Isolation and separation of tall fescue and ryegrass alkaloids

Bases were extractable from dried, powdered grass material by percolation with methanol. The bases were removed from the methanol by cation-exchange resins and subsequently removed from the resins. Isolation of bases by these methods eliminated the problems associated with the use of large quantities of chlorinated solvents and formation of emulsions found in previously described isolation methods. The bases were separated by paper and thin-layer chromatography (TLC). TLC and a spectrodensitometer were used to quantify the principal alkaloids in crude extracts of tall fescue samples. This procedure recovered all of the alkaloids in spiked samples, and the standard deviation for perlolidine and perloline in tall fescue samples was 3% or less of the mean value.