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 Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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 Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! 
#16493980 - 07/07/12 07:45 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Hello there Shroomery! Yep you guessed it, this is yet another first timers log of stupid mistakes to avoid. Please pull up a chair and laugh at my ignorance! Be amazed at all the redundant questions that you have answered at least 3/4 of a million times, and marvel at my misinformed mutterings!
Well since this is my first post here, I suppose I should start off with a little of my relevant background. I'm definitely not what you'd call an expert on mushrooms, or on psychedelics in general really. I did quite a bit of acid back in the 80's and early 90's, a few other things here and there, but I've got very little actual experience with mushrooms. I've only eaten them three times (only about a gram each the first two times, and about 2g of PE last newyears). Honestly I'm more interested in learning the process of cultivating them, than in consuming very many. I have been and plan to keep being very cautious with them, because my acid-frying days culminated in a very intense bad trip that became recurring every time I tried it after that.
Because of that I haven't touched LSD in nearly 20 years, but I never really lost the interest in psychedelics. While it was almost purely a recreational/party kind of thing when I was young, now I'm much more interested in the possiblities of substances like mushrooms, peyote and DMT for very occasional mental/spiritual healing and self-reprogramming. I just can't let myself wind up in another situation where I'm left scared and alone while in a severely altered state.
My first attempt at mycology was back in the early 90's, using the 'ol Homestead kit, ordered out of High Times. Back then they were selling what I'd call a pretty advanced setup, using agar and perti dishes to get it started from spore prints, then transferring to rice cakes. Way complicated compared to what's available now. Probably not too surprisingly, we succeeded in growing a lot of lovely green mold but never came close to a mushroom. Much more recently I ordered some spore syringes online and knocked up a couple of spawn bags. SO much easier than the old fashioned way, and seemingly pretty foolproof. Because of the prior failure I tried to be perfectly clean and even made a glove box to inoculate the bags in, but once again I reaped a bumper crop of trichoderma. I only used about half of the syringe (z-strain) on the bags, then re-capped and sealed it inside the glovebox, and left it in the fridge to try again later.
Since then I've done a good bit more research, and even though I felt fairly confident in being able to put a basic PF system together myself, I decided to start over with one of the ridiculously overpriced starter kits anyway. I'm working two full time jobs so I felt that the time saved tracking down all the bits and pieces and putting it all together would make it worthwhile. Plus I figured it should include some pretty clear instructions, which is good. So about a month ago I bought a new kit (I picked the Midwest Growkits "Ultimate" setup) and gave it another shot. I used the rest of the Z-strain syringe on 4 of my jars, and a full one of B+ on the other 8. After about a week it was clear that all the Z-strain jars were severely contaminated, but all the B+ were nice and white. inoculation of all the jars was identical (using the "oven door tech" recommended in my kits instructions). Makes me think maybe the Z syringe was contaiminated from the get go? What bad luck I picked that one to try first, out of the 6 or 8 strains I bought.
Anyway after about 4 weeks I had 6 fully colonized jars of B+ and two that were lagging behind, but after another week in the incubator they all seemed quite ready. They looked fluffy white and healthy, and I could see little stringy things trying to work their way up through the layer of dry vermiculite, kind of like upside-down roots. But I still waited another 3 days or so before birthing (because I read somewhere that you should). I put the jars in the fridge for a day, then plopped each cake into seperate quart bags of dechlorinated water, which went back into the fridge for another 20 hours. They came out a little more blueish than they went in, I hope that's not a bad sign. I've read since then that cold shocking does nothing for cubies, but I wanted to follow the kits intructions as close as possible first time around before starting to experiment.
Next they went into a 10g rubbermaid floating in another tub filled with water and an aquarium heater set to keep the inside tub at around 75-78 degrees. They've got a little LED taplight on the inside of the lid which I leave on while I'm sleeping. I also hooked up the "Hepa filtered" air pump (it's actually just a little rolled up piece of filter stuffed into a silicone air hose, and a tiny pump) and set its timer to come on for 45 minutes, twice a day. This is about where I started having to experiment a bit, because it wasn't behaving as the instructions said it should, regarding the humidity.
According to Midwest, I need to be keeping the humidity between 85% and 95%, but with the pump only coming on twice a day, it was just sitting at 99% every time I peeked. So I tried using a bigger air pump and left it on continuously, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. Next I drilled a couple of 1 1/4" holes stuffed with polyfil to let more air escape, but the humidity still slowly climbed. So I switched to an even bigger pump and added second air hose. Now its holding pretty well at about 98% and I'm also fanning it occasionally. Next I may try adding a few more "shotgun" holes and see what happens, and/or maybe some tyvek patches in the lid? Or possibly trade the air pump for a filtered computer fan? Definitely open to sugguestions here. Not really even sure what I should be shooting for, maybe 90%?
So I guess that's where I'm at now, about 4-5 days into fruiting and all fingers crossed. Oh and BTW I've already got my very first litte baby pinning, it was already growing up through the verm while still in the jar, and managed to survive the dunking. Here's a picture of it from a few days ago. Dawwww ain't she cuuute? Thanks for reading and for all the great info you've already given, this forum is a great resource!
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
Edited by Mr. E (07/12/12 08:20 PM)
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x CiVil x
Registered: 07/05/12
Posts: 601
Loc: Flying With Mother Nature
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 Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16493990 - 07/07/12 07:53 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Kickass start you have here!  
Where are you 1 1/4 holes at? I don't see them.  You'll need FAE in that bad boy, thats why I ask.
I like my humidity at 80-85%. Once your cakes start to fruit they will boost the microclimate to 100% inside the FC.
Edited by x CiVil x (07/07/12 07:54 AM)
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 The Ace Of Cakes
Day Tripper
Registered: 12/03/07
Posts: 136
Loc: North East
Last seen: 22 days, 11 hours
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: x CiVil x]
#16494034 - 07/07/12 08:27 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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great post. sounds like I could have written the first part of your story about doing acid in the 80-90's. those were some good times.
I'm also intrested in the process of cultivating the mushrooms more so that consuming them, but eating them isn't bad either. for me it's not so much as a party time drug, but a substance that will allow me to go deeper inside of myself and explore the world i live in with a different perspective.
your grow sounds like it is coming along nice. good luck and I look forward to seeing some pics.
--------------------
  
Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream,
It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thought, surrender to the void,
It is shining, It is shining
Yet you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: x CiVil x]
#16494035 - 07/07/12 08:27 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Thanks very much! I may not have made the holes yet when that pic was taken, since the forced air system was SUPPOSED to take care of the FAE without needing holes (according to the kit). So much for that idea. Anyway so far I've only put in two holes, up high on the left. But definitely considering adding more since the air pump seems to be doing next to nada and I keep having to fan. Maybe the next set of holes should be down lower? I know mushies make co2, and that co2 sinks, so that would make sense.
I was reading about a monotub tek (I believe it was Sandman's no-filter fae), he just uses some 1/8" holes just above the sub, with no polyfil at all and claims it takes no maintenance. Would this work the same with cakes and perlite as it does with a bulk sub?
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
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BobbySkidz
Aces High!
Registered: 02/11/12
Posts: 309
Loc: Neptune
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: x CiVil x]
#16494038 - 07/07/12 08:29 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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I am sure you are busy with the 2 jobs and all, but what you need is a Shotgun Fruiting Chamber.
Basically put 3-5 inches of perlite in the bottom and drill 1/4 inch holes every 2 inches on ALL 6 sides.
Then elevate it up off the surface with some jars or something.
That will give you plenty of Fresh Air Exchange and a perfect near perfect humidity.
Edited by BobbySkidz (07/07/12 08:35 AM)
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x CiVil x
Registered: 07/05/12
Posts: 601
Loc: Flying With Mother Nature
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16494040 - 07/07/12 08:33 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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EDIT - ^ What he siad. 
This is a great way to do it!
I like to use 1/4'' holes every 2''. Like RR does in that video. 
Everything looks great! Cakes are pinning good.
Edited by x CiVil x (07/07/12 08:34 AM)
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: x CiVil x]
#16494091 - 07/07/12 09:34 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Allrighty then, if that's the consensus then that's exactly what I'll do, as soon as I get home. At least the kit seems to make a good incubator, so I'll keep it around for that. Since the cheap hygrometer they sent aparently won't cut it, I'll look into getting a better one. Any other ways to monitor my humidity in the meantime? Also the kit only came with enough perlite for about a 2" layer, should I have more for this method?
I hope they'll stay warm enough in the new tub, I keep my place pretty cool so the aquarium heater thing seemed good for that. But I suppose if it didn't work just fine it wouldn't be recommended so highly by you good folks, so I'll change things up ASAP and see how it goes.
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
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BobbySkidz
Aces High!
Registered: 02/11/12
Posts: 309
Loc: Neptune
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16494109 - 07/07/12 09:49 AM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Incubator's are outdated and higher temperatures favor contaminates. Unless your temps will go much below 60, they would just take longer to colonize.
Yes you would need more perlite, I don't think it will work well with less than 3" minimum.
You can Colonize/Fruit in 60 or so and above. 70-75 is a good temperature.
If you build a SGFC to spec, you won't need to monitor the humidity unless you want to. It should be fine.
Watch the RR Video.
I wouldn't make a SGFC unless I had at LEAST 3" of perlite. you can buy more at Lowe's-Home Depot- Wal-Mart
Also, did you calibrate that Hygrometer?
Good Luck to You
Edited by BobbySkidz (07/07/12 10:44 AM)
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: BobbySkidz]
#16494981 - 07/07/12 02:44 PM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Ok, I'm back with a new chamber set up like the one in the video, all shot full of holes. I went ahead and got some huge bags of perlite and vermiculite, since I'm sure I'll need it sooner or later. Except for that one early pin and a few little knots and bumps without caps I haven't seen any other pinning yet so I went ahead and rolled them in verm too. Also relocated them from my bedroom to the kitchen where it's a little warmer. Planning to set them up in an empty closet with a hepa air cleaner ASAP. Everything looks pretty good with it so far, temp is about 77 and humidity (at least according to the cheapie hygrometer) is about 84. Sweet! 
Bobby, the hygrometer that came with my kit is just a super cheap digi one, I'm pretty sure it can't be calibrated but if I can find the instructions that were with it I'll see if it says anything about it. For now I guess it should at least give me a rough idea anyway. At least I know it's lower than it was, so that's good. I've found a nice analog one made for humidors I'll probably order soon, even if it's not totally required I'd just like to know.
Thanks so much for the advice guys, I guess now it's time to sit back and wait! More pics coming as soon as they do something. 
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
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Revolutiontcm
dniM-retsaM
Registered: 04/05/12
Posts: 913
Loc: MD 
Last seen: 1 month, 20 days
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16495024 - 07/07/12 02:52 PM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Nice dude good luck w/all that...
Quote:
Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus!
What the F
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x CiVil x
Registered: 07/05/12
Posts: 601
Loc: Flying With Mother Nature
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Re: Fun & Fulfullment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Revolutiontcm]
#16495294 - 07/07/12 03:47 PM (11 months, 6 days ago) |
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Looks great! As long as your RH is above 30% in your room and you have 1/4'' holes every 2'' on all 6 side's, your good to go.
SGFC's do benefit from a lot of FAE. A circulating fan in the room works great. Mine is on a timer, kicks on 15min, every hour, and I also fan it myself every 6-8 hours. This isn't the way everyone does it but it works for me.
Cheers,
CiVil
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16508517 - 07/10/12 11:19 AM (11 months, 3 days ago) |
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Whooo, stuff is happening! 
Literally within a few hours of putting the cakes in their new home I had two fat new pins showing... but then nothing much else for the next 3 days. The 2 new ones kept growing but that little one from the first post in the thread aborted, and nothing else was coming up. I started to think something was wrong because based on the pics and journals I've seen so far, the pins pretty much seem to all show up at about the same time.
But as of now, 5 of the 8 cakes are showing new growth, and hopefully the others won't be too far behind. I know this is just the same 'ol same 'ol for you guys, but I'm psyched! And like any first-time daddy I'm taking way too many pictures.
So, couple more questions... now that they're pinning, should I stop misting? Also, should I go ahead and pull that little abort now or wait until everything finishes? I'm estimating from what I've read I should be about 7-10 days from harvesting this first flush, does that seem right? Once stuff starts to happen, it does seem to go pretty damn fast.
And as far as fanning... because of my work situation(~constant), fanning by hand more than once or twice a day is just not possible. This is one of the main reasons I went for the forced-air kit to start with. I had a little 3" fan facing into a corner near their box, tried pointing it different ways but it always seemed to drop the RH too much. So the way I've got it now is the fan is pointed directly at one end of the box, but it only comes on for 10 minutes every 2 hours to blow the old air out the holes, then lets the humidity build up again. When the fan is off, it stays around 77f, and 90%rh. Is there a reason this wouldn't work as well as hand-fanning?
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
Edited by Mr. E (07/10/12 03:19 PM)
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16509646 - 07/10/12 03:22 PM (11 months, 3 days ago) |
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Update: Just a few hours later and now there's only one cake left not showing pins!
Thanks again for all the help! I've been reading whenever there's time, but there's an awful lot of conflicting/contradictory information here so it can be pretty confusing. Even the awesome collection of RR notes is said to have misinformation (but no hints I've seen so far as to WHAT, exactly, is now considered wrong. Sigh.)
Also, while digging for info I found out that I may have chosen an unfortunate name to use for this place. Might even ought to change it. I hope none of the mods/old-timers here were tweaked. I truly had no clue who originated this strain I'm playing with, what an uberdick he was, or how similar my handle happens to be. 
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
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BobbySkidz
Aces High!
Registered: 02/11/12
Posts: 309
Loc: Neptune
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16510537 - 07/10/12 06:40 PM (11 months, 3 days ago) |
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Around here RR is definitely one of the people to listen to.
Sometimes you will find new information that conflicts with older info, when in doubt, take the newest or most experienced advice.
People are still learning new things about fungi as time goes on and new techniques replace outdated ones. Most of the time the older info works, but the new information will either increase yield or decrease failure.
With that fan, make sure your perlite doesn't dry out.
Congratulations and good luck
PS- Don't stop misting, I personally would pull the abort off but leaving it on till later won't hurt anything.
Edited by BobbySkidz (07/10/12 06:45 PM)
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5is
Cactiphile
Registered: 03/13/12
Posts: 1,061
Loc: USA
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: BobbySkidz]
#16510551 - 07/10/12 06:45 PM (11 months, 3 days ago) |
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You have a little abort in the first picture second cake take that thing off asap :P
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Stay Lophy my friends. 
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: 5is]
#16513600 - 07/11/12 11:57 AM (11 months, 2 days ago) |
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Man, these things really do move fast! The biggest specimen from the pics above has just gone nuts in the last 24 hrs. Here it is before I left for work, roughly 12 hours after the previous pic:
And here is what I found when I got home, about 10 hours later:
Damn thing collapsed under its own weight! Just about tore itself right off the cake. The veil looks about halfway torn already, guess I'll be starting my first harvest much sooner than I expected! 
So I'd like to practice taking spore prints with this, I've looked into it a little bit and thought I'd try Themilkman's tek first (index card and shot glass), but I'm not sure what stage of development is best for doing this. Should I cut the cap as soon as the veil breaks, before any contaminates have a chance to land on it? Or is it better to wait a little longer for the cap to open up more first? If so, how much? should I try to prop it up or something in the meantime?
All cakes are showing at least a few pins now (2 best pictured above), but the ones on the cake with the almost-finished shroom haven't been growing like the rest, and they're a very light color. I guess they'll take off again after the big one's picked?
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
Edited by Mr. E (07/12/12 04:50 AM)
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16514287 - 07/11/12 03:01 PM (11 months, 2 days ago) |
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Hmmmm... well the cap has opened up enough now to see there's no black inside the gills, so I'm guessing that means wait a bit more for printing.
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16517730 - 07/12/12 02:17 AM (11 months, 1 day ago) |
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All right, so, lacking any input to the contrary, I went ahead and propped the fallen soldier up on his neighbor and left it alone for awhile. When I checked again about 10 hrs later the cap had opened further and the gills looked dusty, sort of like a clogged air filter. The underside of the cap wasn't black/violet like I've seen in lots of pics, the spores on this look more grey colored really. Maybe it would get darker if I left it longer? But it looked good enough to me so I pulled out the whole mushroom, decapitated it, and put the cap on a clean piece of heavy foil inside the lid of a clean 1/2 pint jar, then closed the jar around it.
Didn't weigh the cap, but the stem is 5.5g wet, so I guess that'll be about half a gram dry. Plus whatever the cap is, I'd guess about the same.
So now I've oficially grown my first actual mushroom, and I think he's a pretty nice one. This eager little dude only took about 4 days from primordia to harvest. 9 days total from birthing, including 5 days of basically zero FAE or misting. Crazy. I'm having fun, this is a pretty interesting diversion from my usual grind.
Thanks again to all those who have contributed!
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
Edited by Mr. E (07/12/12 12:24 PM)
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Mr. E
No Touchies!
Registered: 07/07/12
Posts: 165
Loc: Hiding in the Sky
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16519361 - 07/12/12 01:20 PM (11 months, 1 day ago) |
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So about a day after harvesting that first lonely shroom (which I'm going to call Sam), the cake it came from looked pretty sad:
I'm pretty sure the little pins are probably aborts, they haven't changed a bit in days and they're much paler than the rest. Seems like in this case that one single mushroom is going to count as an entire flush.  So I decided to go ahead and dunk it for a bit and let it start over while the rest of these finish up.
Here's the one that's not far behind. It came up at the same time as Sam, but is develpoing just a little slower and not so big. I think I'm going to leave it to mature longer this time, just to see it.
Pretty photogenic isn't he? The pins on this one look a little strange compared to the rest, but they seem to still be growing and there's a cluster of more normal lookng ones sprouting at the base of the cake.
Here's the other 3 cakes that are just starting to boom:
And the last 3 that I guess are still kinda just thinkin' about it.
So.... yeah.
I know you're out there, I can hear you sporulating!
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Only Red Horse Rainbows can save us, let them run wild and asunder!
Edited by Mr. E (07/12/12 01:30 PM)
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Tampanensis
Wang Chung
Registered: 01/17/10
Posts: 355
Loc: Florida
Last seen: 4 months, 10 days
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Re: Fun & Fulfillment Fruiting First Fantastic Fungus! [Re: Mr. E]
#16519607 - 07/12/12 02:10 PM (11 months, 1 day ago) |
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^^ Very Nice. 
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" I never meant to give you mushrooms girl. I never meant to bring you to my world. But now you're sittin' in the corner crying, and now its my fault."
" Said she was goin back into using AGAIN, I said WAIT, first try this HALLUCINOGEN!"
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