The following is a presentation of a study to determine the answer to a simple question: 

People who work with peyote have no shortage of opinions about this issue, but those opinions are based on haphazard observations, often with an economic bias.  The only way to get an unbiased, quantitative answer to the question, is to do a controlled experiment involving a large number of peyote plants.  That has never been done, and that's precisely what we at CCI intend to do. 

The basic thrust of this simple but important study: Harvest the buttons from marked individually identified peyote plants and then observe how many of those plants actually grew back by regenerating new buttons.  The number of plants that died in the harvested group would then be compared to the number that died in a concurrent control group of the same number of plants that were not subjected to harvesting.  In the second phase of the study, all buttons that regrew from the harvested plants would be harvested, and the percentage of plants that died in response to this second harvest would be compared to the percentage of plants that died concurrently in the unharvested control group.  These results will tell us very clearly if there is any adverse effect on a peyote population from harvesting and reharvesting, and they will tell us how large (how severe) that effect is.

We have designed a study involving only a reasonable but statistically meaningful number of plants that will enable us to gather data capable of assessing these and other interwoven questions concerning the impact of harvesting on the peyote plant.

The budget for the study, covering travel expenses to the study site in South Texas, plus supplies including stakes and aluminum ID tags for uniquely identifying individual plants, totals approximately $4,950 to be spent in seven work trips to the study site over the 4-year duration of the study.

If you would like to help support additional studies of this type, designed to answer basic questions that are critical to the optimal stewardship/management of vulnerable cactus species, please send a check, for $25 USD or whatever amount you can afford, to Cactus Conservation Institute, P.O. Box 561, Alpine, TX 79830.
    Donations can also be made, in almost any currency, via PayPal.