Monk

I received 10 phleb seeds a couple years ago, but didn't have the balls to sow them. At this point, I've been playing with TC for a couple of years so put a few in agar. Clearly, they don't like synthetic fert salts so I'm working on some processes to mitigate their sensitivity, but haven't worked things out well enough to post them. One out of 6 is off and running with signs of life from a couple others. Hot water treatment got them swollen, but they would not pop so I cut their coats off with a scalpel. Here's the best one a couple days ago:

Yes, I'm cross posting, but I just haven't posted here in a long while, miss you guys and thought you might like to see some work with one of your natives 48 hours after deposit onto agar media (!): Some days later: 10ish days after that: Around the same time as the above picture, various parts of a seeding were placed on callus induction agar....days later, it was clear that the hypocotyl was rapidly producing callus tissue. Pardon the lack of focus in the following pic. The camera was fuckin with me: That turned out to be the best portion of the seedling from which to produce callus and here we have it's progress one month later: That black dust is just rust from the old ass tyvek-mason jar lids I'm using, but everything is good and sterile Stay tuned for liquid Acacia culture ;) Oh, and I've also put some of the other seedlings into shoot multiplication media and will post pics when they make more progress. Next up'll be phleb. I've a few seeds and some tricks up my sleeve with this plant TC work to hopefully achieve success.

For the record, this information is urban legend. THC does not need heat to 'activate.' This was a myth promulgated by those cooking weed into brownies etc. The heat is needed to effectively solubilize THC into fats like butter etc. For alcohols, though, it's completely unnecessary. In the past, I've dissolved pure honey oil (very high thc conc.) into 75% ethanol quite effectively at room temp, yielding a very active product. Regardless of temperature, however, tinctures of THC need to be have an ethanol concentration that is quite high to keep the goodies dissolved. 30 or 40% will NOT cut it for THC. You need something around 70% or more to keep it in solution.

From your description of the habitat, they do sound like one of the Agaricus subrufescens/blazei/brasiliensis types that are all closely allied. A. augustus doesn't really grow in rich, moist soils like those do and resists cultivation. It also nearly always fruits singly or in very limited numbers, whereas the other almondy agarics come up in fat numbers, apparently. Were the caps more white/pale or quite yellow like these?: Anyway, that recipe sounds fucking delicious Nice one! I'll be trying that when I grow some of those subrufescens. Thanks gecko

I had the opportunity to eat some Agaricus augustus (Prince Agaric) the other day that I found. HOLY SHIT, it was tasty! I diced a large specimen up and cooked in butter with a little bit o brown sugar. Used it as a topping on ice cream...fucking amazing! The sweet almondy fragrance/taste combined with the more typically earthy 'mushroom' taste over icecream was so good. I'll be looking to grow Agaricus subrufescens soon as it has a similar smell/taste profile, but is cultivable.

Thanks Mycot Funny you say that.... I actually had planned on tranpslanting the evening after posting that pic and wanted a pic to document it's growth in case the transplant killed it like it has for so many others. But it's doing fine! Yay I only increased the container size about 50% as we'll be headed into the cool wet season here in a little over a month and I don't want it to be waterlogged. I'm going to try to keep it dry and see how it does.... I'll keep ya'll posted on how they do EDIT: I keep saying "it." There are actually several plants in there growing together. They seem to be fine with this method as well.

I haven't really been following any of the conventional wisdom with these P. harmala seedlings, but they're going apeshit. Less than 2 months old. I did a similar thing to what Mycot said for germination, but just in a regular 6" nursery pot filled a coir/compost/turface/hydroton blend (my typical potting soil.) It had some organic meals in it, too (crab, bone, blood etc.) Seeds were pressed lightly into the surface of the soil and kept moist with a mister in a south facing window, then went into a morning light, dappled afternoon shade situation and have stayed there. Mulched the soil with turface as a 'mineral mulch' to keep the stems dry and free of organic matter. They really seem to like this. After growing a bit, they've received water (from overhead) every other day to every day now with fertilizer about every 3rd or 4th watering (hydro nutes and seaweed ext.) The turface mulch dries out on top, but the soil is moist beneath fairly constantly. They seem to really like food and even water if their mix is well drained and the stems dry out well (mineral mulch.)

Great info, thanks! Oh, and I too would appreciate more specifics about best parts of stems to use for rooting material... Also, anyone rooting A. acuminata seedlings have any info particular to them?

Do you mean Merremia?

Just a tip from someone in the trade... "Hi, this is JoeSonDo from FukYerMuther Nursery..... I'm tryin to sell this job and I've been looking all over for some Echinopsis pachanoi that this crazy architect has spec'd out for it. Guy want's 3 meter tall plants, for christ's sake! Anyway, do you have anything like that in stock. I'm in the bid stage right now, so it's not a sure thing, but if it's a decent price, I think I can get the customer to go for it..... etc etc....blah blah blah" Obviously you're going to not be Joe Son (the ex-ufc guy who got his junk all punched up) and are going to use a legitimately made up nursery (lol,) but this shit works. You've gotta own it and be the fucking salesperson, though. Make sure to insert some of ya'llz Ozzie colloquialisms to give the impression of a sales rep working with contractor types. Good luck

Indeed it can be difficult to assess. Difficult, but not impossible. In the scientific literature, the tests were done with chromatographic analysis to determine psilocybin concentration to be far, far higher than the most potent of P. cubensis... or any Psilocybe, for that matter IIRC. For independent researchers, the answer lies in comparing clones grown in doped sub vs. undoped sub and doing repeated blind testing in various settings with various testers. Also, I see what you're saying about cubes being variable, but there is definitely a reasonable range of potency. So, when a doped sub produces fruits of Pan cyan or Psilo azure potency..... clearly there is something extra happening. As far as Acacia maidenii leaf and bark litter actually working.... I'm not too familiar with those plants and it's my understanding that they are inconsistent in potency, so I don't know if there would be enough material present to make a significant difference in the subs, but.....it certainly couldn't hurt their levels

Very interesting, GP. It's quite possible that the mycelium is uptaking and converting any tryptamines present in the leaf/bark litter into other goodies. Out of curiosity, are the fungal fruits a normal shape and size for the species? Not sure why you'd say that, Hunab. Substrate doping has been proven effective at boosting potency by both mainstream scientific research and independent cultivators on a number of occassions. I dunno who's sitting on this jury of yours, but they need to do some reading

I've been making compost teas for about the last 10 years or so on a personal and semi-commercial basis. Some people like to put simple sugars like molasses etc in them, but I've found those teas to be inferior to those made with more complex food sources. Basically, simple sugars create bacterial teas while complex food sources create more fungally dominated teas. I use various types of compost, but have a local brand right now that is quite good... then I mix in several handfuls of various organic meals - whatever I have on hand or what I want the plants to have - put that mix in a sock, dangle it in 5-10 gallons of water and aerate with an aquarium air pump for 24 hours or so. Some people add an aquarium heater to the bucket, but to me it makes sense to brew microbes that like the ambient temps that the soil has. That way, they're not shocked when they get there. examples of organic meals I use: crab meal (great for creating chitinase in the brew - bad for pest insects) alfalfa (high N and growth stimulator) feather meal cottonseed meal etc. etc. Also, adding kelp extract and humic acids at the beginning kick starts the fermentation. I add them every time and make great teas Link to Dr. Elaine Inghams Soil Food Web and compost tea info: http://www.soilfoodweb.com/03_about_us/app...erated_tea.html

Yep, at least a couple people there doing these experiments ;) Also, some are adding Anadenanthera colubrina seed to their wbs jars. It gives ridiculous potency and possibly some kind of 4,5OH thingy, but there's no one who wants to have it GC/MS tested at the moment.

This thread explains how to achieve even pinsets with the "garage tek" method. I put that in quotes cuz it works really well in a garden or just on a bathroom countertop, hehe: http://www.thenook.org/forum/index.php?sho...2&hl=garage Sorry, no pics. I choose to follow Posting Rule #1 If my Shaggy Mane version gets a good pinset, perhaps I'll toss up pics of that. edit: I layered the spawn on this board, but I was so neglectful with the watering that it only tossed a couple fruits where it was the wettest. Perhaps it'll do better now, though.