yeah i agree mushroom hunting is risky mistaking a cubie for a poisonous one, Paul Stamets gave a talk quite some years ago and man there's a lot of dangerous look alikes, back when he still talked about psychedelic mushrooms he said that healed his stutters with a laaarge dose of shroomies, and helped his mother cancer treatment with turkey tail mushroom, their potential is remarkable.

Psilocybe cubensis really does not have dangerous lookalikes, it grows in dung, and bruises blue, any purple spored mushroom that grows in dung that also bruises blue should not be toxic. In fact most dung loving (coprophilic) mushrooms are either harmless or psychedelic. (Though one should ALWAYS do prior research, and one should NEVER consume a mushroom that has not been 100% identified. )

Stament's was likely referring to the psilocybin fungi of the Pacific northwest, where Galerina marginata (G. autumnalis) will occur in mushroom patches on woodchips, on wood or in grass, along with psilocybe fungi, which G. autumnalis greatly resembles. Other potentially dangerous species also exist.

When dealing with grassland mushrooms (that are not coprophilic) one must also use extra caution, as these LBMs which occur in grass have many potentially dangerous lookalikes.

It's a demanding hobby, where research is essential, not for the individual who just wants to get high with out having to do any work. I honestly have never consumed any of my collected mushroom specimens, even though they have been 100% identified. It's not consuming psilocybin that motivates me, it's a fascination with fungi, particularly the ones that produce psilocybin.

...When I'm out in nature, I want to know everything about every plant, fungi, or animal which I encounter...if ignorance is bliss, than I must be some type of sadomasochist, because I crave information, and want knowledge regarding everything around me...

About psilocybin and healing, it has been shown to have many useful properties in medicine, from aiding cancer patients with death to aiding addiction and psychological disorders as well as aiding in other concerns related to health...

Paul Staments promotes an oyster mushroom that takes hydrocarbons from oil spills and converts them to carbohydrates, essentially cleaning the oil spill. He even found a way to do this in salt water, even though he was told it would not work.

Staments also describes the ability of Gomphidius glutinosus, "the Hideous Gomphidius mushroom" to neutralize radioactive sites.

Fungi are amazing, much more animal than they are plant, as they do not photosynthesize, and they breathe oxygen (while plants breathe CO2), there are cellular differences which distinguish fungi from animals, and in reality they truly are not plant or animal, but they are much more like animals than they are like plants, fascinating lifeforms.



-eg

Except perhaps Chlorophyllum molybdites.


(Even experienced mushroom collectors have poisoned themselves with Death Caps, just in case you think mycology is straightforward!)

Ohh you're right it wasnt a cubie i just went back and checked the presentation he gave, too bad he distanced himself so much from Psilocybe in the latter years of his career.

good news seems like my spores were good, got a lot of white mycelium growing from the bottom of the jars, some are way more expansive than other some have a close to full bottom of white and other are just starting , now i did take one of my jars out of my incubator and put it in my old baby cannabis plant nursery aka my tv's cabinet hahaha.

that one seems to be doing way better than the ones inside the incubator box, makes me wanna take em all out and put em in the cabinet, could it be that they're not getting enough Oxygen in the incubator? i vent it twice a day at least but it has no airways for gas exchange.

I just remembered something important to share. The first time I grew (PF tek), I couldn't get my hands on brown rice flour, but I found brown rice and a coffee grinder. My home ground BRF was inconsistent in grain size ranging from powder to sandy. I was fairly successful, and for my second grow I used store bought BRF and expected faster colonization and better yield.

The cakes colonized at about the same speed, but I had more inconsistent pinning and lower yield. It seems that the mycelium was spending extra energy staying alive between pinnings. I have been back and forth between store bought BRF and home ground and have consistently seen better results with home ground BRF.

I can't say for certain what it is that causes this difference, but my speculation is that there are some VOCs trapped in the grains that slowly dissipate while the BRF sits around waiting to be bought. These VOCs might be valuable nutrients for the mycelium. The other speculation is that fully grinding the rice into a powder causes a sort of metabolic imbalance like diabetes in mammals.

Hmmm that is indeed curious, its interesting how fungi acts more like an animal than a plant, it could be that loss you described or maybe the source rice wasn't as good as the one you used back home?


VOC= Volatile organic components right?

You have to read the whole sentence:


Chlorophyllum molybdites has green spores, does not bruise blue, and does not grow in dung.

The death cap is "Amanita phalloides", I doubt it could ever be mistaken for a psilocybe by a professional, the mushroom hunters who were professional who had died from poisoning that I heard about was in connection to Galerina marginata, which grows in wood chips and resembles the psilocybe fungi of the Pacific northwest.

All of this was mentioned:




-eg

Yes on volatile organic components. I have used the PF tek many many times both with store bought and freshly ground BRF and always see better more consistent pinning and flushes with the fresh ground rice. It is more in line with the pinning that I've seen on cased rye berries but with the faster colonization of BRF PF tek and thus less chance of contamination.

I usually cook for 90 minutes at 15psi and this doubtless will remove some VOCs but maybe not all. This is why I also consider the possibility that maybe the more coarse grind is key to the better pinning or possibly all of the above.

And also, on the note of fungi being more like animals than plants and needing oxygen for respiration. I have found the most successful fruiting chamber to be the cheap plastic bins with lids (Walmart). The lighter colored Sterlite containers seem to work best. Hold the lid over your head in the store and you should be able to see the overhead lights very dimly. Although they don't photosynthesise, they do use the DIM light to initiate pinning. They will pin without light, but it helps to have some dim light to get larger healthier flushes. Also the small holes under the handles gives ample gas exchange to ensure enough oxygen is available.

For humidity, I put water saturated perlite in the bottom of the bin to about 4 inches and add another pint or so of water. I'll use smaller open top bins to set on top of the perlite to consume no more than 50% of the surface area. I'll place my cakes directly into these bins and possibly case with sterilized cocoa coir. Every few days, you can pull back some of the perlite to expose the bottom of the bin and should see 1/4 - 1/2 inch of standing water. This is what the perlite wicks up to create humidity. You can add a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to this to keep things from growing in it and to add oxygen to the bin.

When casing with coir as mentioned above, I will place about 1/2" of sterilized and water saturated coir in the smaller bin. You want to find black bins for this as you don't want pinning to occur on the sides of the bin. I will birth my fully colonized PF cakes by removing the loose layer of vermiculite and emptying the cake top down directly onto the coir. Use latex or nitrile gloves for manipulating the cakes as you don't want to get skin oils or contaminate the cakes. Place as many cakes as will fit into the bin in a single layer and leaving 1/2" gap on the sides. Fill all the gaps with saturated coir and put another 1/2" over the top. Place plastic wrap over the container to preserve moisture/humidity and punch a few holes to allow gas exchange. This can also be done by drilling a couple small holes in opposite walls of the bin near the top but under the lip. You don't want the plastic wrap to touch the coir. When the top of the coir is fully colonized, you can remove the plastic wrap and place on top of the perlite in the larger bin.

Happy growing!

Thank you for the info, growing is really intresting, might do some shitakes as well!!

i really hope i get clean jars, so far so good, they dont smell bad or have any weird colored growth in them, some jars seem to be on roids haha, they're colonizing really quickly, well imma noob so i think they are doing great hahaha, the one outside and 3 inside the incubator are doing really good, got a couple that are barely starting to colonize, the rest are in between got a lot of growth at the bottom of my jars.

I got a nice spore collection so far, i wanna try to do some LC and get some other strains going, wood lovers seem like a cool growth option.

VOC stands for "Volatile organic compound(s)"

When I say fungi are more like animals than plants I am often misunderstood, it does not have to do with behavior or how they "act", let me explain:

-fungi breathe oxygen (plants breathe C02)
-fungi do not photosynthesize, they must consume organic matter from their environments
-molecular phylogenetic analyses has confirmed fungi cell walls contain "chitin" a carbohydrate polymer that occurs in exoskeleton of insects, spiders and other arthropods (plant cell walls contain cellulose)
-animals and fungi share a common ancestor that broke away from plants 1.1 billion years ago.





-eg

As for humidity when fruiting, this is how I do things as well. I always fruit in a terrarium, the bottom lined with water saturated perlite. I always keep a small digital Hygrometer/thermometer device (which measures and displays temperature and humidity) in the terrarium, the water saturated perlite seems to efficiently maintain humidity between 95-99%.

---

...I want to look into cultivating Psilocybe azurescens. These potent fungi are fairly easy to locate in their natural habitat, however, in my case this entails a road trip, how nice it would be to have access to these fungi without the drive...it's a little more complicated than PFTEK, but it's not out of reason to want to attempt.

Psilocybe weilii is another mushroom I have much interest in, it only occurs in a very limited region, and travel is needed to obtain this fungi. This small section of northern Georgia where these occur is a definite barrier. I strongly dislike the south, and nothing would be more pleasing than being able to fully avoid it by finding cultivation techniques for this fungi.

-eg

That's not what I was saying. The professional who poisoned himself and several members of his family with death caps mistook the mushrooms for an edible species, it was nothing to do with Psilocybes. I use this as an illustration that complacency can endanger even the experienced. In the field of mycology, over-enthusiasm can lead to dangerous blunders. People really want their specimen to be the thing they were looking for and important distinguishing features get wilfully overlooked. It's a kind of hallucination in itself...

Also the variability of wild fungi can lead to this situation occurring more easily than you might think. (But, thankfully, still not that often!)


PS "this fungus, these fungi"

Fantastic information! i found this article that shows that humans have genomes from a lot of other species including fungi thats really intresting and cool, not that well versed with the matter but still hahah.


Genome Biology

Hello Everyone,

So far so good, i got a couple that i think are ready for shaking, what do ya think?

Hi Everyone

So far the 9 jars look clean as far as i can see only white mycelium is growing, i think they'll be ready for fruiting by this upcoming week

i do have one jar that is a bit further down than the rest and has some vertical tendrils growing from the mycelium is this normal guys??

This is perfectly normal and healthy actually. When it puts out thicker rhizome like branches, that's a good sign of health and vigor. You can think of them as highways being built between cities to allow them to share excess resources (trade) more efficiently. Calories will be transported out of the center of the cake into forming pins on the outside, and the outside will send excess O2 to the center so that it can extract more calories.

I can't quite tell if it's background colors coming through the clear part of the jar, but the pink which might be a finger, the yellow and black are disturbing. I hope that's just the colors behind and not in the jar, because that would mean that jar goes in the trash. Everyone probably already knows, but anything other than white mycelium growing in your jars can lead to very unpleasant and possibly deadly consequences.

Hmmm...I can't find an area where it said "this fungus"

Most of what you mentioned is common sense relating to mushroom hunting, though it did not quite relate to any of the previous posts.

-eg

As was said, everything looks a-ok to me.

Good job, I generally have to toss a jar or two every time due to contamination.

After sterilizing the jars in the pressure cooker I will inoculate them in a sterilized "glove-box" which I built, I try to be very sterile, yet I still will have a jar or two fail from time to time.

---

Pan cinct's will start to come up in my area soon.

I still have some spore prints* from last season, and was thinking about an indoor grow with this species, but then I figured my spores were old and not properly stored, and that if I was going to do a grow it would be Psilocybe azurescens, Psilocybe weilii, or stropharia cubensis

*pictured, these were never meant to be used, these prints were taken simply to identify the species, which was difficult by eye, so a microscope was employed and ID was confirmed.



-eg

thanks for the replies guys.

Yeah those are my fingers, the jars themselves look clean and smell really mushroomy, it looks weird cause i couldnt focus the cel camera correctly, the yellow thingies are seeds that got stuck in the glass after i shook em. and the blackpart is not on the jar it could be the top of the incubator, it does look weird ahahah.

thanks EG

I think that the 24 hr soak and warm water wash helps a lot, that and double time spent in the pc .

im really happy that this is going well so far

this is really awesome Psilocybe azurescens, Psilocybe weilii, or stropharia cubensis are def some strains i want to try, i would love to see a pic of the patch when its done.

isnt it true that spores can last 30+ years if stored correctly? i sure hope so cause i got enough spores for the remainder of my life hahaha

I suppose the spores could still be viable...

I may just inoculate the out door areas where I am already finding them, who knows, it may help.

Here are some pics from last season.

-eg