PC Gulf Coast

[IudexK2]

Does anybee have any experience on growing these mushrooms? Apparently they are used for "bulk cultivation of compost substrates"... so what? Do I just innoculate some sterile compost? and wait for it to get colonised?

Many thankx,
IudexK

[foxy2]

I would grow a big batch of mycillea or however you spell that.  Use rye grain, find the recipe.  Grow up a bunch of sterile quart jars like 1/2 to 3/4 full.  Shake these up as they are colonized, they will become white with mycillea.

Then you could grow a big gallon jar, or proceed with the mycillea you have. Save some of at least two good jars because the mycillea can very easily bee used to start more jars, just use a sterile spoon and transfer a scoop to a fresh jar of rye)  It will grow really quik when started this way.

Are you growing outdoors? Indoors?

Either way you should spread out a decent layer of the colonized(white fuzz-mycillea) rye, then cover this with a thin layer of sterile soil.  Keep moist and the shrooms should start poping up in a week or two.  The darkness from dirt covering is key to get the mycillea to fruit.
Do Your Part To Win The War

[paranoid]

What is anybody's experience with attempting to grow submerged cultures of PC?  I've read both that this will not produce psilocybin/psilocyn and that it will.  It seems to be a very important point to me as it is far easier to grow large amounts of mycelia then then make them fruit.
Also, if submerged cultures do not produce psilo, what steps could be taken to ensure that they do?  Would taking the culture and mixing it with a solid medium in an enclosed jar for a week or so do the trick?  Maybe this is getting almost as complicated as making them fruit.

[formula54]

iudex..why not just fully colonize 7-10 cakes and chop them into slices to colonize the rest of your substrate.
paranoid...what do you mean by submerged? are you also asking if mycelium has psilo in it? it does, if you use the right substrate you can eat the cake.
by submerged do you mean a liquid culture? (like mycelium grown in honey for ex.)
54

[IudexK2]

Innoculation is not a problem... I just wondered what a good substrate (compost?) was for PC Gulf Coast.

[terbium]

paranoid...what do you mean by submerged? are you also asking if mycelium has psilo in it? it does, if you use the right substrate you can eat the cake.
By "submerged culture" people mean growing the mycelium all throughout a vat of liquid medium as opposed to growing it on the surface of an agar slab. There is often greatly decreased alkaloid production when using submerged culture. For example, up through the first half of the 20th century, ergot alkaloids were extracted from ergot harvested from grain fields because it was not known how to produce ergot via submerged culture. It has only been in the past 50-60 years that ergot fungus species/strains have been found that will produce substantial amounts of alkaloids in submerged culture. Other techniques for inducing alkaloid production during submerged culture include adding chemicals such as butanol to the culture to induce alkaloid production.

[paranoid]

Terbium-

Yeah, by submerged I mean grown in a liquid medium.  Much easier to do then a solid substrate (less work to set up).  It's just that I have read in a article or several that no appreciable amounts of psilocybin and/or psilocin are produced in these cultures.  I have also read some material suggesting that this was an ideal method of cultivation.  It seems that many people have a fair bit of difficulty in getting non-submerged cultures to fruit, and takes a bit of effort to do so.  Not that i mind, but due to current living conditions of SWIP it is hard to set such a system up.  If SWIP wanted to just innoculate a few jars of liquid growth medium, is there a trick to getting the desired alkaloids produced?  You mentioned butanol, and I've heard other other suggestions normally applied to solid media such as tryptophan.
I was just uncertain if the submerged culture did not have sufficient oxygen for respiration and production of alkaloids was consequently reduced or what the explanation is for no alkaloids (if indeed they are not produced).

[foxy2]

there are recipe's for psilo beer
search around

Or grow up a ton of mycilea and just put them in sterile water to soak.  Filter and drink.
Do Your Part To Win The War

[IudexK2]

I always thought the idea of liquid mycelium culture was so you could use it to innoculate solid substrates more effectively.

[paranoid]

"I always thought the idea of liquid mycelium culture was so you could use it to innoculate solid substrates more effectively."

Generally that's the way of it, but I was looking at it this way.  It takes 3 - 4 weeks of fussing and waiting for the possibility of good fruiting.  It takes about 1 maybe 2 weeks for a large amount of mycelia with minimal effort.  The mycelia (at least under non-submerged conditions) still contain a significant content of psilo.  It would likely be a lot easier and probably much more efficient to simply use the mycelia, either dry it and pack it into capsules or extract the goodies via ethyl alcohol and use as such.  The easiest way to do this would be with submerged cultures, having to solid organic matter messing up the product.  Plus, to continue production all one needs to do is aseptically add mycelia to a new jar of media.  It would be a continuous operation that could fit into a closet and require minimal effort with mondo results.  Maybe it's too good to be true, I mean, spores are easy to get as well as the rest of the supplies.
 

[formula54]

the only real problem with liquid cultures is sterility...it is much easier to infect your substrate if you innoculate with liquid cultures..at least thats my experience.
-pollux

[IudexK2]

Well, with all this talk of submerged culture, SWIM just had to try it... set up a few jars with different media in... SWIM thinks that the reason ppl report low alkaloid levels in submerged-cultured mycelia is simply because the media is insufficient... I see no reason why a liquid substrate containing malt extract (or just brown rice flour extract), with an air-hole for respiration wouldn't give mycelia of the same alkaloidal quality as that grown on solid substrates.

If I am correct in thinking that P. azurescens mycelia contain significantly higher levels of alkaloids than P. cubensis (like the mushrooms do), submerged culture could well bee worthwhile, as P. azurescens mycelia are no more difficult to grow than P. cubensis mycelia.

I have doubts as to whether tryptophan would be converted to psiloc(yb)in, but tryptamine certainly would...

Will post results of my submerged culture experiments shortly.

Sweet dreamz   ,
IudexK

[Lilienthal]

Submers cultures have to be agitated (shaken) for oxygen delivery. The mycelium from these shaking cultures does not contain relevant amounts of alkaloids.

Gartz published an article about surface culture on a semi-liquid medium, which produced good yields of alkaloids (if I remember correctly...).

But if you compare the weight of the mycelium and that of the fruiting bodies from this mycelium you will see that mycelium extraction makes no sense.  

[paranoid]

IudexK2, you are my hero   .  I think you're right about the poor media=poor alkaloid levels.  I've been trying to locate some articles on the subject to which I have the references, but can't seem to dig them out yet.  I'll keep looking.

Hopefully it shouldn't take to long for results.  I have a list of the many things it is best to add to promote growth around here somewhere, maybe I'll be digging it out soon too.

Keep us posted!

BTW, where did SWIY find spores for P. azurescens?  Was it through mail order or spore print from a specimen a la nature?  Not asking for an exact name/place.  Just curious.

[paranoid]

Lilienthal - I know that you're probably right but damn I wish you were wrong!    Sigh, maybe SWIP will have to do the more elaborate setup anyways.

[foxy2]

Extraction might not make any sense, BUT can you drink a quart of brew and trip?  All it needs is what 20mgs?  Obviously not enough to extract but thats not the goal here is it?

I always wanted to brew up like ten gallons of that and throw a party

That would bee fun, and tomorrow would bee the day to do it.

I ate acid for the first time on HALLOWEEN at a party.  Fuck I just sat in the corner confused,  they had one bedroom barricaded off and I was waiting by that door for the longest time thinking it was the bathroom.  whew I was out of it.
Do Your Part To Win The War

[hest]

I once ate 10g of pc mycelia, grown in liquid media (fishtank bobler, and a sterile filter (the one you use to syrings)) not a big trip, close to ½g of 'fresh' dryet shrooms.

[paranoid]

"I once ate 10g of pc mycelia, grown in liquid media (fishtank bobler, and a sterile filter (the one you use to syrings)) not a big trip, close to ½g of 'fresh' dryet shrooms. "

Hmm, seems quite a lack of potency compared with the mushrooms themselves.  I'd better look up some specs on the %alkaloids in the mycelia vs. shrooms.  I was thinking another problem might be production of very little psilocybin vs psilosin and since the latter breaks down much quicker that may also contribute to loss in potency.

[formula54]

hest...you cant be serious.
-pollux

[IudexK2]

I still don't see why a liquid substrate containing the same nutrients as one of the solid substrates that produces alkaloid-rich mycelia would not do the same. Submerged mushroom culture is quite well established... see

http://www.shroomery.org/findorgrowthem.php?View=docs&doc=49

A ickle bit of H2O2 can bee added to keep down contaminants and also possibly provide oxygen for the mycelia (?).