Hyphal

Guarana??

Follow that link mate, you dont need jars - any drinking glasses will work absolutely fine. Also, you can spoon colonised substrate out of your jars and case it if the necks are smaller than the bodies, but 750ml jars would take forever to colonise pf tek style so go for short, fat 200-250ml drinking glasses. Read the link fully and you will have a heaps better understanding of what you need to do.

You got it in one there Harry - to germinate spores and get them to completely colonise a substrate - you can't have any competition from other spores or bacteria. But, once you have fully colonised jars, you can spawn them to a pasturised substrate and succeed as your introduced culture will then be the dominant fungus and will therefore flourish. You can however steam sterilise without the need of a pressure cooker, as long as you are only using the pf tek. NB - Grains CANNOT be sterilised this way. Simply follow the pf tek for simple minds and instead of pressure cooking your jars - steam sterilise them in a pot with a tight fitting lid for 1.5-2 hours. Method: Clean you jars well with hot soapy water and a clean dish brush, then rinse well with super hot water and drain upside down on a clean tea towel before loading in your mix and adding the foil lids. Once the jars are in the pot, just pour cold water in until its half way up the jars before bringing the lot to the boil, then drop the temp down so you get a nice, rolling simmer. Wack on the lid and make sure its nice and tight - if need be put a weight on the top (eg. a rock or a bowl of water if it will balance) and wait 2 hours. Check on your jars an hour in to the process to make sure there is still enough water in there, and top it up if necessary. (At this point, if you want to, you can suck up a syringe full of the boiling water, wrap it in foil and put it in with your jars to sterilise it for later making a spore syringe). After two hours, turn off the stove and allow the lot to cool overnight. Don't lift the lid until they are cool because as they cool they will suck in a bit of air. Inside the pot is a pretty clean environment after the boiling and opening it while they are cooling is just another opportunity for dirty air to come in, although it probably won't actually make much difference, you may as well not. Innoculate the next day when cool and incubate! You should achieve 100% success with this method if you follow sterile printing and syringe making techniques. Lastly, pf style jars can be used successfully to grow other things than cubensis, eg. 'oyster mushrooms'.

Naturally when mushrooms drop spores, millions are produced in order for them to have just a small chance to germinate next to the millions and millions of other spores etc. that surround them in their ecosystem which are all competing for a chance to survive. Throw into the equation the fact that there are specific parameters that they need for survival (temperature, moisture etc.) then you have even less of a chance, so in the wild, they aren't necessarily 'thriving' at all. If you see a mushroom growing consider that mushroom very lucky to have gotten to the stage it is. Your chances of having two individual spores germinate in your 'shit pile' and the hyphae then finding each other in order to 'mate', AFTER fighting off a myriad of competitor fungi/bacteria etc, and THEN have the right conditions to fruit, from the amount of spores contained in only one spore syringe or spore print is VERY minimal. You might get super lucky and get a fruit or two, but with the minimal effort required to do something like the pf tek, you can increase the chances of your spores 'thriving' thousand fold...

What were they found growing from? Was there any bluing reatin on teh stems/caps? Take a spore print as well.... But, I think you might have a mix of active and non-active Paneolus there...

IF this is this case, there would be little to no value simply sprinkling spores outside on a substrate. You have virtually no chance of getting them to germinate and colonise a substrate until fruiting. First time go the pf method, search 'pf tek for simple minds'.

If one has access to dried material and agar plates, then it should be reasonably easy to take a small gill fragment and get that going on agar also.

wtf on both accounts?? :wacko:

You will find a good bit of info and reading here - http://www.wineandtruffle.com.au/truffles.asp They are in the Southwest of WA and are getting pretty bumber harvests happening.

Nice pics alkatrope! There must be thousands in the area at the moment with all that heavy rain - shame about the floods though.... Seriously, anywhere in NNSW or SE QLD at this time of year where cows are lurking will have actives. Suburbia or farmland is irrelevant, as long as there is a cow in a grassed paddock then you have a bloody good chance. Lower lying paddocks near rivers or streams, or higher altitude areas that get more moisture are both excellent bets.

As I get older, 'less' is definitely 'more'.... 1.5g of cubes is more than enough to have a 'soul cleansing' experience, feeling all the revelations and squeegeed third eye that appears so apparent with fungus. It could be that I am more familiar with the feeling so I know what to look for and are therefore more tuned in to the experience, or possible they are strong cubes, but either way I can assure you 5g is likely to be un-productive for me in my old age.

Yeah they really aren't good eating unless you dry them and prepare them properly, and some of the blue stainers I think are poisonous so its not worth taking any risks with those.

There are a few blue staining boletes, which is exactly what you have there. Which one I don't know, but heres a few links to get you started - http://www.mushroomexpert.com/boletus_luridus.html http://web.guernsey.net/~cdavid/botany/fil...opus/index.html http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jul2003.html http://mushroommovies.blogspot.com/

Always! Chuck em up!

Its usually due to them not being kept in complete darkness, as Aya suggested, light and temp play big parts in the fruiting process.

Well I really am an asshole sometimes, but its with the best intentions....

Starting a thread just to have a dig at someone makes you look like an asshole, whether the thread was locked or not.

I heard he was supposed to be on a bit earlier, but because of the light you couldn't see his slides therefore he requested to speak a bit later. when it got darker.

Very cool, I think your friendly is actually Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, the 'Yellow house plant Mushroom'... LINK. That cubensis will be impossible to identify to a strain - looks like it will remain a mystery.

The silicone doesnt allow for gas exchange... Those ear plugs might just work - can you pressure cook them without them melting?

Have a look at THIS THREAD and ALSO THIS THREAD for a little discussion on the H2o2 topic, and also have a read HERE and HERE and have a look at THIS PICTURE for info on the filtered syringe bodies. As long as you stuff the syringe nice and tight and PC it before use, it will be fine. Harry, if polyfill doesnt work as a filter, then why would people use it when constructing lids for grain jars? Well when you factor in the hassle of making a sterile print, then using this print to make another sterile spore syringe, to innoculate more jars later, which then take longer to colonise, I reckon its easier to just make one LC and use that. I suppose this just comes down to what works best for each individual, and this is simply my opinion based on those reasons. Also, when innoculating with LC you can use larger amounts for super fast colonisation times. Try using 10mls in a grain jar and see how fast things go! Another huge benefit with LC is you can clone your favourite fruit easily - once you have used a clone you will never go back to spores again. Yeah your are right there, very good point. My main point being, you can use one print to do multiple things and have a try at LC and spore syringe making and see what works best for you.

Harry, all really good advice man except for those points - there's definitely no need for H2o2, this has shown to do more harm than good... If you want to introduce air to your LC jar, just make a second hole and do the silicone thing again. Then insert a syringe that has the plunger removed and the body stuffed with poly fibre wool to act as a filter in through the second hole. As you suck up Liquid through the first hole, sterile air gets sucked in through the other other poly-stuffed syringe. Also, you are wrong about needing to make a syringe - you can innoculate straight into your LC by cracking the lid and dropping some spores in off a sterile knife tip - a glove box is handy here, or a very clean kitchen bench, clean gloved hands and a still air environment (shut windows and doors etc.). IMO, LC should be an essential step in the growing process. Once scrape of spores can give you 250ml of LC ready to use in 2 weeks, and that will last in a dark cupboard for up to 12 months or even longer in the fridge. Whenever you need to, simply suck up a few mls and your good to go. Jono, cover all bases and use 3/4 of one print for a syringe and the last of the print to make an LC.

Just to clear some things up mate - you dont want too much honey, around a teaspoon per 250mls is fine - and a 50/50 mix of honey and pure maple syrup I heard works absolute wonders.... Also, you definitely dont want to sterilise your LC for 2 hours! 20-30 mins is ample, otherwise you'll caramelise the sugars. You know when your PC is at 15 PSI when the rocker on the top will starts rocking back and forth - you want to then adjust the stove temp to keep the rocker doing its thing gently. Be careful man - they can be dangerous, it should have instructions, and if not, research proper pressure cooker use - there is a bit of info HERE. Also, this guide is supposed to be a relatively good way of making a liquid culture that doesnt use a PC - HERE. Lastly, colonising mycelium needs gas exchange, not freash air exchange. FAE is for fruiting, gas exchange is for colonising, but both equally as important.

I did get your point man, but I was just a referring to the fact that the oily residue just *seems* a lot worse than the tar left in a bong, but I also don't think you will derive much benefit from using a balloon - it might cut down the grease factor a tad, but tis still going to be there. In small amounts it probably does little harm though, and if saved for combination with any other things on special occasions, probably does no harm. Was just very freaky to see the residue the first time, I thought it was a clean gas! Spun me right out. There's no doubt that in the right combination, there is just something so incredible about the NOs though - hyperspace....

There is just something a lot more off putting about the petroleum smell to it compared to the black death left in a bong/pipe, though your right - theres probably a lot more damage being done by smoking pot, especially when comparing the frequency of the use of each substance.