Jimson Weed Grafting

Cole_Robbie · June 11, 2014

There's really not a lot of information about this subject other than "don't do it."

This is the best link I found:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/196...ARDS_000278209
ANNALS OF MEDICINE about Jimson-weed poisoning of which 3 members of one family were victims. 5 people, Mr. & Mrs. Mason, Mr. & Mrs. Smart, & the Smart's 3-year-old son sat down to a midday dinner in the kitchen of a house they chared on a tobacco farm in the Caney Valley hills of Hawking County, Tenn. Smart, who drove the family to the doctor's office, told him that his brother-in-law & Mrs. Smart had taken sick right after eating; a little later Mrs. Mason took sick, too. Smart & the boy were all right. The symptoms were vertigo, blurred vision, dry mouth, generalized weakness, nausea, & in Mason's case, hallucinations. Both were wildly delirious. Mrs. Mason was still weak. They were taken to the Valley Community Hospital. Sometime later Smart mentioned to a doctor that the tomatoes they had eaten were grafts. Mason had grafted a tomato plant to a Jimson-weed plant. He had gotten the idea from a man named Clayton. Clay ton was interviewed & said that he & his family had been growing & eating Jimson-weed tomatoes for years. Clayton had, however, pruned his plants, whereas Mason's had retained their leaves. The question of how Clayton could have eaten his tomatoes with impunity is still unanswered.

I think that last part is fascinating. It could be that letting Jimson leaves grow out of the lower half of the graft is what allows the toxic alkaloids to form in the tomatoes.

The reason I'm interested in the topic is that I'm tired of the deer eating all the tomatoes out of my grandparent's gardens. If I could grow a toxic tomato, they would eat that and hopefully get sick enough to learn to stay out of the garden.

It would make a fun experiment, but I don't have a lab to test the tomatoes to see which ones are the most poisonous. I also suspect that Jimson weed could be the best grafting rootstock in the world, as long as you keep the lower half pruned very carefully.

Worth1 · June 11, 2014

So lets say you grow a toxic tomato.
You put up a sign that says warning toxic tomato do not eat.
This is an experiment and the fruit is poisonous.

Someone comes along and doesn't take it seriously and eats the tomato.
They die or get as sick as a dog.

Where would the toxic tomato farmer be in regards to responsibility.

I would think a good lawyer and a liberal jury could own your place after it was over with.

Worth

mensplace · June 11, 2014

another case of "attractive nuisance". Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Next we will hear of folks trying nightshade.

Worth1 · June 11, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by mensplace

another case of "attractive nuisance". Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Next we will hear of folks trying nightshade.

They already do.

Worth

mensplace · June 11, 2014

Good news for the gene pool

Cole_Robbie · June 11, 2014

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

200 years ago, that was the consensus advice regarding eating tomatoes at all.

Regarding the legal question, attractive nuisance is typically applied to children, because they can't read the warning signs. It would be like having a pool - that's why people build fences around them.

A farm is a dangerous place. There's a thousand ways for a trespasser to hurt themselves. That's why we have insurance. That doesn't excuse blatant negligence, but I think a fence and a sign would be more than enough to meet the ordinary reasonable person standard of tort law.

Worth1 · June 11, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by mensplace

Good news for the gene pool

Right.

Some time ago there was a deal on the news where kids were eating the stuff to get high.

I'm sure some idoit has put a video on youtube.-------------

I just looked there is.

Worth

mensplace · June 11, 2014

Folks need to study transference, especially as it relates to alkaloids and other issues in which there is more to grafting than getting something to live, i.e., what is shared between stock and scion

Cole_Robbie · June 11, 2014

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml

Jimson Weed is the only drug for which everyone who has ever done it says it is a bad idea. The only positive trip report on erowid was from a guy chewing leaves. He said it made him be able to run for miles. The greatest toxin content is in the seeds. Kids die from it all the time. I have acres of the stuff all around me.

I'm not trying to make trippy maters. I just suspect I'm surrounded by the world's best root stock. If no Jimson weed leaves were allowed to form, I'm just guessing they wouldn't conduct photosynthesis, and that is where the toxins come from - just a guess.

Worth1 · June 11, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

200 years ago, that was the consensus advice regarding eating tomatoes at all.

Regarding the legal question, attractive nuisance is typically applied to children, because they can't read the warning signs. It would be like having a pool - that's why people build fences around them.

A farm is a dangerous place. There's a thousand ways for a trespasser to hurt themselves. That's why we have insurance. That doesn't excuse blatant negligence, but I think a fence and a sign would be more than enough to meet the ordinary reasonable person standard of tort law.

I was asking you so I could have your professional opinion.

I agree with you completely and a person should be able to grow a poison tomato.

But you and I both know how the law seems to be these days.

Put on trial for text and face book bullying comes to mind.

Do you really think a deer would wise up after eating one?

Worth

Worth1 · June 11, 2014

It would put a new meaning to Berkeley Tie Dye, or should it be Tie Die.

Worth

RootLoops · June 11, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by Worth1

Put on trial for text and face book bullying comes to mind.

Worth

are you speaking of adults or kids? some of the kids that get bullied on there kill themselves or others. bullying isn't like it used to be, you might get a bloody nose or you might fight back but at the end of the day you went home and it was over. now these kids are able to inundate their prey with constant attacks and circulate vicious rumors with the push of a button. i guess it's just my opinion but as a dad myself i would want the little punks punished to the fullest extent of the law.

if however you are talking about grown ups getting butt hurt and suing or getting people fired for posting things on facebook, then i say grow a pair or hit ignore

RootLoops · June 11, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by mensplace

another case of "attractive nuisance". Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Next we will hear of folks trying nightshade.

nightshade is used daily, as atropine in medicine. it's also an ingredient in teething tablets for babies. i was once prescribed an anti diarrheal that contained a narcotic and atropine, the dr said it made it to where you couldn't take to much of the narcotic you'd throw up first. i never tested that advice it was bad enough having the diarrhea!

Worth1 · June 11, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by RootLoops

are you speaking of adults or kids? some of the kids that get bullied on there kill themselves or others. bullying isn't like it used to be, you might get a bloody nose or you might fight back but at the end of the day you went home and it was over. now these kids are able to inundate their prey with constant attacks and circulate vicious rumors with the push of a button. i guess it's just my opinion but as a dad myself i would want the little punks punished to the fullest extent of the law.

if however you are talking about grown ups getting butt hurt and suing or getting people fired for posting things on facebook, then i say grow a pair or hit ignore

No not kids, kids are too fragile to put up with such crap.
I was bullied as a child and all it did to me was make me mean back.
Girls were my salvation girls liked me.

Not everyone is like me some kids it would have and did devastate.

Worth

Cole_Robbie · June 12, 2014

What's stopping me right now is that I don't have any way to test the results. I'm sure paying for lab work would be too expensive. I need a canary for this mine shaft - a guinea pig for my potentially toxic maters.

June 11, 2014	#1
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	Jimson Weed Grafting There's really not a lot of information about this subject other than "don't do it." This is the best link I found: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/196...ARDS_000278209 ANNALS OF MEDICINE about Jimson-weed poisoning of which 3 members of one family were victims. 5 people, Mr. & Mrs. Mason, Mr. & Mrs. Smart, & the Smart's 3-year-old son sat down to a midday dinner in the kitchen of a house they chared on a tobacco farm in the Caney Valley hills of Hawking County, Tenn. Smart, who drove the family to the doctor's office, told him that his brother-in-law & Mrs. Smart had taken sick right after eating; a little later Mrs. Mason took sick, too. Smart & the boy were all right. The symptoms were vertigo, blurred vision, dry mouth, generalized weakness, nausea, & in Mason's case, hallucinations. Both were wildly delirious. Mrs. Mason was still weak. They were taken to the Valley Community Hospital. Sometime later Smart mentioned to a doctor that the tomatoes they had eaten were grafts. Mason had grafted a tomato plant to a Jimson-weed plant. He had gotten the idea from a man named Clayton. Clay ton was interviewed & said that he & his family had been growing & eating Jimson-weed tomatoes for years. Clayton had, however, pruned his plants, whereas Mason's had retained their leaves. The question of how Clayton could have eaten his tomatoes with impunity is still unanswered. I think that last part is fascinating. It could be that letting Jimson leaves grow out of the lower half of the graft is what allows the toxic alkaloids to form in the tomatoes. The reason I'm interested in the topic is that I'm tired of the deer eating all the tomatoes out of my grandparent's gardens. If I could grow a toxic tomato, they would eat that and hopefully get sick enough to learn to stay out of the garden. It would make a fun experiment, but I don't have a lab to test the tomatoes to see which ones are the most poisonous. I also suspect that Jimson weed could be the best grafting rootstock in the world, as long as you keep the lower half pruned very carefully.

June 11, 2014	#9
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml Jimson Weed is the only drug for which everyone who has ever done it says it is a bad idea. The only positive trip report on erowid was from a guy chewing leaves. He said it made him be able to run for miles. The greatest toxin content is in the seeds. Kids die from it all the time. I have acres of the stuff all around me. I'm not trying to make trippy maters. I just suspect I'm surrounded by the world's best root stock. If no Jimson weed leaves were allowed to form, I'm just guessing they wouldn't conduct photosynthesis, and that is where the toxins come from - just a guess. Last edited by Cole_Robbie; June 11, 2014 at 05:56 PM.

June 11, 2014	#2
Worth1 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Den of Drunken Fools Posts: 38,539	So lets say you grow a toxic tomato. You put up a sign that says warning toxic tomato do not eat. This is an experiment and the fruit is poisonous. Someone comes along and doesn't take it seriously and eats the tomato. They die or get as sick as a dog. Where would the toxic tomato farmer be in regards to responsibility. I would think a good lawyer and a liberal jury could own your place after it was over with. Worth

June 11, 2014	#3
mensplace Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: USA Posts: 1,013	another case of "attractive nuisance". Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Next we will hear of folks trying nightshade.

June 12, 2014	#15
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	What's stopping me right now is that I don't have any way to test the results. I'm sure paying for lab work would be too expensive. I need a canary for this mine shaft - a guinea pig for my potentially toxic maters.