My first class with the golden teacher

[canndo]

i guess thats a compliment coming from someone in the myco hobby for 40+ years...maybe not to me but to my mycelium lol



thanks m8



yes that is a vermiculite casing i am experiment with, want to see the difference between straw and verm...I know straw is going to produce better fruits due to the fact that it is semi nutritious...but i figured i would experiment a small amount..

i only cased that pan on saturday and it dosent seem like the mycelium is growing into the verm that much...the white specs are popcorn that are visible from the top. still think i should fruit? i have been wanting too so bad but dont want to be too hasty and screw myself. i was planing on giving it till saturday (1 week colonizing after casing)

thanks for all the kind words guys...im pretty happy with my results thus far for this being my first run at this. good vibes to everyone else and i hope you all get great results as well

Firstly, if the fruit you get from that organism is any good at all, then I highly urge you to take every measure to preserve the tissue. I think I have mentioned a strain found in some bag seed some time in the distant past (of course there are dozens of such stories in pot lore). The strain was actually trade marked as Tartukan Death Weed - it really exists, it is really all it is cracked up to be and someone had the smarts to preserve the tissue - so it still exists in it's original form.

there are plenty of "found treasure" TV shows now, it could be that you have discovered a found treasure of your own with this mycelium - for, again, I've never seen such rhyzomorphic structures on corn. You would do well to learn the art of agar so that you can preserve your strain. Keeping the spores is no guarantee and mushrooms are very dynamic organisms - they will shift their genetic makeup very rapidly and they will quickly weaken, contrary to plants. Consider that what you are growing when you have a monoculture is essentialy one very long strand of hyphae. the longer that hyphae grows no matter what you grow it on, the weaker it will become until finally it will tire and perish.

IF you let this strain go, thinking you will find another, you may lament your decision. I would do everything possible to keep that from happening.

I had an Amazonian strain many many years ago that showed the same sort of characteristics and I managed to keep it alive for over 10 years, unknowing that I could have kept it indefinitely.



About that picture - I am still unsure of your method.

 

[canndo]

I also ran into a issue with the mycelium getting stuck to the trash bag...didnt want to damage it so i put the lid on the pan and covered the lid with another aluminum pan, it wouldnt fit in my incubator with the lid and pan on it so i just left it on to...the apt stays mid 70's anyways so i figure it should be fine...it wont get the fluxuation to 85 like the incubator does but should still be decent temps for growth.

will the trash bag hurt the mycelium? pulling it off the grain?

Don't worry about the mycelium that clings to your plastic, your myclium is very healthy and will easily withstand any damage you cause. As I said in my tek, so long as the kernel is touched by your mycelium it will regrow very rapidly. This will not be the case however, after your mycelium has fruited or if it bruises blue, although it will still repair itself it will take longer and be suseptable to contamination.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

Firstly, if the fruit you get from that organism is any good at all, then I highly urge you to take every measure to preserve the tissue. I think I have mentioned a strain found in some bag seed some time in the distant past (of course there are dozens of such stories in pot lore). The strain was actually trade marked as Tartukan Death Weed - it really exists, it is really all it is cracked up to be and someone had the smarts to preserve the tissue - so it still exists in it's original form.

there are plenty of "found treasure" TV shows now, it could be that you have discovered a found treasure of your own with this mycelium - for, again, I've never seen such rhyzomorphic structures on corn. You would do well to learn the art of agar so that you can preserve your strain. Keeping the spores is no guarantee and mushrooms are very dynamic organisms - they will shift their genetic makeup very rapidly and they will quickly weaken, contrary to plants. Consider that what you are growing when you have a monoculture is essentialy one very long strand of hyphae. the longer that hyphae grows no matter what you grow it on, the weaker it will become until finally it will tire and perish.

IF you let this strain go, thinking you will find another, you may lament your decision. I would do everything possible to keep that from happening.

I had an Amazonian strain many many years ago that showed the same sort of characteristics and I managed to keep it alive for over 10 years, unknowing that I could have kept it indefinitely.



About that picture - I am still unsure of your method.

if your speaking of the vermiculite and corn pic...im am unsure of my method as well. i was under the impression that the mycelium would spread through the vermiculite??? and create a more even web of mycelium? or will it not gorw into the verm since verm has no nutritional value....?

if thats the case i will fruit tomorow and see what happens....should get something out of the deal right?? lol

live and learn...im trying to understand this stuff the best i can but i fear my understanding may be incorrect.

anyhoo, i still have 8 jars that are colonizing at rapid rates so i havent blown the entire operation as of yet...my biggest fear is contam on the straw. I checked my straw casing today and some of the mycelium has in fact reached its little fingers onto a few pieces of straw and seems to be doing what its supposed to. i think the straw is going to take a full week before its ready to fruit but when its ready i think ill be pleased with the results...and as you can see from the pic i definatly have enough straw to last a couple grows lol.

 

[canndo]

if your speaking of the vermiculite and corn pic...im am unsure of my method as well. i was under the impression that the mycelium would spread through the vermiculite??? and create a more even web of mycelium? or will it not gorw into the verm since verm has no nutritional value....?

if thats the case i will fruit tomorow and see what happens....should get something out of the deal right?? lol

live and learn...im trying to understand this stuff the best i can but i fear my understanding may be incorrect.

anyhoo, i still have 8 jars that are colonizing at rapid rates so i havent blown the entire operation as of yet...my biggest fear is contam on the straw. I checked my straw casing today and some of the mycelium has in fact reached its little fingers onto a few pieces of straw and seems to be doing what its supposed to. i think the straw is going to take a full week before its ready to fruit but when its ready i think ill be pleased with the results...and as you can see from the pic i definatly have enough straw to last a couple grows lol.

Growing through pure vermiculite is only providing the hyphae with moisture and a "direction" - it is seeking more nutrient and will grow many inches in order to find more.

What I fear here is that you didn't really case, that is if I can see corn. If that is the case, then what you have done is simply spawned into inert material. This will mean that the mushrooms you get from it will be taking all of their nutrient from the individual kernels of corn - this is not casing in the conventional case.

It looks to me as though you may as well attempt a pinning now but I don't know what the result will be.

Ordinarily what you should have done is propagate your mycelium by using the "seeds" of innoculated corn which have been placed or spaced in a nutritional substrate, the mycelium will grow from the corn into a mass that will finally conglomerate making one giant mass of mycelium, one single organism that feeds, grows, reenforces itself, repairs itself and finally, when it is threatened with extinction through no new prospects of more nutrient, a dip in the temperature or some other signal, it will bear fruit or attempt to replicate.

This is no different than pot. You grow your plant to a certain size and when YOU are ready, you signal the plant that it will soon die and it had better get busy reproducing by way of flower and hopefully, begin to bear fruit (seeds). Of course the larger and more powerful the plant the more seeds it will produce - of course you will inhibit the production of seeds in this case.

If you can understand how the mushroom works then you can manage it. A spore finds fertile surface - one that has nutrient and moisture and it quickly germinates. In this case, that is not enough, it needs a genetic exchange and is assured that it's effort will not be wasted when it encounters a second, sexualy complementary hyphae from another spore. In this case it creates a clamp connection and exchanges genetic information. It also gains renewed vigor and begins to exploit it's environment. Most times that environment is underground, in the dark. Most times there is little air exchange, when the now sexualy mature mycelial mass has encountered the limits of it's nutrient foundation it will begin to fill out it's niche, sending out more, shorter hyphae - just as a root structure does. Eventually it will run out of even those pockets. Now one of the reasons you see rhyzomorphic structures is that these can travel long distances with a minimal amount of energy looking for even more nutrient. At the extremities of it's search it encounters light and is triggered to fruit with the intent of erecting tiny towers and umbrellas which will contain more spores. These spores are actually blown out of the structure that hold them with huge force - the acceleration is hundreds of gravities. Those spores light on the wind and extend the range of the mushroom far beyond anything that it could do traveling along, within or on top of the ground in the form of mycelium. The cycle continues when two complementary spores light on yet another receptive growing surface.


So, casing - that is, a reduction in nutrient - light, that is a signal that the mushroom will not grow into the ground or benieth the soil and so be unable to expose those towers to the breeze, temperature, that is it will soon be vulnerable to freezing, and a reduction in CO2, another indicator that it is near the surface are your pinning triggers.


So long as you work with the life cycle of the mushroom in mind just as you have with pot - you will find success. This again, is why PF tek is so wrong. It depends on the mushroom finally depleating it's resources alone, and the mushroom, having used most of those resources simply to continue to exist has only a small reserve with which to use to create fruiting bodies.

You can actually see the results of what the mushroom will do if you put your grain packed into a container. After your first flush you will see your grain "plug", the mass in the container shrink, sometimes as much as an inch on all sides. this is a result of your mycelial mass having consumed the grain and rendered the entire mass with considerably less volume.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

so what if i sprinkle some brown rice flour on top to give em something to eat? then a slight mist? of course i will sterilize the BRF before i add it. this will give the mycelium something to decomp while fruiting....i know BRF is contam prone so prob not the best idea...just want a decent first flush.

 

[canndo]

so what if i sprinkle some brown rice flour on top to give em something to eat? then a slight mist? of course i will sterilize the BRF before i add it. this will give the mycelium something to decomp while fruiting....i know BRF is contam prone so prob not the best idea...just want a decent first flush.

That would be a very bad idea.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

That would be a very bad idea.

i knew you were gonna say that lol

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

may i ask, what the hell is so bad about BRF? is it just natuarally contaminated?

 

[Mookjong]

may i ask, what the hell is so bad about BRF? is it just natuarally contaminated?

I can tell you one bad thing about that idea. Getting flour wet will make it muddy, I forget the term but it would make a seal or matt down the casing.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

I can tell you one bad thing about that idea. Getting flour wet will make it muddy, I forget the term but it would make a seal or matt down the casing.

makes sense, i wouldnt use alot maybe 2 tablespoons

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

so what if i sprinkle some brown rice flour on top to give em something to eat? then a slight mist? of course i will sterilize the BRF before i add it. this will give the mycelium something to decomp while fruiting....i know BRF is contam prone so prob not the best idea...just want a decent first flush.

just a sprinkle....lol

 

[polyarcturus]

lol, there are a lot of reasons you would not want to add BRF especially to the caseing. you could mix it in your sub at the time of mixing which wouldn't be a terrible idea.

but the main issues with what you have in mind are

A) adding food to your csing will cause the mycelium to grow into it, you dont wnat this, that would defeat the purpose of casing.
B) its a processed matierial, so it is almost sterile, and more prone to be contaminated.

just scrap that idea, you want a casing that wont supply much more than some moisture, some straw and verm or ewc and verm. is good and doesnt provide much in the way of food.

 

[canndo]

Your meter is running, if you put something sterile on top of a growing substrate you are essential starting over and giving contamination an even break again - most times the contams win, mycelium does not. The higher the density of nutrients the more chance you will have contamination, furthermore, your rice flour is non-selective, it will grow anything, straw is selective for mycelium and good organisms. You don't want to be "adjusting" things. That is a problem with pot growers who jump into this hobby, they think they can adjust nutrients the same way they can add a little nitrogen, you are not growing a plant. Everything is dependent upon your initial food, what you started with is what you get. If you want to adjust your humidity, fine but beyond that even adjusting your moisture content is perilous.

 

[Mookjong]

Your meter is running, if you put something sterile on top of a growing substrate you are essential starting over and giving contamination an even break again - most times the contams win, mycelium does not. The higher the density of nutrients the more chance you will have contamination, furthermore, your rice flour is non-selective, it will grow anything, straw is selective for mycelium and good organisms. You don't want to be "adjusting" things. That is a problem with pot growers who jump into this hobby, they think they can adjust nutrients the same way they can add a little nitrogen, you are not growing a plant. Everything is dependent upon your initial food, what you started with is what you get. If you want to adjust your humidity, fine but beyond that even adjusting your moisture content is perilous.

Can I ask your thoughts on ensuring maximum potency with even distribution of psilocybin throughout each of the fruit bodies? Another RIU poster is swearing by horse dung, however the only thing I have found from published mycologists is that temperature is the most important variable for potency. Where certain temps will allow the fruit body to out grow the psilocybin. Thus making a bigger, weaker mushroom.

 

[aCiDjEsUs]

Just a picture of my three lonely jars haha

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

Your meter is running, if you put something sterile on top of a growing substrate you are essential starting over and giving contamination an even break again - most times the contams win, mycelium does not. The higher the density of nutrients the more chance you will have contamination, furthermore, your rice flour is non-selective, it will grow anything, straw is selective for mycelium and good organisms. You don't want to be "adjusting" things. That is a problem with pot growers who jump into this hobby, they think they can adjust nutrients the same way they can add a little nitrogen, you are not growing a plant. Everything is dependent upon your initial food, what you started with is what you get. If you want to adjust your humidity, fine but beyond that even adjusting your moisture content is perilous.

ok i c now..

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

Just a picture of my three lonely jars haha View attachment 2565798

dude watch that middle jar take off in a day or so, its messed up because as it grows it just goes faster and faster.the growth is expotential...

 

[aCiDjEsUs]

Out of two dozen jars all I got is 3 jars with some with stuff in it but all is good. Out of my 3rd batch the 5 jars I knocked up I got 3 left, two got contam. same thing substrate looking kinda "wet" and that smell haha so I'm left with 3 jars with growth in it and 3 jars with ? mark, they got inoculated on the 11th.

So I think it had to be contam. syringe because out of those last 5 jars only 2 got contam.

 

[polyarcturus]

Out of two dozen jars all I got is 3 jars with some with stuff in it but all is good. Out of my 3rd batch the 5 jars I knocked up I got 3 left, two got contam. same thing substrate looking kinda "wet" and that smell haha so I'm left with 3 jars with growth in it and 3 jars with ? mark, they got inoculated on the 11th.

So I think it had to be contam. syringe because out of those last 5 jars only 2 got contam.

dont feel too bad im in the same boat. keep filling my jars to full and they get contaminated when i shake them by wicking moisture in from my patches on the top of the jar. :/ so im down to 3 jars x2 filled with grain and x1 agar so ill probably be alright... but on the other hand i got like 4 fully colonized jars with contams i dont know what to do with.. trying to wait just a few more days to toss them outside somewhere and hope they grow

 

[aCiDjEsUs]

dont feel too bad im in the same boat. keep filling my jars to full and they get contaminated when i shake them by wicking moisture in from my patches on the top of the jar. :/ so im down to 3 jars x2 filled with grain and x1 agar so ill probably be alright... but on the other hand i got like 4 fully colonized jars with contams i dont know what to do with.. trying to wait just a few more days to toss them outside somewhere and hope they grow

Poly, actually I don't feel bad it's my first time doing this so I was nicely surprised that I got 3 jars with no contam. it would be nice having those two dozen jars without any contam. but I'm happy with what I got. I still got one syringe left, so if all goes well with those jars that I got right now, I'll reuse them after birthing the cakes.