To pick or grow? That is the question.

[Silosighbin]

So I'm relatively new to the whole hallucinogenic mushroom world, and am hoping to get into it more. I am actually wondering what would honestly be easier/safer out of either getting some spores and setting up some home grown method, or trekking into some local bushland in search for some. I've been doing a fair bit of reading on the subject of Mushroom identification (Noting minute details of the environments found, taking spore prints etc etc) but am still not confident enough that I won't be poisoning myself and others with the mushrooms I find and identify. That's why I'm leaning towards growing some myself, by finding a reliable strain of spores that I know 100% are edible. However, this method leaves me feeling uneasy. If I was discovered by police doing this I could be charged with manufacture of an illegal substance, right? What are the chances?

Is wild mushroom identification as dangerous as I've heard and been reading about? Even when you're quite knowledgeable in what you're looking for?

For instance I heard of one Mycologist who had had his stomach pumped twice by ingesting wrongly identified mushrooms.

[mescalito]

Either could get you in the shit.

ID'ing is imperative if you do plan to ingest....there's some nasty look-alikes.

Cheers mesc...

[Slybacon]

If your planing on eating non active types then i reckon have a go at growing otherwise find a good field and keep it low key ;)

[Mycot]

While it is good to learn firsthand from someone with a lot of experience, it is possible to develop expertise and confidence in identification of a particular species. Build up experience by collecting a lot of the desired species and observe all its identifying characteristics.

Closely examine using your full powers of observation and double check every single shroom collected,(this may involve testing every single shroom for a bluing reaction) once out in the field and again when one returns home. This double checking of shrooms collected is important however experienced.

Don't even think about consuming anything you are not 110% sure of.

Following this path will develop expertise and confidence.

As for growing that has its own rewards.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Mycot

[Distracted]

Growing is fun but you have to follow procedures well, be patient, and have good sterile techniques.

Also if you grow... don't tell anyone.

I went searching at least 6-7 times last year before I was finally shown how to ID by a friend. Once you start getting subs, it becomes sooo much easier to find others(as long as they're there!). It's iding the first sub of the hunt that's the trickiest part.

[Mt.B]

Growing is fun but you have to follow procedures well, be patient, and have good sterile techniques.

The sterility is the part I don't get. I get that you have to do it in order for it to work, but Nature isn't sterile. With my understanding of rotting plant litter/matter, it's far from sterile!

Edited April 11, 2010 by Mt.B

[gerbil]

The sterility is the part I don't get. I get that you have to do it in order for it to work, but Nature isn't sterile. With my understanding of rotting plant litter/matter, it's far from sterile!

 

It all depends on your method and situation, commercially generally sterile is huge on many aspects, at home you can skew it down to almost none.

Often if going the sterile way, you only need apply it for a certain portion of the grow. The areas of sterile work are usually in liquids, agar and early spawn runs on grain. Also when utilising highly nutritious materials, susceptible to vigorous competitors (like supplementing heavy with bran), you either need to be clean, or spawn heavy and healthily, or both.

afaik, the culture generally reacts to what is thrown at it, outdoor not all spores will germinate, and of those not all will be successful to grow, of them not all that grow will fruit, and only a portion will fruit and reproduce. Indoors you could bring about cultures that generally might be more unlikely to find in the wild due to their fragile state; you can also find, and hand pick single genetic line pure culture of high quality and theoretically tune it into a feeding regime which you can observe it's reactions and fine tune a regime to bring about what you want out of that culture line.

If you play with outdoor naturally occurring cultures, it can be very easy and rewarding, they are compatible to the local climate, strong enough to handle the local competitors and can be worked with in non-sterile techniques as well as brought into pasteurised work or cleaned up into sterile technique, of which you can do different things with. If you can sequence a good culture with the right material that is nutritious for the culture but less so in the period of colonisation for oompetitor, competitors don't get the chance, vigorous cultures like woodloving stem buts on soaked plain corrugated cardboard is a good example (hessian, rolled newspapers etc.); add nutrient and more complex materials to it and you increase the chance for competitors.

Edited April 11, 2010 by gerbil