woodloving species help needed

[Phalenopsis]

i've been playing with some woodloving species(most likely subaeruginosa)with some results. colonisation's usually slow, although occasionally I manage to find a more agressive mycelium. my problem is finding a suitable sawdust/woodchips. I've tried fresh wood of usual species i.e. beech, cammelia, alnus. I usually put it through the steamer to get rid of the most of the nasties. Few days later I usually find the wood chips 'sweaty' and sticky. I think it's bacteria. I haven't had any luck with straw(too wet?) they don't seem to like it much. They all enjoy cardboard and grow quite strongly on it, but as soon as I transfer them onto wood things slow down, and the mycelium doesn't seem to be doing much.

Any suggestions? Any sources of reliable wood products(i.e. sawdust) you people might know of?

Thanks

[spiders]

Ive fruited Subaeruginosa and Australiana on pine shavings, pine needles, fern mulch and lots of rose mulch sterilised and mixed with brf to speed things up. These were outside beds.

Subs also aggressively colonise wet cardboard which can be used to spawn larger pieces of wood.

Either way you can use colonised woods from a regular patch to innoculate or an isolate. My cultures of the wavy cap all come from and individual clone.

[John_Barleycorn]

I'm actually not even having any luck with cardboard at the moment, and am wondering whether it ever comes treated with fungicide, or if I have to pre-leach it, etc. Also, how important is it to shred the cardboard? At the moment, I have a spore print sitting face down on a cardboard square in a ziplock bag. It has been there for 3 weeks, and so far, no action. If it was agar, I would have expected growth within a week.

[Phalenopsis]

My experience is that any mushroom I've tried to transfer and kept on cardboard for more than 2 days would have colonised it readily.

I use corrugated cardboard(most common anyway). thicker cardboards(non-corrugated) have more glue it them and get 'slimy'.

I also tried in my earlier atempts to germinate spores on cardboard and never succeeded. I even tried to saturate the cardboard with straw and wood tea.

Bluemeanie, thanks for your input. Pinewood shavings? sounds good as I have plenty. Colonisation is a bit slow though...Good to use for spawning.

Regards

[spiders]

Spore will not easily germiante on cardboard - you'll need to use a high nutrient substrate such as malt extract agar or malt/water and sterile water.

[John_Barleycorn]

Originally posted by bluemeanie:

Spore will not easily germiante on cardboard - you'll need to use a high nutrient substrate such as malt extract agar or malt/water and sterile water.

Sorry about the loads of questions here for anyone who has answers, but I don't have access to an advanced shroom cultivation text. (I have done loads of brewing and winemaking, and I suspect this colours my outlook on fungi propogation). I take it that the main requirement at the shroom germination stage is a semi-soluble carbon source, ie, sugar or starch, and that most organic media are likely to supply sufficient nitrogen initially? Now, if we wish to innoculate cardboard, I assume the rigorous thing to do is transfer a chunk of strong mycelial growth from a Petri dish. But what about cutting corners (especially in a bulk cultivation context) and germinating the spores in a liquid medium before using that as an innoculant? Obviously, the downside is that you don't get to choose your growth visually, but is it reasonable to assume that something will at least take?

Another set of questions relate to nitrogen requirements, ie, is N needed more during the mycelial growth phase, the fruiting, or both? And once again we encounter the issue of whether a soluble nitrogen source (yeast nutrient, fertilizer, etc) has any advantages over other sources, especially when cultivating on cardboard?

And it occurs to me that oxygen is also bothering me Brewing yeast has the ability to grow either aerobically or anerobically, with O2 favouring yeast propogation, and anerobic conditions favouring alcohol production. I have also seen shroom growing instructions which talk about turning the air on and off, so I assume that shrooms have a similar ability to grow under either condition. However, the wild situation is clearly aerobic, so why are anerobic conditions being advocated at home (apart from reasons of sterility)?

[Tlaloc]

I have a better idea. . .

Are there any gnomes out there who would like to sell some dried/fresh shrooms?

^..^

[coin]

that's not a great idea

besides, gnomes are sometimes known for their generosity, and give them away to the right people..err gnomes.

seeing as this thread is "woodloving species", we can assume you meant "the golden oak mushroom", or another one so delicious it should be illegal.. if anyone has these dried shiitake, and some to share with Tlaloc, click his email.

[John_Barleycorn]

Well, the silence in response to my questions is deafening. I must admit that I am not even sure whether I am asking dumb questions, or tough questions?

[spiders]

Sorry. Generally the prints around of aussie natives will be wild prints - or atleast printed outdoors. I have a few friends in the US and Netherlands attempting to fully domesticate our wacy-capped Subaeruginosa friends, but the prints in aus will probably be slightly contaminated.

The best way to deal with contaminated spores is to germinate them on agar and then quickly transfer the areas that do not have any nasties to strongly peroxidated agar. From here, you can move the better sectors to a malt/water solution and use this to innoculate via a syringe, or just innoculate with a sector of mycelia.

I have recentally managed to colonise a substrate of millet alone, brf alone and a mix of rye and garden mulch (literally, i went outside a scooped up what ever debris i could find at 10pm) and all of these are now fully colonised after innoculation. I will transfer these to the garden as they are an unknown psilocybe from Southern NSW and keep the area moist and shaded for the hotter monthes - i doubt it will fruit this year.

[Guest reville]

Originally posted by John_Barleycorn:

Well, the silence in response to my questions is deafening. I must admit that I am not even sure whether I am asking dumb questions, or tough questions?

Check your e-mail for attachments JB, that sould help you alot with woodlovers of all sorts.