migraineur

Do you work in hospitality or something?

Tell us more about your grow room. When I am free of living with others I want a complete room of my own to do this kind of stuff with. Sharing rooms sucks, especially when people bring in contaminates!!! *shakes fist*

Is anyone going to Freaky Chicken's? Did anyone go today?

Hey, man. Try posting in the Melbourne section of Reddit. I've seen multiple posts from people looking for rooms or room mates before. http://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne It's also a good forum. I like the gardening sections etc.

It'll probably be better if you get a spore syringe or liquid culture syringe. It will make it easier for you to begin with and there'll be less chance of contamination since someone's already some of the hard work for you. If you are wondering what a liquid culture is then here's an explanation: http://mycology.wikia.com/wiki/Liquid_culture You could use the water bath method to sterlise your BRF jars but it'll take longer and a pressure cooker is more effective. Get yourself a cheap Presto pressure cooker from Amazon. If you don't have money to invest in a pressure cooker right now then it's probably best if you wait. http://www.amazon.com/Presto-01781-23-Quart-Pressure-Canner/dp/B0000BYCFU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1366380075&sr=8-2&keywords=presto+pressure+cooker

I own that and "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms". The books complement each other. I haven't read them in a while but I think the video would be of more use to you at the moment and it's cheaper than buying the books. Watching the videos can also make it easier for you to understand. I've found a way to get cheap cultures is to buy the premade mushroom grow boxes from Bunnings and other places. You'll end up with a few flushes of mushrooms and then you can make your own spore prints or take tissue samples from the fresh mushrooms. This is how I got my hands on portobello mushrooms. However, I ended up eating so many in a short period of time that I got sick of them and I never wanted to eat them again so I chucked my cultures out. You can end up spending a small fortune getting started in this hobby but once you've got your pressure cooker and a few other things the ongoing costs are minimal. Grain, coir, straw etc is very cheap and you can get manure for free from stables. Stables will let you take as much as you want since they can't seem to get rid of it fast enough. In the long run you'll end up saving a lot of money if you like eating mushrooms since they are expensive to buy. You might even be able to sell them if you find a buyer. You can also use the spent substrate on your garden as mushroom compost.

This might help you: http://www.mushroomvideos.com/ You can see samples of the clips and you can buy the digital version for $9 USD. It'll teach you beginners methods and more advanced methods which involve agar, grain to grain transfers (G2G), spawn to bulk etc. DO IT!

Yeah, do it. It will give you an excuse to do something and the money you would spend on postage you could spend on fuel. You would probably pick up a bunch of plants and they wouldn't have taken a battering in the post.

Are you ever going to come up for one of the Perth meets?

If you take this hobby seriously then a pressure cooker is essential. It'll probably be the most expensive thing you buy but if you invest in a good one then it'll out live you. I've found that Amazon.com has the best prices, even if you're ordering from overseas. The pressure cooker is essential because you need to sterilise your grain and tools etc. If you work with dirty equipment and unsterilised grain then mould will compete with the mycelium and overtake everything. If you attempt to do this the "natural" way then you'll end up wasting your time, money and resources and you'll end up frustrated if you attempt mycology without a pressure cooker. If this upsets your qi then I suggest sticking to growing plants.

It's true. I can confirm that Bigred is super cool. He makes me giddy like a school girl and I'm not even gay!

I have some slants of grifola frondosa (Thailand and Stamets), hericium erinaceus, cordyceps militaris and some other species which I'm trying to figure out the name of but the black mark has blurred a little. Two of the 5 slants might have some contamination from what I can see but if you work with agar then I am sure you could clean it up by doing some transfers. I also have some plates of blue oyster and shiitake. I am not really in a position to grow them right now so I'm thinking about giving them to someone who wants to and is capable of growing them. In return I'd ask that you help me out with some cultures in the future. What say you?

Hey Are there any serious mycologist here who grow medicinal mushrooms or who are successful at growing edibles and want to get into growing medicinals? I'm also wanting to know if any of you who might be are in W.A.

I'm in Perth and you can grow psychotria carthagenensis without any kind of humidity tent. Mine lives outside and survives during Winter. The viridis requires humidity domes though. I've also got caapi growing outside just fine too. They get a little direct sun but not much otherwise they get burnt. They have also survived a couple of Winters outside although since you live further south your plants might end up dying during Winter. We get some pretty cold nights in Perth during Winter though. I also have some other plants that are from tropical areas that are growing fine here too but I have to be careful. If they are outside and there's a heatwave then the leaves can get burnt from the hot air even though they're in the shade. They can make nice house plants though and do fine just inside. The greenery is nice and they'll filter your air too. I have some mimosa hostilis growing and now they're getting too big for their little humidity domes. I might take the dome off one and see how it handles the lower humidity. Once my iboga is a little bigger and stronger I will probably try the same thing. With regard to lighting, I use a couple of fluorescents which are cheap to buy and cheap to run. When I have them on I don't need other lights on in the room either. The fluorescents will also raise the temperature a little if the room you have them in is small and insulated enough (no open doors or windows). I keep most of mine in a small room that also contains computers etc so the heat from the lights, electrical equipment and even heated propagation chamber (if I have it on) provides a nice environment. It means I'm not so cold whilst playing games in Winter too since this room isn't heated otherwise. You might be able use some of the information above. One problem I will encounter is when some of my plants become bigger and outgrow their indoor space or humidity chambers. So far I've got around this by making cuttings off the bigger/mother plants to keep them small. This also gives me things to trade or back up plants. This can't go on forever though so I think my only option will be to maybe buy a greenhouse, indoor grow tent or try to harden off the plants once they get bigger and see how they handle being outside. I'm not sure how many will handle the different conditions though. Also, keep in mind that you don't need to keep the plants in perfect growing conditions. Some are fussy and won't handle the slightest bit of cold or lack of humidity but others are fine and even seem to do quite well. As long as you can keep them somewhat healthy during Winter then you should be good for the growing seasons.

They don't get too much sun. They could do with more sun given the spot they're in but they aren't too deprived. I need to move them because they're at the back edge of the garden in pots and lots of snailes and slugs come out of the woodwork at night so I've had to buy snail pellets since those fucks nibble on my babies and make them look ugly. Why do they always have to climb to the top and nipple the tip? I think I'll do some digging into the soil and see if there's anything in there that caused it. The soil is 50% potting soil and 50% coarse sharp sand. I give them fertiliser occasionally.

I went to check on my cacti today and one of them, which is a trich, is rotting all of a sudden. A few days ago it had a nice green pup and when I checked today it was all black and mushy. The lower part of the cactus has changed colour a little too and feels soft so I assume the same thing will happen to it. I don't over water them so I'm not sure why this has suddenly happened. The only thing that's wrong with some is a bit of scale. Does anyone know why this could've happened? I will probably cut off the bottom and replant the top once it's ready. It's a pain in the arse losing a rooted (pun not intended) cactus though

Yeah, I saw a little hole in the soil and I wondered if some kind of bug or something was digging and then causing problems. I did also wonder if it was caused by a cane spike but I have watered which would've disrupted the soil and covered any original holes.

Yeah, I hate carpet. It's dirty and hard to clean.

I laughed at your cleaning comment. Mycology results in my keeping a place cleaner too. I end up thinking of everything as being contaminated with mould, spores and other nasties so I have to thoroughly clean a place. Chicks dig it! Keep us updated on your work. Don't forget to take pics too!

Journalists have a habit of calling any kind of pill ecstasy when ecstasy is MDMA. Then when some poor soul dies from taking some other substance, such as PMA, then the media blame it on ecstasy/MDMA when the blame should be on PMA. If someone had their alcoholic beverage spiked with PMA then overdosed and died you wouldn't start blaming bottles of beer.

Haha this guy could sell sand to Arabs!

Hey yo! Can anyone tell me how long it should take for psychotria leaf cuttings to root and grow new shoots? I have successfully grown psychotria carthagenensis leaf cuttings and they did not take much time. However, the leaf cuttings I took of the viridis are taking forever and I made them about half way through last year. I made about half a dozen and one only recently started to grow some new shoots. I think it might be because I didn't have much new growth to use and I used older leaves when I used the viridis. However, at the time I had no choice because someone snapped the stem and in order to save my plant I made a bunch of leaf cuttings from what was left as well as a couple of stem cuttings. The cuttings I took from the stem were successful. Should I throw them out and use fresh growth that I have access to now?

I've got at least one good ebook I could hook you up with. I have a collection of gardening ebooks etc.

I made a couple of cuttings and I had some left over leaves of various size. I left them in a jar of water and did nothing. They all started to root in the water, even tiny pieces of leaves were growing roots. I ended up planting a few of the bigger ones and I chucked out the rest. It always seems to be the way though. I wish every plant was so easy to propagate.

Left over plastic drink bottles are the best things. You can use them as free humidity domes, as scoops and various other things. They're also good for keeping pests off your plants.