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lindsay

Cordyceps Militaris growing

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Part 1 

doing in parts--lost 2 hrs work last night -- done something stupid :BANGHEAD2:

 

I have been interested in the health benefits of cordyceps for some time now.

the main benefit i was looking at is the increase in exercise performance.

I take a 1.5 gm tea 20 min before my workout. can easily say it gives me

up to a 10% increase in the intensity of my workout and it makes me feel good. 

so I am hooked. 

my goal at the moment, is to grow enough through the colder months to

last me and mum, until its cool enough to start again.

there is a heap of health benefits, just  google search cordyceps health.

 

Now to why I have started this topic. that is, to show how I have gone about

growing this great mushroom so far.

So I hope, with this bit of info I can help others get started.

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I started off growing in jars. but with a 23 quart presto pressure cooker the

harvest volume was not cutting it with me. a lot air space in the cooker between

jars and having to inoculate each jar had me turn to aluminium baking trays.

inside a plastic storage container .

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started with 2 small trays, then a medium and now I have a larger one that fits

perfectly into the cooker and into the storage container.

 

To start a grow, liquid culture is the way to go. with a 5 mm agar wedge

in 250ml it takes no longer that 6 days to fill the liquid. and I do mean fill it.

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these jars are 4-5 days old. as you can see, peptone adds good vigour to the

culture. malt is ok without the peptone.

#1
250ml water
1gm light malt
#2
250ml water
1gm light malt
.5 gm peptone
#3
250ml water
1gm dextrose
#4
250ml water
1gm dextrose
.5 gm peptone

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part 2

 

my grows are on brown rice. there a many grains cordys grown on

quinoa, birds seed, soya bean or a mixture.

rice is cheep and easy to get. there a organic source that

I hope to track down. 

 

just like cooking rice to eat. you go 2 cups water to 1 cup of rice.

in this case broth.

Broth recipe 

2 cups water
7g dextrose
2.2g cornflower
5.5 g insant dry yeast
2g azomite
.5gm peptone

I aim for about 15mm of cooked substrate in bottom

of the tray.
 

Edited by lindsay
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Thanks, this is lovely work, well set up and thorough, will follow

 

Where's everyone source their peptone from? I bought some ages back but it was pretty exxy and it seems lots of Cordy teks use a fair bit

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Thanks lindsay, this is awesome stuff 

 

@Darklight This is the cheapest one i've seen so far, $98 for 250g 'Peptone, Bacteriological LR (non-animal origin)'. They also have 100g for $67.

 

 https://www.bacto.com.au/shop/index.php?route=product/product&keyword=peptone&category_id=0&description=1&model=1&product_id=9871

 

I was gonna buy some to try growing the cordy too, wanna split that with me Darklight?

 

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Amazon is were got peptone from. was the cheapest I could find.

got a 100gm forgot the price. its great in the LC, how necessary in the broth

i dont know. i must test.

bit mowed down at work for a few days at the moment.

may some days before i get back to the rest of this topic.

will log into amazon tonight and find the product again.

 

Edited by lindsay

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give me a day  i could send some through

at cost price plus postage to get you started.

 

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ok so you innoculate the rice and then put into a fruiting condition?

 

What temperatures do you chase and is there a consolidation period?

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Part 3

the rice and broth go into trays, with foil over top

and cooked for 20 min at 15 psi in a pressure cooker.

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 4 trays 26.5 x 19.5 fit in the presto cooker.

the plastic storage container are prepared adding 40ml of a Sodium

percarbonate solution. the the stuff used for home brew. shake

around inside the container, making contact with all the surfaces.

when ready to enoculate, in front of a flowhood crack the corner

open and pour the solution out into a jar or something.

then open the lid.

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drop the tray in and peel the foil off.

with these big trays i use 15-20ml LC zig zagged across the surface

off the substrate.

I have melted 2 holes into the top with a metal sewer and covered 

over with micro pore tape. the containers are not a tight seal so the

holes may not have been necessary. 

 

after 3 days at temps 18c-20c in the dark they look like this.

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at this stage put into fruiting.

fruiting temps should be kept below 20c. 

lighting are 5050 grow leds strips of a ratio 3 red 1 blue.

 

  

 

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Edited by lindsay
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Thanks for the peptone links lindsay and saguaro, I will get some just for me, it turns up in recipes for other species from time to time

 

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@saguaro I'll split some with you if you like?  I'll be ordering 100g today either way.

Edited by rottenjonny

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Harvested some trays few days back.

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This tray was started 30/5/20

Harvested 18/7/20 

7 weeks from start to finish.

Used 2 different size trays, and I noted that in one size

tray the cordyceps were large and fat. in the other they were

thinner but more of them. The influence was substrate thickness.

So I done some math, measuring the Base of the trays and looking

the amount of dry rice that went into them.

This is how it looks

16cm x 7cm =112cm square, 75ml rice = .67ml per cm square big fruit.

11cm x 18cm = 198 cm square, 100ml rice = .5ml per cm square small fruit.

My new bigger trays are 15x22cm and by chance they are .58ml per cm square.

right in the middle of these 2.

yet to do a harvest weigh in of each tray size. still sitting in the desiccant chamber, 

finishing off. should learn some thing from this.

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Edited by lindsay
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any substitutions for azomite or similar products anyone?

 

I'm looking at this link for some data on additives vs outcomes

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25404221/

Various grain substrates for the production of fruiting bodies and bioactive compounds of the medicinal caterpillar mushroom, Cordyceps militaris (Ascomycetes)

Edited by rottenjonny

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found this facebook group the other day.  you may already know of.

have not gone through much of it as yet, but this post may shed some light. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1449554748397163/permalink/3257908330895120/

there is a huge amount of info to filter through on this facebook group.

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 search Azomite ebay, ozy seller $5.60 for 100g or 1kg $20 free postage.

good for compost worms as well.

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On 23/07/2020 at 12:04 PM, rottenjonny said:

any substitutions for azomite or similar products anyone?

 

I'm looking at this link for some data on additives vs outcomes

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25404221/

Various grain substrates for the production of fruiting bodies and bioactive compounds of the medicinal caterpillar mushroom, Cordyceps militaris (Ascomycetes)

 

Any basalt rock dust will do fine. Palagonite rock dust is pretty damn good and there are a few others around check enfield pet and garden online.

 

Americans use azomite because its mined in utah and easily avilable and cheap to transport, pretty expensive if your in Australia and probably not worth your money because of that. If you have a listen to clackamas coot and his soil mix convos there is a great wealth of info and will always advise to source ingredients locally. 

 

currently running a mix on a different species (dont know if its helpful) which is: neem cake, rock dust, kelp, coco, spent coffee grinds, gypsum, calcium carbonate, malted barley grain and am having amazing results so far. wish I had some good quality worm castings available and is all im missing really. As said before great for the worms or compost too, even better, use the whole fruiting block once your finished!

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Wish me luck kids.

 

They got the full week in the dark at temps < 18 now in the tubs.

 

Looking frosty

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Then yellow....

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Edited by rottenjonny
Added more photos

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A recipe I have used with success is (Recipe from cordy fb):

It's pretty low tek, but works:

500ml solution 3 whole eggs blended well (shells included) 1 tbs malt 1 tbs yeast Add dry ingredients to blended eggs add h2o to bring to 500ml blend again. Put 35g rice in a qt jar add 50 to 70ml solution not including foam in measurements and PC 1 hour at 15 psi.

 

(I'd upload photo's but my phone camera is terrible - $99 from officeworks, what did I expect? lol) 

 

 

My question is, what is the main way to avoid senescence with cordyceps, as i was reading they respond poorly to master culture slants...tips or suggestions? 

 

Cheers, 

 

 

 

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