Rev

There was some work done by jochen gartz in the 90's on all aspects of P cubensis biochem that im keen to find apart from that read the many many archived threads and flame wars on the shroomery about experiments to 'increase potency' in cubes- not that they are hard to grow or weak as is but i think theres just a fascination with increasing potency whether it be cannabis or shrooms, whether its needed or not but it certainly is interesting from the perspective of interactions in the environment anyway

'Black shit' is definitely spores

Do you think its possible that the shrooms recapture the indoles in cowshit to build other indolic substances?

All Perth people go to the CALM science division in bentley - a small white building at the back of the masive admin complex (mmm see a problem there) They have several mature S album that produce quite a lot of seed each year (season?) word is soaking in gibberilic acid for 24hours before planting (relatively fresh seed) gives up to 95% germ rates if not there are always volunteer seedlings around the base transplant into a pot with a host plant and keep moist until taken success rate not huge but OK S album is a strong outcrosser i belief so try an source plants from different places I think this species is vastly underrated as a crop for northern australia in the savannah sections - it is quite fast growing

Yes i noticed that too I guess real estate values downwind of hoodia plantations will be dropping fast if it smells anything like the staphelias

I think ive had a bad problem because im on a limestone soil - slaters and snails in numbers id never dreamed possible - and cretainl never seen when i was on clay or sand inland old cakes buried in the compost heap do fruit in autumn - until the vermin get into them

minimal amount of spores possible on one petri use streaking technique that is flame the innoculation wire and touch to agar - it should melt a tiny bit touch the moist wire to the print where spores will adhere rub the spores across one section of the outer plate rotate 60 degrees, flame loop, cool and smear through the dark line across the plate repeat etc... each time you smear your effecting a serial dilution of the spores so that the most dilute will give you some space between the contaminants and the mushroom 2 options if the culture explodes into a multitude of different growths and colours then you want to isolate the fungi asap so transfer colonies to their own plates or a sectioned plate (quadrants) and obsevre closely and often- sub as soon as you know whats what other option if its fairly clean leave it to over grow , age and fruit clone these tiny fruits onto peroxidated agar now if you dont have a basic idea already , then what ive said is unintelligible go get a copy of oss and oeric ' magic mushroom cultivator' , or stamets and chiltons 'the mushroom cultivator' - amazon has it good pictures on isolating from spores if you can its better to clone from tissue of the wild shroom then use its spores grown in a cleaner environment to grow with.

what ive read here before is go to a field where cubes grow and collect manure in the dry season dig into your veggie bed come the rains theyll just start coming up Lucky in lismore ill say

B careful who you summon belfy yes cowshit is the wonder material we discover after trying the rest - despite the big hint that cubies grow in them naturally Disadvantages smelly - not not fresh - well i like the smell - but after its been PC'd its rank Prone to being too wet - so cut at least 50/50 with shredded straw or chaff (never hay) Full of weeds - both seed and fungal Can be a little poor if other shroom have been at it first or its composted advantages cheap etc as said before yes it certainly does inhibit many moulds even as a fraction of the total mix never seen any evidence that shows a difference between straw and dung in potency, please send evidence in triplicate wrapped in brown paper bag to: PO box 1417 byron bay NSW 2481 To bypass problems try using the commercially packaged cow poo as the cowpoo fraction no weeds, no other fungi enrich jars with grain enrich bulk with straw always sterilise jars always pasteurise bulk no spores on dung will not work - reliably which is why every cowpat on earth is not home to cubies - the conditions needed for wild growth only exist in isolated seasonal circumstances and its why cubies produce millions of spores - same as other shrooms mushroom cultivation as we talk about is dependent on being able to give the fungus exclusive occupation of a sterile media to increase its biomass so we can spawn it onto a pasteurised substrate where it has a headstart. being able to do this reliably changed mushroom supply from wild picking to a reliable and very profitable agribusiness - and a powerful tool in recycling We practice the same ideas when doing plant micropropagation or growing ferns and orchids [ 01. April 2003, 03:12: Message edited by: reville ]

Costs a heap more and need ongoing management on a minute by minute basis You have to crane your neck to see them They break down and all hell breaks loose They disadvantage the colour blind Cant wait to be rid of them frankly viv la roundabout

My goodness that was some piece of writing I didnt know political theory could read so well very refreshing and Darklight im keen to read more too If it is time to make alliances, and it seems so, ive always felt that Islam - in its purest and most benevolent form would be the best bedfellow of the worlds major religions Not that its anywhere near perfect - even sufficient - but one of the things that attracted me to it was that original concept of tolerance of others beliefs that is not enshrined as clearly in the other monotheisms I dont want to be a Muslim - thats not who i am -but i believe in a Spirit of things - in such a way as to be hard to define For me you can throw away any books of creation - im certain we evolved from lower forms of life - to which we are still connected I dont believe in any 10 commandments or one way to heaven ,even heaven itself. But the alternative bedfellow is this as yet undefined, though hakim puts it well "entropy disguised as life", this common enemy of the human right to have a sense of self and sacred Some things should not be commodified, some things hold value in the keeping not in their sale, in being and not in consumption and somethings are definitely wrong and i totally agree usury is one of them - but were all guilty somewhat. (Usury used to be illegal for christians too - can someone tell me when this changed?) This new power doesnt respect any of these things - it is ammoral whatever morals it does hold on display are bought like advertising space and subject to change as markets fluctuate I just feel that religion with revolution can 'come good' as it is inherently a positive force, somewhat corrupted. Whereas the other is inherently corrupt by merit of its exclusion of humanity from the core ideology.It reduces humans to artificial concepts such as 'consumer', 'collateral damage', 'illegals' thereby excluding all our complexity and right to be heard I think this is why even though anti-war protests continue unabated - they are being ignored - perhaps seen as a minor inconvenience. Count the costs? doesnt affect domestic consumption and production figures - ignore it Theyve even started using it as a marketing angle - supre was advertising ' make love not war' shirts the other week on TV But there all too confident in their own power to administer the worlds affairs from a great height, from where we all look like ants - we were too varaible to include in the macroeconomic theory so we were simplified or omitted.Numbers werent meant to talk back This is the assymetric strength of revolution, the theories dont allow for the unpredictable - as in the recent 'setbacks' in the Iraq invasion. It is beyond help.Like a horse that cant be ridden were just going to have to shoot it and go back to walking pace. a great inconvenience that, shooting the vehicle of your prosperity..but if its not taking you where you need to go then what use was it? [ 30. March 2003, 23:54: Message edited by: reville ]

too much water sitting around? make sure the mycelium never sits in water for an extended period (except when soaking blocks) allow it to take all its water via perlite from the bottom and the casing from the top - alway allow that intermediate carrier

Not really. Bigger shrooms are stronger if both grow at the same rate but the rate of growth can vary and this seems to affect potency however if you get a shroom that has grown very slowly under more arid conditions it will be old and small and sometimes these lone shrooms you find can pack a punch - wild or cultivated. A few people have related similar experiences to me

Cubies need humidity and warmth - you dont get both together in perth In dry weather cubes will emerge but the dry air hardens the outside, if it becomes moist again then the cubie continues to grow from the inside and starts to crack open like popcorn You might get lucky with cakes in a warm humid area like a leaf mulch pile in autumn but slaters will give you hell Psilocybe hispanica may be an acceptable substitute a a cool weather dunglover but not so much work has been done with that species Ive seen that eastern Sub strains also seem to love Conifer wood and needles - especially cedar type plants like cypress of Thuja (bookleaf pine) Snail pellets - at least some types are approved by the BFA for organic pest control so they cant be that bad. The best way for snails is to put then in glass jars on their sides, they last longer cos the weather doesnt get in , and when its full of dead snails its makes and easy way to dispose of them A friend tried a chicken tractor for slaters but found that after a few weeks they get sick of them Slaters are the biggest problem in dry ecosystems where they replace earthworms as the decomposers of humus and vegetable material,and at the first rains delicate seedlings Apparently in the process of desertificatio from arid shrubland to gibber, the Isopods are one of the last things to go

Anyone that thinks being stingy with poppy seed gives them a good image has rocks in their head i mean really what does it cost to make a packet of poppy seed - nothing - almost the entire cost comes from the sellers overheads and banking on the desire based value from the buyer $23/g! shite problem is theres always a new crop of newbies and hopeless collectors who just must have that new strain!

opinions vary perhaps due to the variable quality of straw many find it a very useful bulk substrate problems are mainly incidence of trichoderma in bad and under pasteurised straw (forest green mould) seed germination again is bad straw benefits are very cheap and accessible single ingredient bulk substrate easy to work with no funky smells quite liked by a number of popular mushroom species so in the end its a matter of finding good quality straw - no seeds and clean n golden the lime tek is also very useful for alkaline tolerant species for pasteurisation BM is right though - if you want the ones that stain blue you cant beat compost - its like synthetic dung and IMHO superior for all dunglovers - dung is usually already inhabited by a number of competitors where cows feed in natural pastures feedlot manure would probably be better ive found in my agaricus naturalisation experimnets that dung alone is too wet and causes dieback mixing in leaves or in your case straw with dung makes a more airy substrae and healthier mycelium Ive seen dungs benefical effect on suppressing mould contam in pasterusied straw substrates take effect even when the straw is simply subjected topasteurisation in a hot cow dung 'Tea' , that is just enough dung is added to diffuse the colour and juices into he straw structure - dont know what its is but ive seen a noticeable effect in the rate of contam and what does occure seem only to be Trichoderma - bloody menace it is the protective effect may be bacterial and i have not compared pasteurised and sterilised dung treatment yet this said ive not fully solved my dilemma but im a stepcloser [ 23. March 2003, 06:33: Message edited by: reville ]

skulker you may have problems with outdoor cubies in perth they dont occur there naturally, the climate ot being hospitable the balingup sub variety of P sub is found as youd know in the vicinity of pine forests but i saw the greatest concentration on river banks on Eucalyptus wood ( E rudis) and not nearly so many on Pine I even saw subs growing directly off fallen trees with diameters of maybe 80cm that had fallen across streams if one were to transplant successfully into woodchip mulched beds i would expect them to be thick and comprised of Pine chips (pref P radiata) and twigs, eucalyptus twigs (no not jarrah- maybe karri would be better or even blue gums if you cant get E rudis which is the flooded gum) Town water would be detrimental at the same time youd want to minimise the drying effect of perth summers so covering with hessuian and more mulch over summer with and occassional watering to tide them over natural rainfall will trigger regrowth in autumn. youll want to remove the covering by this time an alternative method which i believe may well work is to emulate the areas ive found to have the highest yields - riverbanks alluvial sandy soils with a large amunt of woody debris mixed in, usually over grown with grass mixing colonised chip with fresh chip in excavations into the lawn or beneath roll on lawn this moderates mositure loss and extremes of temperature, protects from insects and is quite invisible. youd want an area with a fairly natural rainfall pattern not a fully reticulated lawn as too much moisture will damage the mycelium, the sands in perth give fairly good drainage i sincerely think it will be the easiets and most effective way to naturalise these species in the perth area though i havent tested it myself a similar technique using innoculated logs is certainly the best way to grow most edible and medicinal mushrooms in perth a note: slaters are your mortal enemies as they feed heavily upon dormant mycelium. they are particularly prevealent in the coastal belt overlying the calcium rich sands

hey T would you mind taking a print or 2 of those agarics? they may make good stock for my upcoming project in the warmer regions