re: old spores.

Old spores can appear inviable because they have trouble re-hydrating. It's possible to improve the germination rate by hydrating the spores under pressure. A fairly simple apparatus can be constructed using a foot pump and a soda bottle.


That would indeed be awesome, although more properly you are referring to three different species, rather than strains

hahaha indeed, i mixed it with cannabis terms

Would it be a waste of effort and spores to inoculate the out door areas where I am already harvesting these Panaeolus cinctulus (Panaeolus subbalteatus) mushrooms?

Has anybody tried this?

I know that "spawn bags" can be quite effective, however simple inoculation of the soil is a different deal all together.



Stropharia cubensis is the species which you are currently cultivating, I apologize for the dated nomenclature, my introduction to psilocybe cultivation came through the Oss and O'eric (McKenna) grow guide, in this guide the older nomenclature is used, "psilocybe cubensis" is the currant accepted designation for this species. These are the most common in the market of the psychedelic fungi, if you are buying psychedelic fungi "on the streets" stropharia cubensis is likely going to be this species which you receive.

Psilocybe azurescens is native to the Pacific northwest, and is one of the most potent psilocybin fungi known, containing up to 2.0% psilocybin, averaging at 1.1% psilocybin. This is a fascinating species, a fairly recent discovery, below is some interesting background:



So for many reasons it's clear why I have been interested in this species...

As for Psilocybe weilii, this heavily bluing psilocybe mushroom was only discovered in the mid 1990s, it only occurs in a small area of northern Georgia, and has utterly fascinated me since I had first researched it. It's not the most potent, or the most rare, however I have been inexplicably attracted to this species.





-eg

It's also pretty cool that it was named weilii in honor of a friend of stamets who had previously discovered a new species but it was given to someone else as far as i remember from a presentation of his i saw on youtube.

Azurecens are soo awesome, i do think the weather might prove troublesome for me cause as far as i know they need cool temps to grow and where im at its been rather warm lately, i would probably need some sort of wine cooler or something to fruit them indoors.

ahh i thought it was a cubensis from a different genus but hey i already got 1 of 3 going, honestly i want to try a lot of different cubensis, and test for differences in potency or consistency, like Koh Samui, golden teachers, corumba, hahah, didnt did proper research on it . I love how mckenna describes them in true hallucinations audiobook. at least i got one of the three going

starting next month im getting more jars and will try to find a source of rye so i can make the galindoi sclerotia, and fruit some jars as well

I've been getting some nice books, i got Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World I'm going to give a read, also got some LSD books by Uncle Fester, Martin A. Lee and Otto Snow.

Psilocybe azurescens are defiantly one of the mushrooms which I am most interested in.

Keep us posted on any currant projects, specially if you ever attempt an azurescens grow.

As far as LSD books, I'm not a fester fan. Fester's book is OK, however he is basically just reviewing known methods of others, some is almost directly from the synthesis patents. It's good review, but I've found it was better to first learn organic chemistry as a whole, then to start with the LSD synthesis patents and work of Albert Hofmann, Richard P. Pioch, Will L. Garbrecht and others.

David E. Nichols has published some amazing work regarding lysergamides, he did some work regarding the synthesis of azetidine analogues of LSD, where diethylamine was replaced with dimethylazetidine and condensed with lysergic acid to form Lysergic acid 2,4-dimethylazetidide, in this process he used a peptide coupling reagent called "pybop" to facilitate the condensation. Later Casey hardison took this same principle with pybop condensation and applied it to condensing lysergic acid with diethylamine giving LSD, this method is amazing! All that's required is lysergic acid, N,N-diethylmethylamine (tertiary scavenger amine), PYBOP, diethylamine, ch2cl2, and time, no refluxing, no freezing, just mixing, stirring at room temperature, quenching the reaction and extracting the final product from the reaction mixture.

Any way, the best thing to do is study organic chemistry as a whole, then you won't need such publications, though I would say that Albert Hoffman, Sasha Shulgin, David E. Nichols, Richard P. Pioch, Will L. Garbrecht, etc...and their work regarding LSD would be a great place to start.


-eg

will do!!! i will go this weekend to get the coir and get these puppies going, almost 100 colonization, though i messed up and i hope i didnt nuke one of my jars, the mycelium was looking yellow and based on research they were metabolites, however i messed up i think, cause i shook the jar to see what happened and well it did not like it, i smelled inside said jar and no weirdness is coming off it only the cooked wbs smell with a slight mushroomy smell, since then barely any growth has shown but it's doing its thing at least it looks alive, at least the other 8 are cool. i think that jar in particular had too much humidity inside it.

chemistry is something i've always wanted to study, hopefully i get the money down the line to do so!

I always have a jar or two fail, some won't fully colonize, some are affected by molds, and so on, but having a failure or two isn't anything to be ashamed of.

-eg

That's true

I've been doing this for 20 years now. I've worn out two pressure cookers. I think I've had only one or two rounds with 100% colonization and no mold.

Wooah thats a lot of years it takes practice to properly get this down, its doing better today, its got mycelium growing again.

Hi everyone,

Thought I'd give a quick update, got my bulk colonizing these pictures are from yesterday and today. by tonight it's gonna be 4 days in the colonizing stage. some of these savages were already making pins in the jars prior to mixing them in bulk. I used pre sterilized coir and fresh coffee grounds, they seem to like it rather well. i think I will be moving forward to the fruiting stage next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Looking good so far

Thanks im hoping for some nice flushes

Always nice when a plan comes together and works out. I'm currently working on pan cambos, and tampanensis. Just finished up some alninos, golden teachers, z strain and some more tampanensis. Edibles are next.

Good luck and can't wait to see how the flushes turn out!

Yes it is indeed a lovely feeling, Thats cool those are a loot of strains, which one do you like best? im most intrested in the baeocystin containing ones XD. i got some galindoi i want to start in the next few months, i wanna do both mushrooms and sclerotia,.

next thursday im starting reishi and shitakes XD

Tampa's for the win out of the ones I just got done with, 1g being plenty and visual. In my case, less is more. The pan cambos are supposed to be very potent as well, we will see, if I can get them to fruit. After that I'll try my hand at the Jalisco's, maybe a little tougher to fruit, I'm not particularly interested in stones as the fruits are supposed to be more potent and that's what I'm after.

I look forward to seeing how your grow progresses!

that nice hope all of em fruit indeed stones are said to be weaker still i wanna try em

Nice to see the pictures. What do you consider interesting about baeocystin?

Well very little is known of it since the research had been halted for a long time, and i havent found anything from recent years. my intrest is comparing effects and create a reference for myself to see what works best, its supposedly very similar in its psychoactive effects as psilocybin as reported by Jochen Gartz, and i want to see if baeocystin improves the healing factor of the mushrooms when compared to the genetics that do not posses the compound, the interest in baeocystin started when i researched P. Azurecens and that one has always been at the top of the list of genetics i want to experiment.

I may be extrapolating from cannabis but its rarely the same effect when you have different chemical compounds in the mix. IE Nabiximols are nowhere near as effective when compared with the whole chemical expression of cannabis which is 400+ compounds, i havent researched deeply on this but users report less positive effects on the big pharma stuff.