• kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      i actually looked into this and there is a way to harvest peyote sustainably (cutting precisely above the root and leaving some green with a clean and sanitized knife each time) but white techbro psychonauts are fucking idiots and just start whacking at it with a machete haphazardly, there are a lot of researchers that have them in a greenhouse but the key issue is root rot and too much watering, the greenhouse also has to get very hot so setting up a microclimate just for the cacti is expensive (re: capitalists prefer the cheap method of going out and ripping everything out of the ground for free)

      imo i dont think there is anything wrong with doing peyote or magic mushrooms or whatever, especially when it serves a medical purpose (like ptsd research), but you should be growing it sustainably so that the people that have rituals about going out in the wild and getting them and maintaining them arent screwed over (which afaik is the main complaint from indigenous groups). the plus side to growing at home is that you are helping preserve biodiversity, esp if you partake in guerilla planting of excess seeds. guerilla planting is the mvp and you ostensibly need to grow it at home to do that.

      i guerilla plant all sorts of endangered species in microclimates where they will outcompete invasive ones, its a very important thing to do and getting the seeds isnt actually that hard. whats hard is conservation societies dont have a complex understanding of local microclimates like a local does. ive been able to successfully purge non native grasses from huge swathes of local meadows over the past 10 years. when you do that it leads to a flourishing of native plants and wildlife, the grasses really are a keystone species that bring all the native stuff back in so many areas.

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          crime pays but botany doesnt is probably the best channel on youtube for it, but really you need to go to your local conservation society and go to local universities and take a couple of local conservation classes. i totally recommend it, really opens your eyes to how much bullshit we’ve done to the environment and makes you think about how to live in harmony with the local stuff

          also opens your eyes to fun foods youve never heard of before which is a personal favorite of mine, eating plants no one has heard of but are local and great and grow like weeds. also another thing is ive drastically reduced mosquito populations in my area because native plants are sucking up all that water and not letting it sit and fester. its my opinion that mosquitoes are a symptom of a human infested environment, where we have destroyed the fuck out of everything that maintains balance.

    • KoboldKomrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      Some people do it, some grow it in more appropriate areas. But reintroducing it requires the actual land, and an effort to clean it of invasives and anything else that caused it’s status previously.

      For human use, see https://youtu.be/CpM5-xJZKbQ . Guy grows it for NAC use. Fair warning that channel is NSFW and the guy can be a bit abrasive but he does some good work putting out high quality footage of a diverse range of plants. And in this case, shows off someone trying to stem the harm of humans on their environment.

      Also, from what I gather, most of the damage is from white people misusing peyote, and the US government punishing anyone who isn’t NAC related who tries to grow it.

      Edit: Also I see the other comments, that channel is Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t. Look around for his intro to botany and guerilla gardening videos. Importantly, you’ll want to look for other content specific to your local area! I think one of his guerilla gardening was in California so its pretty specific. The USDA has some ok resources, lots of universities have good guides on planting native (search your area, state, city, etc, plus native or sustainable gardening), and https://www.prairiemoon.com/ has some good search tools to show seed local to your area. They can be a bit pricey, but it can be a good start.

      Also its important to just have fun! I don’t worry about planting entirely local or native. Even if you plant just a few plants, it can be a good start! Gardeners tend to be pretty good people, so don’t be afraid to ask around either.