Finally some Natalensis fruits =)

Wow this looks amazing

Can you share some of your experience growing it? How was it, compared to cubensis?

Holy Moley! That's a stunning sight!

One love

I did multi-spore on agar and tried to guess at an isolate that might not overlay, but obviously failed at that

I put the agar wedges in with quarts of sterilized rye berries and they seemed to colonize pretty quick, although not sure if it was much different than cubies. Then it was about 3 quarts of colonized rye per brick of coco coir, using a considerable portion of the coir to make 1/2" top "psuedo" casing layer, like I saw some others do successfully on shroomery.

I couldn't really tell much difference in mycelium compared to cubes, until the top was total overlay and no pins. And then the overlay kept growing and growing, still no pins. And then finally, without changing anything, primordia formed. The time of just overlay seemed to take quite a while.... so natalensis pins for me took quite a bit longer than cubes even though the mycelium was super aggressive.

For what it's worth, that pic is of tray in a martha tent, but I had similar results (timing, overlay, fruit size) with a mono tub as well.

Wow, man I loooove to see that!

Overlay or not, it's a great canopy you got going there . What I found with Natalensis, whenever i had a culture with lot's of overlay and I buried it outside in the garden after a few flushes, the overlay did not show up again. Whether it's the high air flow or exposure to sunlight, I don't know...

Anyway I wouldn't mind the overlay in this case. These are a lot of fruits. Maybe just clone a cluster fruit and see where that goes.

Thanks for the info artificer!

What is the problem with overlay though, as long as it fruits eventually, its fine, no?

I guess it's not a problem, only alarming when you're not used to it. There were some splotches that looked suspicious, like bacteria or something, but ended up being non-issue.

In that pic above, can you see the overlay growing out over the right side of that tray? It's thick. It's weird. I sure am curious what the function is, and why so many people have been growing it and not pinpointed reason to it.

Also..... I must share my first panaeolus cyanescens fruits (after countless failures)!
These did not end up being the canopy I dreamed of, but I'm so grateful to have any of these fruits at all after so much invested time

That's interesting about overlay going away once you put it in the garden. I really don't think it's related to air flow, as my overlay in monotub (minimal airflow) was almost identical to overlay on trays in the martha (in a given 11 minutes, one inlet fan and one exhaust fan are on for 170 seconds with 12 disc atomizer to keep humidity up) - literally 25% of the time, fans are bringing in fresh air and exhausting outside the tent at considerable high rate, outside the room, forcing true fresh air in. It's a mystery!

Now.. to find time to allow for proper testing

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

What substrate did you use for the Panaeolus cyanensis? Any tips regarding that?

You call that "some fruits"
You're being too modest.

Nice. The Smurf Kingdom.

I found some very old and dry horse manure in a barn, since it was sheltered from weather I had to leach out the ammonia (let water run through it and then dry it out thoroughly) and then re-saturate with water and pasteurize in oven, then mixed this 50/50 with coir. I do not think the exact substrate is that critical, as long as some presence of manure or manure "juice". The only real critical part I think is the steps with agar, to ensure clean culture - it took more work at this stage than any cubes I've dealt with.

For reference, for both the natalenis and the pan cyans, I put agar wedges to rye berries within 24 hours of each other and the colonization speed was almost identical, and they were both faster than most cubes I've dealt with, and the colonization of bulk substrate was also similarly fast. Then it seemed to take longer than cubes for the primordia to form on both the pans and natals -- to point I was really getting worried and frustrated. Then, magically, as I almost gave up, they both decided to fruit about the same time, as if they conspired to test my patience and cracking jokes to each other for awhile and then finally felt bad for making me wait so long. Idk. They're more than just alkaloid containing fungi.

Great to see these two species P. natalensis and Pan cyan getting some worthy attention. These are the two species I have been focussing on growing more recently, and setting up a (largely automated) Martha greenhouse for fruiting them has been a boon to my fruiting game and works well for both species (although still need to dial in my Pan cyan fruiting game a bit, but more confidant I will do so next time around). I've been really impressed sampling the P. natalensis, and have also been impressed with the Pan cyan (in particular the cultivar 'TTBVI' which currently holds the record for most potent psilocybin mushroom known), but I've yet to have a deep dive with this one, but keen to do so at some point.



Personally, I've had success spawning Pan cyan mycelium on easy cook brown rice with a little horse manure added, and for bulk substrate prior to fruiting I go with a mixture of coconut coir (pre-powdered), vermiculite and aged horse manure, essentially emulating the approach laid out by GordoTEK here. I like the coir as it holds both water and air, and is less of a contam risk than straw which is sometimes used in its place.