myPlanetGanja.com

OK, here's where we start watching those little shrooms begin their growing process.
I'm intending to go from start to finish on this one, with a couple of strains for comparison.

I innoculated some PF jars with Thai Elephant Dung spores three days ago, and popped them in the incubator tub.
The print I made the syringe from was rather a faint one, so there aren't as many spores in the jars as I'd have liked. It shouldn't make too much difference, but it'll be a few more days before I can pick a jar and document the spread of the mycelium.

There are a few tiny patches of growth starting, and what looks as if it's probably a spot of contamination in one of the jars. I suspect it's because I was too blasé and didn't sterilise the needle between each jar.
It's not that clear in the photos (which are poor anyway) but the contamination spot has a distinct green tinge (shroom mycelium is pure white), which isn't a good sign. If it develops further, I'll be tossing that jar.

Mycelium patch:
Another mycelium patch:
And the contamination patch:
I'll be starting another batch this evening with Golden Teacher spores which are about 5 years old... it'll be interesting to see how viable they still are.
I think I still have some Paneolus cyanescens spores in a half-empty syring too, so I might do a couple of jars with those.


Incidentally, most of the pictures are larger than they are displayed. Click on them for a better view

Yep, it was a contamination patch, and I've now tossed the jar contents (along with a little bleach) in the bin. Incidentally, it's never a good idea to sniff jars you suspect may be contaminated, especially if the contamination is black or yellow. Some moulds produce powerful carcinogens and others can grow in your lungs.
Greenish moulds are usualy penicillium or trichoderma and are relatively safe (but still don't sniff them!)


All the other jars look OK and they've all got at least a little activity going on.
I knocked up a dozen jars with the GT spores too, so they'll be joining the merry throng as soon as they start germinating.


More pix tomorrow.

OK - picked a jar of the TED to document.
I'll try and post pix of this patch at one or two day intervals so that you can see how it progresses (if anyone is interested?):

very!

and for instance, what was the indications of contamination... color or shape????

and btw, did you reswipe the needle with disinfectant, between each innocunation???

ben ttech wrote:and for instance, what was the indications of contamination... color or shape????

Mostly colour. Anything other than white = BAD. There are also some white contaminations (cobweb mould for instance) but they generally have a "fluffier" appearance than shroom mycelium, and tend to grow faster too.
Basically, anything that doesn't look like a clean white blob needs watching carefully.

and btw, did you reswipe the needle with disinfectant, between each innocunation???

No, I heated it to red hot in the gas flame again. I should have done it between each jar, but I have to admit I was a bit lax and only did it every two or three jars.
Wiping with disinfectant isn't a good idea, as you're likely to leave disinfectant residue along the path of the needle - exactly where you're injecting the spores!

Todays pic:

I'm very interested. I'm gathering equipment and reading, and reading, over at shoomery. Got a big ass pressure cooker, 25 quarts or some shit.

webeblzr wrote:Got a big ass pressure cooker, 25 quarts or some shit.

That's half the battle won.
Big pressure cookers are hard to come by here in the UK. I got my All American 921 shipped over a few years ago when a pound bought you more dollars than it does now.

I'm gathering equipment and reading, and reading, over at shoomery.

I prefer Mycotopia, but the Shroomery is good too, just a bit more "noisy".

Well, I missed a day, but here's what it looks like around 48 hours after the previous pic:

fefifoefum wrote:You ever take flesh cultures?

Just the once. I find agar work a pain in the arse, and for my requirements, jars & straw trays using multispore are more than adequate.
I may be getting the petri dishes out to start some p. Azurescens cultures later in the year... I want an outdoor patch!

Todays pic:

And a couple of days later.....
I'm afraid the Golden Teacher jars aren't doing much. I used a spore print that I'd laminated (experimentally) back in '05 and it seems to have failed miserably. I've germinated spores from similarly treated prints, but not one that has been left that long... guess it wasn't such a good idea.
Never mind, I have another GT print on glass, so I'll re-sterilise the jars and try again with that one.
I wanted to show the GT because it tends to have ropier (more rhizomorphic) mycelium than the TED, which tends to be quite thin & "fluffy" (as you can see)

We're getting there.....

Here's todays pic:
The sides of the jars are all pretty much covered in mycelium now.
Still waiting for it to creep across the bottoms.....
And a close up of that....

They should be ready to take out of the jars & start fruiting in a week or so...
I'll probably use a couple of them to spawn some straw, either in a tray or as a log, and I may leave a couple of them in the jars to show "in vitro" fruiting. It's not a very productive way of doing it, and the shrooms end up very distorted, but if you don't have anywhere to fruit the cakes, it's a way to get an easy dose or two.

Hey Bloke,
(I'll probably use a couple of them to spawn some straw, either in a tray or as a log)

Is this when you soak the cake in the jar, with steril water, break it up, and spread in on straw?? Is the straw run through your pressure cooker?

I got 50lbs of rye berries to pick up today. I also found 2.5 gallon ziplock bags, I want to try those as spawn/fruiting bags, just adding the port. I'll be using coco as I got bales of the shit lying about now.

Mycotopia, is a great site. They wont let me join, but I think most of the reading is still available, thats all I care about. But your stuck with my stupid questions, sorry bloke.
Just tell me when to STFU!

webeblzr wrote:Hey Bloke,
(I'll probably use a couple of them to spawn some straw, either in a tray or as a log)

Is this when you soak the cake in the jar, with steril water, break it up, and spread in on straw?? Is the straw run through your pressure cooker?

Pretty much, except that I don't soak the cake, just break it up & spread it through the straw.
The straw is pasteurized rather than sterilized. I usually soak it in water at 75-80C for about an hour.

Mycotopia, is a great site. They wont let me join,

Did you piss someone off?

But your stuck with my stupid questions, sorry bloke.

No problem, ask away.

this isnt the two girl one cup type of grow log i was thinking of

fuck it i'm in for the ride anywayz

Thomas Beckett wrote:this isnt the two girl one cup type of grow log i was thinking of

Well, there might be a little farmyard manure involved later on.

Would that pique your interest?

It pique's mine

be cheaper to use yer own home made manure rather than that expensive farm stuff?

http://www.cricketpoo.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Well, the TED jars are all fully colonised now.
The Golden Teachers, on the other hand, have been an utter failure. I've had no growth at all in the jars, even after trying syringes made from two different prints.
I guess they've been left too long.

Never mind, I have a few other prints to try.
I'll dump out the jars & pop them in the dishwasher in preparation for making up a fresh batch tomorrow.
Might turn out some of the TED jars and get them into the "fruiting chamber" as well.


Watch this space.

very interesting bloke...a bit strange but interesting...

It happens Bloke

OK, we're about ready to put the little buggers into fruit!
I would have done it a few days ago, but my spare aquarium heater packed up... However, Mr Postman delivered a new one this morning, so we're all set!

Here's the fruiting chamber: I don't know how easy it is to see what's going on, but basically it's an aquarium with a couple of inches of water in the bottom and glass shelves supported above the water on some upturned jars. There's an aquarium heater & thermostat in the water at the back of the tank.

The shelves are a couple of old fridge shelves I salvaged, and a couple of wider shelves form a cover.
There's a little clip-on fluorescent light to provide a bit of illumination - they don't need very much, they only use it to decide which direction to grow in (they're phototropic).

I'll post up some photos of the jars being popped in there later.

So:

Here's a fully colonised jar, ready for turning out: I've got loads of plastic petri dishes, so I use them for turning out the cakes onto. Anything clean will do.
The vermiculite that was on the top of the jar, now becomes the bottom, and I add about 30ml of water to the dish to soak it & provide a moisture reservoir for the mycelium.
I also cover the top with wet vermiculite to encourage shrooms to form there, too: Then they go onto the shelf to await the formation of shrooms!
As you can see, I've left one cake in its jar - it's a low-tech way to produce small quantities if you don't have anywhere to fruit them properly - as long as the jar is kept warm and given a little light, it should produce some shrooms. There was also one jar definitely contaminated with verticilium, and one suspect, so I've discarded them - as you can see, the badly infected one looks like melted icecream. The suspect one has slight blue bruising and some "bulgy" spots that also look like verticilium. Rather than risk it going into the chamber with the others, that's been discarded too. I've also kept one jar back to use as spawn for a straw tray (or straw log) but I don't know if/when I'll get round to that.

they look like deserts!

is condensation a problem for them during this stage?

ben ttech wrote:they look like deserts!
is condensation a problem for them during this stage?

In the fruiiting chamber? - Not really. They need high humidity (95%+) to fruit, and as long as there's no part of the cake touching the sides of the tank and getting permanently wet, they're OK.
Condensation dripping from the lid can be a problem, but as long as it's not falling directly onto the cakes, it's OK. Sloping the lid a bit helps it to run down the tank sides instead.

In the past, I have used an utrasonic fogger to provide even more humidity, and that caused drops to form on the cakes. No problem, but I found it wasn't necessary so I don't bother any more.

woof woof mushroom porn !

Update: We have pins.

There are some shrooms starting to form on one of the cakes, and the others don't look far behind.

Here's the only pic I managed to get before the camera batteries ran out.
It's a couple of pins on the side of the cake:

(it's worth clicking to get the full sized image.... it's interesting. ) There are more forming round the base, but I'll have to post pix of those once the cam is charged.

Looking good Bloke.

I saw a similar growth on a cream cheese sandwich from the Giaconda in Denmark Street once........

does the Mycelium build those drops of water up on their structure, or do they condense there???

ben ttech wrote:does the Mycelium build those drops of water up on their structure, or do they condense there???

Condensation. The mucelium does produce some waste liquid, but very little. Sometimes if you have a jar that colonises very rapidly and the mycelium is particularly active, it'll produce a few drops of yellow "piss", but it's not that common, in my experience.

Anyhow, I've got more pix of the little 'uns:

First up are those two from this morning.... they look noticably bigger to me. And some teeny-tiny little ones, just starting.... And a few more......
<edit> It occurs to me that there's nothing in the picures to give scale, apart from the vermiculite granules... I'll try and remember to include something in the next batch.

the precise diameter of the dish their sitting on would do...

ben ttech wrote:the precise diameter of the dish their sitting on would do...

Good point. It's 3.5" (6cm).

Here are a couple of pix with a match head included, for comparison:

And todays pictures: Sorry if the pix are a bit large.... lots of detail to get in!

As you can see, the shrooms are developing apace.
All of the cakes have at least a few forming on them now, and they're all looking good.

Nothing happening in the jar I kept closed yet.... but we'll see how that one comes along over the next few days.

And for today:
Sorry they're not as sharp as they could be. I was a bit rushed and did them all hand-held.
I'll try and get some better ones later.

Since I have been concentrating on culitivation techs, you forget, (until seeing your thread), just how fucking fast these things grow!!
Thanks for sharing it!

webeblzr wrote:Since I have been concentrating on culitivation techs, you forget, (until seeing your thread), just how fucking fast these things grow!!

They buggering well do, don't they?
As you can see, there are some ready for harvest already. I'll be leaving them for a day or so though, as I want to get some spore prints, and need to wait until they're fully open and producing the max amount of spores. These TEDs don't produce as many spores as some varieties, but they still make a reasonable print.
Best time to harvest for consumption is just before the veil under the cap breaks.

And probably the final pix before I start harvesting:

I'm going to be doing some spore prints so I'll need some equipment:
Alcohol (methylated spirits in this case) for sterilising.
Scalpel (or sharp knife)
Kitchen foil
Mixing bowls (to use as a cover)
Cleanish place to work.

There's no need to be utterly anal about sterility, but the cleaner you work, the less problems you'll get with contaminations.
I'm working on a glass table which I've wiped down with alcohol to sterilise it. I've also wiped down the foil and the insides of the bowls to sterilise them. It's important to let the alcohol evaporate before work starts, otherwise it will kill the spores you're collecting. Next, cut the caps off some mushrooms as near to the top of the stem as you can.
Place them on sheets of sterilised foil cut to about double the size of the print and overlapping at both sides. We're going to be folding them in half later and sealing the edges by double-folding them. Cover them with the sterilised bowl to keep air currents to a minimum and prevent airborne contaminations from settling (make sure the foil doesn't stick out at the edges). For the harvest, just gently pull away the shrooms from the cake (singly or in clusters). Scrape away any remaining vermiculite from the stems, and cut just above the "stump". You can make tea from the stem butts, but dosage is difficult to calculate, and you need to filter out the vermiculite bits, so it's a lot of hassle. Once that's done, pop them on a rack and place them somewhere warm & dry with good air circulation for a few days. I usually pop mine over a radiator, but whatever you have will do. Drying in direct sunlight is not a good idea, as strong light degrades their potency. Once they're "cracker dry", that's it! Of course, you can consume them fresh, but I hardly ever have a trippy mood on when harvest time comes, so I usually dry everything ready for later.

I've wetted the vermiculite on the bottom of the cakes and popped them back into the fruiting chamber. They should produce a second flush of shrooms in a week or so.

So, after about 6-12 hours, remove the cap from the foil and you should have a good dark spore print:
Now they really need drying properly if they're going to be stored for a while... I'll do that with my next batch. I'm only going to use this batch for making up some syringes in a day or two, so they're not going to be stored long enough for it to matter.
I've got a couple of dessicant jars with silica gel which I use for the final drying of the shrooms and these are ideal for drying out spore prints, too.
I use sterilised rubber gloves for all handling of the prints.
Once your print is dried, fold it in half, double fold all the edges, label it and pop it into a baggie.
Kept cool and dry, it should remain viable for several years. This is the first time I've done any prints for a couple of years, so this was really just a shakedown run to make sure I remembered what I was doing.

Hey Bloke...just popping by!!

Really nice Thread and some great pics!! I still have some mushies in the freezer somewhere...been saving them till my GF is brave enough to dose for her first time!

I'm gonna have to stop being soooooo lazy and actually grow some for myself! It seems really easy!

Anyway take care bro and all the best, tps

thepureskunk wrote:Hey Bloke...just popping by!!

Good to see you.

Drying is coming along nicely:

Ahem

A Bloke Down The Pub wrote:Well, there might be a little farmyard manure involved later on.

Tubgirl wrote:Ahem

A Bloke Down The Pub wrote:Well, there might be a little farmyard manure involved later on

Don't worry my little poo-covered chum, I have a couple of jars of Paneolus cyanescens in the incubator.
I'm intending to use them as spawn for some manure/straw bags.

Should be ready by the weekend.

its as though ANYONE could do it!

"D

fefifoefum wrote:mycelium smells like jizz

You need to see a doctor.

fefifoefum wrote:^^^ ya i'm seeing my 5th shrink in three years probably seen 20+ in my life so what!!!!!

It was more that your jizz apparently smells like mycelium. You need to get your tubes looked at.

I reckon the smell is more like a blue cheese that's been left in the attic for a few years mixed with a slight mushroom funk.. (the mycelium. I can't comment on your jizz)

fefifoefum wrote:..not really blue cheese maybe blue cheese feet jizz n yogurt mixed up?

Sort of, but no yoghurty sourness to it.

It's very distinctive.
I'm not overkeen on it, but in the quantities I grow, it's not really noticable unless you stick your head in with them.

Another pic of the dried shrooms, 'cos I like it.
And another few shrooms popping out of the top of a cake: And a shot from the top: Syringe making tomorrow.

And a some shrooms from the second flush:
As you can probably see, there tend to be a lot fewer shrooms the second time round, but they tend to be a bit larger than most of the first flush.
It's possible to get more out of the second (and possibly third) flushes by "dunking" the cakes before putting them back in the fruiting chamber. If you soak them in sterile water for about 12 hours before they go in, they produce more shrooms.
I don't usually bother, as my requirements are not that great.

Looks great!
You ever eat em fresh?

FAGjack wrote:You ever eat em fresh?

Yeah. They don't taste much better than dried.
If you don't mind the taste, fresh ones are probably slightly more potent than dried, but I find it's much easier to mix dried shrooms with some fruit juice or similar to make them more palatable.
I sometimes grind them up & pop them into gelatine capsules, which avoids the taste altogether (until you burp!).

what does flush mean in this context???

something you do, or something which just occurs?!?!?

ben ttech wrote:what does flush mean in this context???

Apologies: A flush is just the name for a number of mushrooms appearing at the same time.

If the cakes are treated well and don't contaminate, they can throw several flushes of shrooms at intervals of about a week before they're exhausted.

does the disturbance of the myo structure while harvesting the first flush bear any relation to the second???

ben ttech wrote:does the disturbance of the myo structure while harvesting the first flush bear any relation to the second???

Not that I've noticed.
Picking the shrooms doesn't really disturb things that much, you're only breaking the mycelial strands that are attached to the base of the shroom, and they soon regrow.

Very cool thread and pics. I was recently gifted some dry shrooms....how long will they last? I was wanting to wait and eat them this summer...but wasn't sure how long they last.

razzle wrote:Very cool thread and pics. I was recently gifted some dry shrooms....how long will they last? I was wanting to wait and eat them this summer...but wasn't sure how long they last.

If they're completely dry (they should snap when you try to bend them) and stored in a freezer, they should last at least 6 months without much loss of potency.

I've stored them for over a year and and they were fine.

I keep mine in a sealed plastic box with some silica gel sachets (to keep them bone dry) in the bottom of the freezer.

Hopefully I'll post up my syringe making method later, but in the meantime, I just found a couple of nice pix from a grow I did on straw logs a couple of years ago:

Right... Syringe making......... sorry about the delay.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of all the stages.... I couldn't hold the camera and do it at the same time, but I think you'll get the idea.

First of all, you'll need to pressure cook some water in a jar to sterilise it. You'll also need to pop something in the bottom which will agitate the water properly when you shake it (the reason will become clear). I use a few bits of broken glass. Add water to the jar And pop on a lid with ONE hole drilled near the periphery: DON'T SCREW THE LID DOWN TIGHTLY.
You'll be pressure cooking it, so if you tighten the lid at this stage, the jar will probably burst.

Cover the hole with something that will withstand the heat of the cooking, but can be easily peeled and resealed.
I use aluminium builders tape.
Double one end over so that you have something to grasp later and stick the other end over the hole: Pop it in the pressure cooker, and cook for at least 30 minutes @15PSI.
Once it's cooled to room temperature, tighten down the lid and remove it from the pressure cooker.

(now is the bit I can't get pix of......)
Any contaminations that get in at this stage will affect every syringe you make in the batch (could be 20 or more) so you want to be as clean as you can.
I do mine on a worktop that's been wiped down with a disinfectant, wear sterile rubber gloves and work as quickly as possible so that the outside air has as little chance as possible of dropping contaminants into the jar..

You'll need a sterile scalpel or other blade:
Open your spore print and have it easily to hand.
Quickly open the jar (be careful where you put the lid..only onto a sterile surface) and with the scalpel, scrape the spores from the print into the water in the jar. They'll float. Close and seal the lid.
All you need to do now is give the jar a good shake to disperse the spores and break up any clumps.
The water may look clear with no sign of spores once it's shaken.... but there are enough spores in most prints to fill 20 or more syringes comfortably. Just because you can't see 'em doesn't mean they're not there.

When you're ready to fill some syringes, just shake the jar well, peel back the tape, tilt the jar, stick in a syringe needle and suck up some of the spore solution. Label and date the syringe and you're ready to innoculate some more jars.
Kept in the fridge, the spore solution jar (and syringes..I usually wrap them in foil) will keep for months.
Just remember to shake well before use!

as any big fan of coded langugage,
id suggest no labeling syringes with such as boss, wife, motherinlaw; or any of there dirivitives

A Bloke Down The Pub wrote:

.... I couldn't hold the camera and do it at the same time,

I used to have that problem.

You either need to practice or, get a good friend to lend a hand.

I think that's about it for the tutorials. If there's anything that's unclear or if you have any questions, fire away!!

I've got some more jars on the go, with a few South African strain as well as some more TEDs,and I've just popped some Paneolus cyanescenes spawn into a bag of poo & straw, so we might ge a bit of action there... (although this is my first proper attempt at Pan cyans, so don't expect anything too spectacular).

I'll be using some of the jars for spawn to straw trays or logs this time round.
I couldn't be bothered this time.

I found a few more old pix (I've been checking my backup archives) I thought I'd pop them up as they seem to be popular :

Golden Teacher on some cakes and a rye-grain tray: Golden Teacher on a straw tray: And a few cakes I did last year... can't remember what the strain was.. probably Thai Elephant Dung.

@Bloke...very impressive.
I have to adnit I have never tried 'shrooms.....was too chicken too
One of my sons grew them though & sold to friends.He no longer grows
Now I am ready to try some but don't know where to get them

He had left a pressure cooker at JLW's & he threw it out...
My son was told to go get it but no....

Anyway...I love the pics

Passin through and had the thought that a mushroom is a fungus erection. Keep on Bloke.

Antique Hippie wrote:Passin through and had the thought that a mushroom is a fungus erection.

You're not the only one.
There's a theory that all of the Abrahamic religions are just a corruption of an ancient mushroom fertility cult (The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross - John M. Alegro)

Keep on Bloke.

Will do.

I've just popped 4 cakes of South African in the tank, and I've got another dozen TED jars about ready for use as spawn.
The Pan cyanescens aren't doing too well. I made the straw/dung mix too wet, and they're not colonising well.
I've got a few more jars of those though, so I'll start some straw trays with them in a few days. Probably won't post pix until they're done... I don't want to do a tutorial on using straw/dung, there are plenty of those about the 'net already.

Well, a shroom in a drop of water, anyway.

The first pins (baby mushrooms) are showing on the SA cakes. This one is particularly cute:
And it shows perfectly the development of the baby shrooms. From right ro left:

NIIIIIIIIIIICE! They look so funky

Very nice tutorial Bloke and superb pics !

I was wondering if you ever thought/tried to grow those expensive legal mushrooms like white truffles ($2500.00 per pound) or pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake , $2,000 per kilogram) ??
With your skills you could make a fortune just by selling them to local restaurants ...

i remember that looking lucrative years ago when i first read this subject down...

Mothers Penis wrote:I was wondering if you ever thought/tried to grow those expensive legal mushrooms like white truffles ($2500.00 per pound) or pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake , $2,000 per kilogram) ??

They're not that easy.... there's a reason they're expensive.
I've done oyster mushrooms and shiitake and I've considered reishi and others, but I really don't have the time or space for any "commercial" growing.

With your skills you could make a fortune just by selling them to local restaurants ...

As you can see from the tutorial, there's not much skill involved. They do it all by themselves.
If you can follow a simple recipe, you can grow shrooms.

A Bloke Down The Pub wrote:

Mothers Penis wrote:I was wondering if you ever thought/tried to grow those expensive legal mushrooms like white truffles ($2500.00 per pound) or pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake , $2,000 per kilogram) ??

They're not that easy.... there's a reason they're expensive.
I've done oyster mushrooms and shiitake and I've considered reishi and others, but I really don't have the time or space for any "commercial" growing.

With your skills you could make a fortune just by selling them to local restaurants ...

As you can see from the tutorial, there's not much skill involved. They do it all by themselves.
If you can follow a simple recipe, you can grow shrooms.

Aw man... and here we have almost the entire footprint of our home available for something like this. I just haven't acted on it. I adore oyster mushies... aw hell, I love mushrooms, period. And straw mushrooms that Dave uses for some sort of Thai soup he likes to make. And we have oak forests out here, but I don't know if they could be inoculated with truffle spore, or if they grow truffles already or what. See, there's an old-timer who used to live next to a lady I worked for who'd grown up out here. Old Louey knows where to find the BEST mushrooms. But his house caught fire and he went to a nursing facility and has gone downhill terribly. WWII vet, served in Guadalcanal. He says to only get mushies from oaks or willows. Had a hell of a lot of stories and NOBODY makes a better cured olive than Louey, either.

Good Lord, the stuff that goes when they go, I hadn't had a chance to really pick his brain yet.

A Bloke Down The Pub wrote:They're not that easy.... there's a reason they're expensive.

saw how many people were offering schools to learn with 10 grand tuitions for a couple weeks...

i lost interest...


but it led me to assume a website such as our could sell insurance policies to growers any time it wanted to...

Seamaiden wrote:Aw man... and here we have almost the entire footprint of our home available for something like this. I just haven't acted on it. I adore oyster mushies... aw hell, I love mushrooms, period. And straw mushrooms that Dave uses for some sort of Thai soup he likes to make.

If you want to have a go at any edibles, I'd recommend a couple of books:
The Mushroom Cultivator - Paul Stamets & J. Chilton
Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms - Paul Stamets
They're both packed with useful information. They're a little geared to the "medium sized" producer, rather than someone who just wants to do a few mushrooms here & there, but they provide growth parameters and substrate details for most of the commonly grown mushrooms.

A trip to Mycotopia's "Grow" section will also pay dividends.
http://forums.mycotopia.net/fungi-growi ... mushrooms/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
There's a lot of stuff in the Archive & Vaults over there, too.

is that packing bored holes in logs method as genius as its cracked up to be???

rSin wrote:is that packing bored holes in logs method as genius as its cracked up to be???

Well, it works. That's how my shiitake log was innoculated (but not by me). Probably gets boring after doing a couple of dozen logs, though.
You can use dowels or sawdust to pack the holes, depending on what your chosen species prefers.

Using rope spawn is probably easier if you have a lot to do.. most wood-loving mushrooms will grow on hemp or cotton rope, so you just colonise a coil of rope, then make a groove round your logs with a chainsaw and pack the rope into the groove.

my chainsaw would certainly like more to do!!!


:D

Weird...I posted here yesterday & now it's gone! WTF???
Is it another April Fools Day joke?

Anyway... Bloke..my son that grew 'shrooms
is staying w/ me & is impressed w/ your grow.
I love looking at them..am a reg mushroom fan..
the eatin' kind
Great pics!!

And a couple of pictures of the South African cakes just before harvest:
I'm aiming to get some straw pasteurized and spawned over the weekend, but depends on whether I find time.

nice show bloke thx.

i'll get around to the shrooms and very well might do my rookie grow with the infamous EZY grow kit . lol gotta start somewhere you dig. 2 steps is cool by me.

are the paneolus you grow stronger then the ones that grow on the lawn , gotta eat too many of those imho.

Hopefull Stoner wrote:are the paneolus you grow stronger then the ones that grow on the lawn , gotta eat too many of those imho.

Depends what's growing on your lawn.
If you mean P. semilanceata (Liberty Cap) then weight for weight, they're probably a little more potent than the Pan. cyanescens.

To be honest, I haven't yet managed to produce more than a few shrooms from the Pan. cyans, so I haven't been able to give them a thorough testing. I've got half a dozen jars ready to use as spawn though, and I'm hoping for a bit more success this time round.

Hopefull Stoner wrote: i'll get around to the shrooms and very well might do my rookie grow with the infamous EZY grow kit . lol gotta start somewhere you dig. 2 steps is cool by me.

My first grow was a kit (from De Sjaaman I think) and worked reasonably well, but it's an expensive way to grow.
How much do the kits go for these days?

lawn shrooms are dicey!!!

i never found nothing id any hope of positively identifying...

rSin wrote:lawn shrooms are dicey!!!
i never found nothing id any hope of positively identifying...

No, until you've been at it for a while, it can be difficult separating all the "little brown mushroom" species.
The P. semilanceata is fairly distinctive though, nothing similar has the little nipple on top, and it's the most common wild "magic" mushroom in the UK.
Having said that, I've never lived anywhere they've been common locally, and I've only ever seen a few dozen "in the wild".

Damn fine pic bloke, I see you got the subcool, multicolored photo light array!!

webeblzr wrote:Damn fine pic bloke, I see you got the subcool, multicolored photo light array!!

Didn't quite work out how I wanted it.

I couldn't get the distances of the lights right. I was using a lab stand and a mic stand to hold a couple of 300W stage lights over the table, but the stands weren't long enough, and the cables were too short to reach the sockets easily, so I had to compromise a bit.

It was meant to be a lot more subtle than that.

I was just desperate to post a picture.

I think it's a great pic, it's sooo 1970's scify!!

I totally understand being a one manned band so to speak!!

that set of mushrooms look quite amazing...

What kind of 'shroom is this Bloke? I found pic & thought it was neat.

[image]http://www.myplanetganja.com/gallery/al ... to3420.jpg[/image]

Difficult to tell.... It appears to have a bit of a volva at the base, so I'd suspect an Amanita, but the gills should be paler for all the Amanitas I know.

We are blessed to have pretty plenteous Psilocybes in the field here for the picking. I have a friend who has some pasture acreage that doesn't seem to have any. Is there any possible way to introduce the common local Psilocybe onto a piece of ground it hasn't already colonised?

Hax wrote:We are blessed to have pretty plenteous Psilocybes in the field here for the picking. I have a friend who has some pasture acreage that doesn't seem to have any. Is there any possible way to introduce the common local Psilocybe onto a piece of ground it hasn't already colonised?

Well, provided the new habitat is roughly the same you might be able to transfer a patch of turf from one to the other.

Otherwise, you could culture them and make some spawn to spread around the uncolonised land.

What species do you get there? Most can be grown out on straw or other fairly simple substrates.

yep

The ubiquitous Northern temperate Psilocybe semilanceata. So finding a mycillium mass (presumably directly below a bunch of fruiting mushrooms) and digging up the whole thing to transplant is the most likely and direct means? The fact that it is wild, common and widespread suggests to me it might not need a whole lot of help or encouragement.

Hax wrote:So finding a mycillium mass (presumably directly below a bunch of fruiting mushrooms) and digging up the whole thing to transplant is the most likely and direct means?

It's certainly the easiest.
I think the best strategy would probably be to germinate some spores on agar, use that to spawn some pasteurised straw, then use the straw to spawn the area where you want the mushrooms to grow.

To be honest, I've not seen any succesful transfers of semilanceata between areas and only a couple of experimental indoor grows (which didn't fruit very well).

Are those petri dish lids? Maybe try those old prints on agar? That plastic gets pretty hot though. Maybe that and time killed them. No dunk and roll? Nice fruits though B. Didnt know you grew these.

jesus wrote:Are those petri dish lids?

Half are dishes, half are lids.

Maybe try those old prints on agar?

Maybe, but agar work requires more cleanliness than I can usually be bothered with.

That plastic gets pretty hot though. Maybe that and time killed them.

I'm suspecting there may also be stuff released from the plastic over time that isn't good for them.
The first couple of prints I used were fine, but they'd only been in plastic for a couple of weeks.

No dunk and roll? Nice fruits though B. Didnt know you grew these.

No, sometimes I'll case the top of the cake, but my needs are modest so I usually go for the "just dump them out & wait" method.

Ya I dont think I can fault your method.

[image]http://www.myplanetganja.com/download/f ... d=4143&t=1[/image]

I have a friend who has some pasture acreage that doesn't seem to have any. Is there any possible way to introduce the common local Psilocybe onto a piece of ground it hasn't already colonised?

If there are any animals in pasture you just contaminate their food with spores. Everything comes out ready to grow that way...

[image]http://www.myplanetganja.com/download/f ... d=3930&t=1[/image]

What I found interesting, other than your nice pictures, was that they go from the far right to full grown and add no new cells. They are just water penises.

hehehe

Nice thread Bloke!

hi bloke! long time no see.
i was looking at a bunch of bon maman jars i've been holding on to for years and decided to finally actually use them for what i've been saving them for. looking at fruiting chamber discussions on other sites i see the importance of air exchange being stressed. how often did you take the lid off? your mushrooms all look very healthy, so the proof is clearly in the pudding, but from what i'm reading it shouldn't be working so well! solid walls without forced ventilation, and standing water as a 'breeding ground for contaminants' = a very sub-optimal environment, they all seem to say. i'd much rather use your method of water in the bottom and not have to mess around with drilling and perlite misting with the shotgun style fruiting chamber, but the 80 litre tubs i've ordered from amazon come in a 3 set so i may try both styles using identical tubs to see how big the difference is.