smogs

Been thinking about buying a mushroom book for a while now can anyone recomend a good book with species common to australia with some sort of ID chart? prefrably one thats easy to find at a big book shop cheers

i know a gnome in a far away land who knows of a place where this is happening and he was told that this is rare? true? untrue? should i loan him my camera?

Im giving this a go... and here is how its getting done Removed most of the stemmy bits and stuck it all in a blender and blended with a few WHOLE delosperma plants.. including roots. (this was because when i was ripping it up no roots came with it, need the microorganisms from roots?) put it into a big coke bottle with lid on tight in the sun... now im going to give it a shake once a day and open lid to allow for gas exchange. after a few weeks ill let it evap in the sun in a dish... scape off dry stuff then grind into powder. sound good? [ 04. May 2005, 13:07: Message edited by: smogs ]

i just thought of an idea and thought i would let some people know for input ideas etc etc what ive done is gotten a whole bunch of junk mail... put it in the blender to pulp it and pressure cooked it for about 15mins to soften fibers and hydrate it i think grained and squeeze out as much water as humanly possible and it ended up resembling the stuff they use as insulation anyways then i used this and packed it into empty toilet rolls (like just the cardboard inner bit) but putting some in... packing it down then a layer of spawn then anotehr layer of paper etc etc. forms a mini log which i guess a whole bunch could be burried to fruit or woteva Tryed it with king stroph and luminescent panellus. ill let you know how it goes

Howdy, I am just going through my garden giving it a bit of a clean up and have a few items I don't mind parting with (none of the cuttings are rooted.... will cut them off as requested) I have a stackload of calea cuttings, just pruned my bush http://www.smogler.com/plants/plants-calea-offcuts.jpg... from this guy http://www.smogler.com/plants/plants-calea-pruned.jpg Pereskiopsis cuttings from these guys - http://www.smogler.com/plants/plants-pere.jpg Some fresh heimia which i am going to prune shortly - http://www.smogler.com/plants/plants-heimia.jpg ... or seeds later Khat cuttings, number 4 strain... from these guys - http://www.smogler.com/plants/plants-khat.jpg, http://www.smogler.com/plants/plants-khat2.jpg Just PM me with what you want. Cheers Smogs

Thanks Auxin... i will fix this when i get a spare moment... also anyone interested in taking over this admin job should contact me... i have negelected this project big time.... it looks after itself so is not much work Just PM me Cheers

Sounds good! I was mainly concerned that 1 bag was growing HEAPS faster than the others... but if they are growing at the same rate it sounds promising

The bag sounds hard... a glove box takes 5 mins to make.... get a cardboard box, cut holes for hands and sticky tape glad wrap on top.... They are so easy I even chuck them out afterwards. But like water dragon I barely use one at all. Just close windows give a quick glen 20 spray and make sure my stuff is organised so im not leaving stuff open to the air.

Looks good, I can't really see that well from the photo but has the casing layer shrunk away from the boxes a bit? If so... then you let them dry out a bit too much (give the layer a bit of a spray too if it's looking dry. It can become a problem ebcause once it dries out it wont suck up moisture! (it becomes a bit water resistent like REALLY dried out pots). This will cause a smaller yield. Also you might get them popping up the sides which can be a bit of a pain. You will get this using clean containers too... I used to cover mine with foil until i got some non-transparent ones Otherwise they look perfect. Don't forget to dunk inbetween flushes!

Definately need longer with the pressure cooking... I cook my jars for 1hr and 20 mins.... then let them cool down. With bags that size I would do probably an hr and a half just to be on the safe side. You still might be ok though. I usually use cleaned wheat which is a pretty big grain, holds moisture well (does not weep and leave wet bits like bird seed tends to). Grain smell is good.. fruity or sour = bad. I should be able to help you more when I see a pic of the mycelium... It can be quite hard to tell the difference between a wanted and an unwanted fungus. Sometimes it helps if after it has colonised you chuck it somewhere it gets a bit of light... not in direct light, but out of the box of solutide you have it in currently. The light should stimulate more ropey growth after a few days if it is one you want (dont worrie you wont get mushrooms forming.... unless you leave it like this for a few weeks!), or you may see a fine, pale yellow looking powder form which i think is cotton mould spores?

Does anyone have a spare culture/print to trade of something tasty... A type of oyster mushroom for instance? Cheers

You might not have much luck with the enriched casing layer, one of the benefits of the casing layer is that it has no food in it which along with CO2 levels & humidity (also light for some species) triggers the mycelium to fruit. In my experience the best casing is a 50/50 of peat and vermiculite with a dash of gardening lime. Do not use coco coir pete (or whatever that cheap crap is called) as it is anti fungal! and does not hold moisture as well. It sounds like one bag has growth way too fast to be what you want. It is possible it could be cotton mould, especially if the otehr bags in the same conditions are not showing the same progress. If your able to post up pictures for us to have a look at it might help. 500gms is a big bag! How long did you stick these in the pressure cooker for? It needs to be long enough for the middle of the grains right in the centre of the bag to reach a sufficient temprature (i think around 120*??). Sweet and fruity = a bad smell, im not sure exactly what makes the fruity smell but i know its a contaminent. You want just a nice strong mushroomy smell. Make sure you have some gas exchange going on, while they dont need much oxygen they still need a little.

Cheers Gerbil, I am making a come back... I may have been inactive but my garden has not been, trying to get back into the mycology. Unfortunately when you neglect it your cultures dont do so well! All I have is a culture in my fridge labelled "king stroph OR black morel"... mystery shroom! I will post pictures of my garden during the week some time.

In one of my books I believe if you colonise logs it usually takes around 3 years to see fruit? But then you will get fruit every year for a few years at the right season. However, sawdust blocks can show fruit after 1 year I think. I agree and would say that oysters would be a better go or enriiji, portabellos/porcini something like that. I had visions of growing black morels in my garage for supply to resteraunts but I lost my culture doing silly things like cutting corners and not keeping a backup culture

you sound well researched and ready... sounds good. The only other thing I would recomend is to get a can of glenn 20 and spray the inside of your glove box and ANYTHING that goes in like a wild thing... i spray my hands... put on gloves... spray everything inside the box like scissors and stuff and let it sit a few mins before starting. Then i spray my gloves and stick them in ready to go. You probably want to try and avoid using the blow torch in the glove box.... the heat can melt the gladwrap. Also DONT use it if your going to be spraying a stackload of glen 20 in there because it is flamable! You shouldnt need it. I take in sterile syringe... spore print which i have sprayed outside of to kill germies and a jar of pressure cooked water. I half open up print... take lid of syringe and squirt some water into it... scrape side with needle then suck up. Repeate as needed. You dont need to get all the spores, even just a few will be fine. Then put on lid and your done, I have never had a issue with doing it this way. Also, use jars over bags if you have a choice... I find them much easier to work with. And if your bags are quite large you should up the time on the pressure cooker so the grain in the middle of the backs reaches sufficient temprature.

liquid culture in syringes is actually better because they grow much faster and take hold better. The only problem is if they contain bacteria / cotton mould. If this was the case the jar would be completely white and gross looking possible with a pale yellow dust (cotton mould) or have slimey gooey bits down the bottom (bacteria) easily within 3 weeks. Wait another week or two and if it is no go I would say that whatever is in the syringe is most likely dead.

cubensis will grow on pure dung.... but would be better to mix it with vermiculite and / or peat to provide a bit of structure. If you made a spore solution and watered it into moo poo you would probably have a pretty good chance of getting something. The best way would be to set up some growing in a grain jar and then dump that into the poo.

definately leave them in there... they will die outside. they fall over when they get too heavy for their root... just prop then up with a large grain of course sharp sand or small pebble. i would even wait 12 months... that way you take them out they will be big and it will be spring, keep them growing in good conditions over winter :D

salmonella dies at 60* so i would hope so... Do you really want to be microwaving poo in the same microwave you prepare food in? mmm tang!

The reason for the basket / tea towel is that air bubbles form the boiling water can get under the jars, lift them up and then they drop down... and can break. I have never used eitehr and never had a rbeakage. All my jars are reused food jars and tend to be flat bottomed... perhaps this is more of an issue with an indented bottom?

As well as air exchange, when you spray water in and about you dont want any actually touching the mushrooms... wet mushrooms = bad and promotes rotting etc. If your chamber is dripping water down the side on a pretty regular basis, chances are you have more than 90% humidity and droplets will start forming on the mushrooms... just spray the casing layer only.

This question always gets asked.... here is a nice simple answer.. The only thing u can use to steralise is a pressure cooker or auto clav. All the other methods just pasterise, which can be ok depending on what your trying to do. Anything to do with spore prints NEEDS to be steralise. You will hear lots of "I only used a microwave and had no problems" but this is a very rare thing... usually you will find your grain turning into a stinky black soup. If on the other hand you already have a culture such as a grain jar going you only need to add this to pasterised substraight. That being said somethings just dont pasturise well, grain should always be steralised as it has bacterium and nasty fungal spores that reside inside the grain. And you want to pick something that is specific to the culture... ie straw / moo poo / sawdust. This will minimize the chance of other nasties starting. The other way to increase the odds is to have more culture per substraight. It means that less colonisation has to be done and that the culture is stronger and in more numbers than any other nasties. Also it is a good idea to do a number of batches incase one gets infected u still have some remaining. ALWAYS KEEP A STERILE BACKUP OF YOUR CULTURE, and store well.

Mine is actually on vacation down the south coast with my dad at the moment... not sure how well it is doing now. I might just get rid of it if it wont flower.... save that space for something more useful

Not related to what your looking for but I dug up some of those fungi that come out of the egg and make the big latice balls the otehr day! They were truely awsome!.... they pop up from nowhere in seconds! i wish i took photos but i couldnt find the camera! but the time i did later that day they had dried out too much and were not as impressive.

ewww!