polyarcturus
Well-Known Member
sounds right except your throwaway container has to be fruited in a fruiting chamber, on the bottom of the fruiting chamber (generally a tote) is where the perlite would go.
My first class with the golden teacher
- Thread starter RetiredMatthebrute
- Start date
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
ahh ok makes sense now...gonna have to get another tote or 2 because i plan on doing 6 pans. 4 will be mine and i am giving away one pan to each of the people whom live in the house that im growing them in. my wife wont let me grow anything here, with her school and occupation she cant risk losing her licences.
canndo
Well-Known Member
Better still, turn on the fruiting just before your mycelium breaks the surface of the casing, no need for vermiculite on top. When in doubt, furrow and you will get extremely even pinsets, if your substrate is rich enough or deep enough you will get picture worthy canopies
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
WOOT!! got some white shit growing on my popcorn, hopefully its mycelium and not mold...just a couple really small spots right now but will be back over there tomorow to check on it again and see how its looking. hopefully by tomorow all of my jars have something growing inside.
also, when using popcorn tek is it uncommon to find black spots on some of the kernels? io have a few jars with them and they dont really look like a contam as much as they look like they me be part of the corn kernel. i also looked at a fresh bag and notices some darker spots in the tips of some of the kernels but they were inside the kernel so couldnt see if they were actually black or not. im thinking with boiling the kernels it revealed some blemishes that you dont really notice otherwise.
also, when using popcorn tek is it uncommon to find black spots on some of the kernels? io have a few jars with them and they dont really look like a contam as much as they look like they me be part of the corn kernel. i also looked at a fresh bag and notices some darker spots in the tips of some of the kernels but they were inside the kernel so couldnt see if they were actually black or not. im thinking with boiling the kernels it revealed some blemishes that you dont really notice otherwise.
canndo
Well-Known Member
SHIT - I forgot to tell you about that. Kernels in bulk can have large amounts of contamination - I personally believe they are a form of the fungus Aspergillis, could be niger, could be another - there are dozens - SOME are very carcinogenic and produce aflatoxins that are very bad for you. I quit eating popcorn in public places because of all the mold I tended to find in bulk popcorn.
http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1563.htm
so, firstly, never ever keep your raw uncooked corn anywhere near your grow. Second, don't eat the corn, if you like popcorn get it in the clear one pound bags. Third, increase your cook time by 15 minutes and you should be fine but an aspergillis outbreak is a nasty nasty thing and I have reason to believe that either aspergillis will germinate on breather patches or they are actually able to pass through the micropore surface. I have had 80 percent loss rates on spawn for various mushrooms - even shaggy manes who's mycelium grows at fantastic rates.
What you will see is a perfect germination, tiny white spots, everything progressing fine, but a day or two after your first shake you will see smears of black or black/green all over your corn - EVERYWHERE which is a clue.
Good luck, but you will know in short order. Remember, if you see white, wait a day and then shake in a swirling motion so you can get each kernel in contact with each other kernel, 20 maybe 30 seconds.
and it is extremely likely that what you see is what you seek.
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
not really sure what you mean here ^^
i used regulat bagged yellow popcorn, i looked at some images and seems alot of the images i looked at have the same black specks as mine do...i guess time will tell.
i used regulat bagged yellow popcorn, i looked at some images and seems alot of the images i looked at have the same black specks as mine do...i guess time will tell.
canndo
Well-Known Member
I don't see much contamination in the one pound clear bags, or even the 20 lb clear bags, mostly only in the big paper sacks of what? 50 lbs?
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
ahh ok, i thought you mean popcorn in general. yeah i just got the one lb plastic bags.
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
igot confused because of the word bulk, i was thinking you were refering to the tek and not the quanity of kernels i bought lol
canndo
Well-Known Member
Aflatoxin is one of the principle dangers of growing mushrooms, there are other lung diseases you can contract as well,I can't stress this enough to those who seek to grow any sort of quantity. Even Cubensis gives off dangerous spores and enough of them can cause pulmonary stress. Oyster mushrooms tend to give off so many spores that they will congeal in long strings at breeze points in your grow and people will get sick from breathing them. When you blow your nose and the snot comes out purple you know you are doing dangerous work.
I believe I've said this before but it is worth repeating, I am fairly certain I contracted pneumonia from cleaning a grow room full of contamination, mostly trich but there was quite a lot of niger in the room as well. I didn't know what was the matter with me, I got more and more tired, my breathing seemed to "bubble" in my throat but I put off going to the doctor because I had an appointment for something else in a few weeks. I wound up VERY sick before I finally went to the E.R. and found the problem in my left lung - it could have killed me.
If your jars or boxes or bins have lots of mold in them, throw them out or at the very least wear a good particulate mask.
I believe I've said this before but it is worth repeating, I am fairly certain I contracted pneumonia from cleaning a grow room full of contamination, mostly trich but there was quite a lot of niger in the room as well. I didn't know what was the matter with me, I got more and more tired, my breathing seemed to "bubble" in my throat but I put off going to the doctor because I had an appointment for something else in a few weeks. I wound up VERY sick before I finally went to the E.R. and found the problem in my left lung - it could have killed me.
If your jars or boxes or bins have lots of mold in them, throw them out or at the very least wear a good particulate mask.
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
the tote that i put the corn in to dry after i soaked and boiled it ended up really green moldy from sitting out in the house, as soon as i saw it i sprayed everything down with bleach water and promptly removed it from the house and siposed of it.
what i think is in the jars is part of the corn kernels, but im not sure. will have to wait to find out. unfortunatly i am not blessed with a verry clean houshold to grow them in. i wont take any chances though, first site of contams i will chuck em prob jar and all.
i do plan on cleaning out a area of the house and letting it air out well before i start my casing and fruiting, will also be disenfecting the area and closing it off with new shower curtains. not sure how im going to do it but ill think of something. and i seen a site someone linked on here that had lots of pics of when to and when not to harvest and i think i have a pretty good idea when they are done.
another question arises though, even if you harvest your mushrooms when they are at prime time (when the ring is starting to stretch down the stem but hasnt not yet broken) does the mushroom still release spores as it dries and that ring breaks.?
what i think is in the jars is part of the corn kernels, but im not sure. will have to wait to find out. unfortunatly i am not blessed with a verry clean houshold to grow them in. i wont take any chances though, first site of contams i will chuck em prob jar and all.
i do plan on cleaning out a area of the house and letting it air out well before i start my casing and fruiting, will also be disenfecting the area and closing it off with new shower curtains. not sure how im going to do it but ill think of something. and i seen a site someone linked on here that had lots of pics of when to and when not to harvest and i think i have a pretty good idea when they are done.
another question arises though, even if you harvest your mushrooms when they are at prime time (when the ring is starting to stretch down the stem but hasnt not yet broken) does the mushroom still release spores as it dries and that ring breaks.?
canndo
Well-Known Member
First, if you got mold in the container you used to dry the corn, you may not have rinsed the kernels enough, there should be little if anything left after contact with the kernels, but you did learn your cleanliness lesson for the week, clean up after yourself. Remember that you have a limited time in your dwelling, you will begin to increase the overall sporeload in your home the moment you begin growing mushrooms. Each small outbreak of trich for instance, will emit only a few hundred million spores, trich spores are inherently sticky so they won't float much but some will add to the ecosystem of your home. Each home has such a system, each home has a predominance of one sort of contamination or other, usually trich but possibly aspergillis (look, all homes have SOME deleterious mold, it is the quantity that becomes dangerous and you may be inadvertently increasing that quantity). What happens then is that each time you get an outbreak that is not quickly contained you add to the particulate count in your environment - this means that you are more likely to get another outbreak, which increases your load yet again, this continues until finally you find that it is impossible to grow anything except for the mold you have been fighting.
Now you have a problem. In the past I have been forced simply to move on but it is possible to bring that load down by washing the walls and the floors with 10 percent bleach solution, then going through everything in your house to dust and vacuum with a hepa type vacuum cleaner. What you have done is to up your load needlessly, be sure in the future to clean anything that is attractive to contaminants as quickly as you can after you finish your work. When working with agar for instance, a single errant drop of agar on the floor of a glovebox can go un noticed and not cleaned (of course until the next time the box is being prepped for use). That agar is a magnet for every spore and those spores will quickly germinate on the fresh agar - in only a day or so the small colonies will give off spores and fully contaminate your box. When the box is opened the positive pressure created by opening the lid will blow those spores all over your room and your moving around will bring them to every other room. Your clothes as well will carry spores and particulates that have spores attached - hence, in my sticky, you see me stress cleaning one's clothes.
There is another way to treat your abode however, that is the process of edging out unwanted spores. If you let enough cubensis spores invade your house you will find that the unwanted spore count will go down and the principle contaminant in your home will now actually be cubensis spores which you might see growing on the cheese in your fridge or on some of the vegies you left in a bowl, rather than the traditional bread mold or fruit mold (trich). But this takes some doing and you might even see a purple tinge on your walls - or a very purple brown taint on your furnace filter (you know the one, that you don't ever think to change even though it is packed with dust? Dust, by the way that is filled with spores and that eventually work their way through the filter and into your ducting system - causing no end to problems - CHANGE that filter and get an electrostatic one, they cost about 12 bucks and your family will thank you, as there will be fewer sick days, less dusting to do, and perhaps fewer alergic attacks.
The point here is that I urge everyone to begin to think on a microsopic level. Do this long enough and you get a sixth sense for the invisible around you, the mites, the spores, the endospores and the particles that you have never before even thought about.
If you intend to continue working in a particular area I strongly urge you to purchase a few sleeves of plastic petri dishes and half a pound of prepared agar - the dishes are 10 dollars or so a sleeve and the agar about 20 dollars. Make a quart of agar solution per instructions and pour yourself some dishes. Now place the dishes in various parts of your house and keep a log. Open each of the dishes in turn in the open air for 30 seconds and a minute and 5 minutes. Do this in every room. Take a few dishes and shake your hair over one, touch one wth your fingers, touch the surface with some of your clothes, your socks, the sole of a shoe or slipper. Then put the lids back on and wait - you will soon get a good idea not only of your spore load but of the sorts of species that live with you in your home. I will commonly sprinkle a bit of dust from my hepa vacuum, take swabs from the inside and outside of the hepa filter as well just to see how efficient the filter remains and to see what is going on in my house.
Now you have a problem. In the past I have been forced simply to move on but it is possible to bring that load down by washing the walls and the floors with 10 percent bleach solution, then going through everything in your house to dust and vacuum with a hepa type vacuum cleaner. What you have done is to up your load needlessly, be sure in the future to clean anything that is attractive to contaminants as quickly as you can after you finish your work. When working with agar for instance, a single errant drop of agar on the floor of a glovebox can go un noticed and not cleaned (of course until the next time the box is being prepped for use). That agar is a magnet for every spore and those spores will quickly germinate on the fresh agar - in only a day or so the small colonies will give off spores and fully contaminate your box. When the box is opened the positive pressure created by opening the lid will blow those spores all over your room and your moving around will bring them to every other room. Your clothes as well will carry spores and particulates that have spores attached - hence, in my sticky, you see me stress cleaning one's clothes.
There is another way to treat your abode however, that is the process of edging out unwanted spores. If you let enough cubensis spores invade your house you will find that the unwanted spore count will go down and the principle contaminant in your home will now actually be cubensis spores which you might see growing on the cheese in your fridge or on some of the vegies you left in a bowl, rather than the traditional bread mold or fruit mold (trich). But this takes some doing and you might even see a purple tinge on your walls - or a very purple brown taint on your furnace filter (you know the one, that you don't ever think to change even though it is packed with dust? Dust, by the way that is filled with spores and that eventually work their way through the filter and into your ducting system - causing no end to problems - CHANGE that filter and get an electrostatic one, they cost about 12 bucks and your family will thank you, as there will be fewer sick days, less dusting to do, and perhaps fewer alergic attacks.
The point here is that I urge everyone to begin to think on a microsopic level. Do this long enough and you get a sixth sense for the invisible around you, the mites, the spores, the endospores and the particles that you have never before even thought about.
If you intend to continue working in a particular area I strongly urge you to purchase a few sleeves of plastic petri dishes and half a pound of prepared agar - the dishes are 10 dollars or so a sleeve and the agar about 20 dollars. Make a quart of agar solution per instructions and pour yourself some dishes. Now place the dishes in various parts of your house and keep a log. Open each of the dishes in turn in the open air for 30 seconds and a minute and 5 minutes. Do this in every room. Take a few dishes and shake your hair over one, touch one wth your fingers, touch the surface with some of your clothes, your socks, the sole of a shoe or slipper. Then put the lids back on and wait - you will soon get a good idea not only of your spore load but of the sorts of species that live with you in your home. I will commonly sprinkle a bit of dust from my hepa vacuum, take swabs from the inside and outside of the hepa filter as well just to see how efficient the filter remains and to see what is going on in my house.
canndo
Well-Known Member
Yes, spores will be released after you pick - in fact the mushroom will continue to grow after it is picked for several hours, releasing spores all over the surface you leave them on and yes, even after the mushroom is dry it will still release some amount of spores. Don't worry about that sporeload unless you are harvesting many many ounces - I am just publishing worst case scenarios and hoping that people understand that there is some danger in this seemingly benign hobby. Mostly it is that rare strain of contamination that you have inadvertantly brought from just a few thousand spores in your home into their being billions without your ever knowing it because of that one jar that you let go and THOSE spores having floated onto those damp cheetos in the back of your couch.
the other one you want to watch out for is bacillus- it is insidious. Bacillus creates endospores that are highly resisitant to heat, dry or otherwise, the endospores can survive two hundred degrees. What happens is that we work in percentages. 98 percent will be killed by 212 degrees for half an hour, some of what survives will live through 45 minutes, some of those will live through an hour but here is the rub. This bacteria can replicate every 20 minutes. It takes only ONE to ruin a jar and it will ruin that jar at any point in time. You may find that your jar is growing well, it is not all colonized and you do your shake, the next day you see this greasy slimy yellowish stuff everywhere there is not healthy mucelium. The mycelium will not grow into or on the mucor infested areas and now, if you bruise the mycelium in any way it will never recover at all, so another shake will give you a rotten apple smelling mess that will literally BLOW it's spores and live bacteria all over you and your house should you happen to open the jar. Remember, every 20 minutes is far faster than your mycelium, that's two in 40 minutes, 8 in an hour, 16 in an hour 20 etc - you get millions in no time.
Have I given you too much information? am I frightening you now? Well, it's friday and I have nothing better to do today than smoke this cigar and pontificate.
polyarcturus
Well-Known Member
fixed it
haha yeah my house is a trich factory i bet lol. it worry me but at the same times there limitations to what fungi can do. i just wing it and hope for the best, clean everything of course the best i can but theres only so much one can do.
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
nah man your giving great information...now i know if i do get a contam jar not to just open it and chuck it in the trash. ill bring it outside and dispose of it in the dumpster with a bottle of bleach water in hand. i actually understand everything you have said. i am no professional but i have had a biology 101 in college LOL. though that class covers alot it also gives you a really general but consice idea of how living things work and reproduce. i think tomorow im going to head over to my mushi place with a box of garbage bags and help my friend clean the shit out of his house...i think this will help a little, then ill go through the house with a couple cans of disenfectant spray and spray every crevice and crack i can find.
i knwo this wont eradicate the problem but im sure it will help some, plus he is disabled and could probabally use some help getting his home cleaned up anyways. so not only will i be doing my experiment a favor i will also be helping him out.
i knwo this wont eradicate the problem but im sure it will help some, plus he is disabled and could probabally use some help getting his home cleaned up anyways. so not only will i be doing my experiment a favor i will also be helping him out.
Mookjong
Well-Known Member
Wahoo! finally caught up to you guys. I read just about every post, I gotta say I am impressed with the quality of information here. It really had me rethink a few things. I'll try to contribute in any way I can. It seems Canndo and Poly have got this. Once your sitting pretty, I know of some kick ass teks for making smokable psilocybin and even psilocin crystal. What ever you do don't toss your myclelia!! Also, Psilocybin extracts are supposed to have greater intensity and considerably less body load and skin pulling sensations. Capsulized crystal mushroom extracts have some pretty epic trip reports.
I ran across this tid bit from Adam Gottlieb "Higher temperatures (75*F) cause more rapid growth of the flesh, but lower psilocybin content than do lower temps.(70*F) e/ (We're talking about fruiting here)
This would have helped me in the past..
Anyways, I'll be watching...
If someone could hit canndo with a +rep for me, I'll pass one back to ya!
I ran across this tid bit from Adam Gottlieb "Higher temperatures (75*F) cause more rapid growth of the flesh, but lower psilocybin content than do lower temps.(70*F) e/ (We're talking about fruiting here)
This would have helped me in the past..
Anyways, I'll be watching...
If someone could hit canndo with a +rep for me, I'll pass one back to ya!
polyarcturus
Well-Known Member
i might hit you up on those extracts... how long is the trip would you say? i got a guy who likes to smoke them as is. and he gets some effect so he says, bet he would pay out the shizzle for some extract.
RetiredMatthebrute
Well-Known Member
must spread rep before i can benounce Canndo again
Mookjong
Well-Known Member
The smoked extract lasts about an hour. It's a long ass hour though...
The capsules of crystaline psilicin is where it's at tho..
There is a lot of info about it on lycaeum.
