Once a grafted peyote scion reaches the desired size you must cut the scion(top half of the graft) off the root stock(bottom half of the graft) and re root the once but no longer grafted peyote. it can take months for the peyote root system to establish itself. Once the peyote has a well enough established root system then the plant as a whole can start producing the desired mescaline and other phenylethylamine alkaloids, this can take anywhere from six months to one year. A grafted peyote produces no mescaline.

Okay cheers mate. And how big should they be before you can eat them?
Chris

christofeser said:

Okay cheers mate. And how big should they be before you can eat them?
Chris

Click to expand...

Three baseball size peyote cacti always worked for me in this dream i keep having.

Okay, apoligies for asking a lot of questions (as you can tell, I'm a novice)
I've been looking at this:

http://www.cactusplaza.com/lophophora-williamsii-caespitosa-p-22212.html

and have a few questions about it.
Firstly, I understand all the heads are buttons, but would I have to remove these and plant them on their own before consumption? Like make them a little bigger in order for the motherplant to regrow some more? Secondly, is the motherplant a graft? Does it produce mesc? I.E can I just pick them up and gobble them (when they are baseball sized), or do I have to grow em a bit on their own, until they are this size to get the mescaline going?
If I do pick them off, how long should it be before they are regrown to the same size?

Cheers once again for all your helps

Chris

Hey guys, I recently saw this video and it's help me a lot to grow my cactus