I don't know anything about the spray, but one of the challenges with these plants, if I am not mistaken, is being able to provide a humid environment while also avoiding overwatering.

Wet soil is undesirable, it can prevent the roots from breathing.

I associate white mold on wet soil with overwatering and or lack of drainage in most cases.
However I do not have much experience growing these species.

I'd like to try growing several Psychotria species in the future so I would like to see how this develops and what it takes for the plants to thrive for you.

Hello everyone,

I’ve had most of these plants for years and recently almost killed them all when I updated my terrarium. Still not sure if it was light burn or if I accidentally sprayed something bad onto my plants. I have several bottles I use for the terrarium and some fungi that I’ve grown in the past too but this bottle I sprayed on my plants has a smell I’d never smelled before. Like a soap or oil mixture but it was clear in color. After building the terrarium it wasn’t holding humidity good enough so I supplemented with a spray bottle until I could seal it better.  Anyway every leaf on all the plants except the pitcher plant dropped. But they’ve all come back except one mango tree that I had started from seed years earlier.

Plants in terrarium:
P. Viridis
P. Alba
Kratom
Mimosa Tenuiflora 
Pitcher plant

The leaves have since started to come back. The pics were taken today.

12/12 light full spectrum vipar spectra LED.
Humidifier pulls outside air in estimated every 10 min slowly. Set to 65 RH
Temps 70-80F.

I found one fungus gnat in there recently so I treated the soil with gnaterol. Sprinkled some on top of soil and watered some in at 1T per gal. but these plants don’t need much due to the higher humidity.

When leaves dropped soil was more wet than usual and I started to see the white growth on the soil.

I’ve used happy frog fertilizer by fox farm but not much and it has beneficial enzymes of some kind, can’t remember off the top of my head. 

I can see where the P Alba has split and there is white growth inside the split.  the Alba stem has discolored darker. The other plants look good and don’t seem to be effected. All of these ola ta need to be reported but I’m afraid to add more stress right now unless I have too.

The soil has white grown. The tan you might see on top of soil is gnaterol. The photos almost make the white look green like thrich but in person I don’t see green.

Looking for a ID. Is it good or bad growth? Any solutions?

I've had an account here since 2019, but I have never used it, so here is my introduction. I am from North Carolina, and what brings me here is that I am interested in Salvia species and Tabernaemontana species. I am excited to see what this forum is all about!

Welcome to STS, I hope you enjoyed your initial perusal of the forum

Hey guys I’m looking forward to learning, chatting and trading with you guys. I’m from northern Alabama and into growing mycelium and a few other things. Well I just got here so I got a ton of reading to do. 😜

Hi everybody,

I am looking for Seeds or even cutlings of Tabernaemontana amygdaliafolia (https://enciclovida.mx/especies/162672-tabernaemontana-amygdalifolia).
It is from the Apocynaceae family and quite common in central America. In the "western" world it is mostly known as an ornamental plant. However, I have never come across it except in some herbarium collections.

Would love to see (and actually smell) this plant alive.

Any information is welcome. 

I also enjoy personal experience and observations but I tend to get ideas from older publications.

That book is quite dated since it was 1978.

I didn't know that alkaloids in ipomoea are produced by a fungus how ever it does make sense since many plants form relationships with fungi.

Here is an older book I've read a few times. You might know most of the information but maybe there is something that interests you.

page 49-82 talks about the inheritable traits and crossing wide results.

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/43605/1/George%20R.%20Waller.pdf

Interesting on the marine alkaloids. Your posts are very great reads and makes you think differently which I enjoy.

My interests vary a lot and the alkaloids biosynthesis is just a side result of other interest of mine. I'm going to try and see if applying mescaline extract to inactive cacti have any growth rate changes under drought or other high stress conditions.

Most plants contain more alkaloids in optimal conditions due to the increased biomass just in lower concentrations I personally enjoy small compact growth so I go a different route then most.

I followed up on trying to find correlation between physical traits and enzymes and found that trichomes vs alkaloids in datura species. Where the decreases in trichomes amount on leaves in most species led to an increase in alkaloids. I'm unsure if this would translate to cacti but I have noticed in other cacti that increased in trichome density and length indicates maturity. So perhaps for those interested in preselecting seedlings try to use this information? Like you mentioned it might be plant or even species dependent like with datura.

Great discussion it has widened a bit but very cool. Looking forward to your future posts.

With increased oxides, ROS, and reduced products from regular metabolic process MOST plants increased secondary metabolites to prevent excess cell damage and death. This is all plants in general...

I can also be wrong on my ideas but a few things are true across all plants. As for fluctuations in profile yes these alkaloids are moved and also used. I suspect that mescaline may be a growth regulator and hope I can set up some experiment in the future. I am not a researcher nor a botanist so I may be misunderstanding things.

As for dark periods in the short term some plant do increase alkaloids. In papers on other plants this tend to peak after a week. However the process in biosynthesis of mescaline in cacti such as Tyrosine hydroxylase and DOPA decarboxylase activity can be inhibited by dark treatment and cold temps reduce DD. Where as the drought period that is constant during the 'dark stress' increases both these activity and in nearly all plants increases alkaloids other secondary metabolites. Unless cacti have different up and down regulation of these enzymes

As far as I'm aware, Light is required in NADPH+ which is the process which would accelerate alkaloids accumulation as well as up-regulated the same enzymes as drought. Heat also up-regulated the same enzymes.

Mescaline and other alkaloids have many functions but I doubt it would be a direct relation and more the natural selection is what lead to us having them. Microbal attack and insects eating a plant would result in the plant increasing production or tannins and alkaloids in response. The plants that produced alkaloids 'x' survived and the plants that produced alkaloids 'y' didn't. Natural selection would have made the offspring that had the favorable profile increase in population since less of the unfavorable profile plant survived producing less seeds. Add in a couple hundred years with or without human intervention and the plants have those profiles. Cacti that function in similar manners would all produce the same profile under the same conditions if it were specific function and not an added benefit.

The increased levels of the nocturnal acid might play a role however I believe it is just the natural cam cycle. I'm sure there area likely multiple pathways for these alkaloids and maybe a different one is available with zero light. But malic acid being in high amounts wouldn't mean more alkaloids but rather more salts and as acid is used the alkaloids become 'free' near the end of the day.

All theories that I have; maybe you have a better botanical background then I do and please correct me if I am wrong. Also from my understanding plants increase alkaloids in response to not in prevention of. A plant grown in greenhouse under optimal conditions with zero stressors will have the same products however in much lower concentrations unless specifically selected seeds. Acacias don't have excess tannin naturally but only after excess grazing as with tobacco from insects attacking and other plants. The plants don't have the alkaloid for the function of insecticide but rather the alkaloids helped the plant survive so those that produce it continue on.

I understand not wanting to discuss this in open forum I posted a thread on a few forums titled 'Increasing Mescaline Biosynthesis to Genetic Potential' but no discussion ever arose.