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OfflineSplat
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Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 80
Loc: Santa Cruz CA
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Hmmm... Straw or compost?
    #561309 - 02/24/02 05:52 AM (22 years, 28 days ago)

Which works best for good solid bulk?


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You know what I always say....anything worth doing.... mmm....is worth overdoing!

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OfflineSplat
Deviant
Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 80
Loc: Santa Cruz CA
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #569041 - 03/03/02 09:22 PM (22 years, 21 days ago)

Is it very difficult/unsafe to use the straw tek... how prone is straw to contam? Probably less than compost no?

Is this the best means for indoor bulk? any tips here?

Gimme gimme your minds....


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You know what I always say....anything worth doing.... mmm....is worth overdoing!

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Invisiblemycofile
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Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #569489 - 03/04/02 10:03 AM (22 years, 20 days ago)

Both work great. Neither is very hard, depending on what you mean. Straw is cheap and easy to find, you generally have to make compost which means some yard work. Not hard, but are you really going to build a compost pile?

Large amounts of straw are easily pasteurized in a hot water bath. Compost really shouldn't be soaked in water like that, it should be steam pasteurized or baked in an oven. Which would you rather do? A steam pasteurizer can be made from a steam humidifier and a cooler/rubermaid/trashcan. Again, not difficult, but some more set up.

Uncased straw is pretty contam prone. But a good casing on top of it prevents that. Really good compost is pretty resistant to contams, but not much more so than straw with a deep casing.

I personally used to use straw/old cow dung as my favorite indoor bulk method. Both straw and dung were pasteurized in hot water, drained and innoculated with grain. Pretty simple once you know what your doing. Then again, if you make compost, it's pretty simple that way too... Whatever floats your boat.

Unless you are buying compost, which is the easy but expensive way out. Get good compost, not nursery crap. simple and effective, but several hundred times more expensive than cheap straw and/or free cow dung.

There is no "best" method. All have different qualities for different people. That said, if you are just getting into bulk, shroomgod's straw tek can't be beat for ease and economy. Start throwing in some dung or castings if you want. Or just buy good compost around here, spend money and save time etc etc etc....


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"From a certain point of view"
-Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi

PM me with any cultivation questions.

I just looked at my profile and realized I had a website at one point in time on geocities, it's not there anymore and I have no idea what I had on it. Anybody remember my website from several years aga? PM if so please.

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Offlinebluhoney
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Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #569522 - 03/04/02 10:47 AM (22 years, 20 days ago)

This is a tek my friend uses. It works very well:)bluhoney
Blu honey straw tek
Items you will need:
Spore syringe
12 pint canning jars (wide mouth)
Pressure cooker
Wheat straw
Whole brown rice
Vermiculite
Perlite
Styrofoam cooler w/ lid
3mil plastic covering
1 fork
lighter
rubber gloves
Lysol
Dust mask
25 gallon Rubbermaid container (clear) w/ lid
thermometer
humidity gauge
light source
4 shoebox sized dark colored container?s
Fishnet laundry bag


Start:
Through out the whole process the area needs to be clean and free from moving air.
Substrate Preparation:
In a large sauce pan, cook completely 4 servings of whole brown rice as per directions. While it is hot, mix in 2 cups of vermiculite real good . Next fill your jars half way up with this mixture. Put the lids on with the rubber side up. Do not tighten them, keep them on very loosely.
Place the jars in your pressure cooker and fill as per directions with water. Pressure cook them at 15 PSI for 45 minutes. Then take the pressure cooker to a VERY clean place. The bathroom works well, just make sure and clean it very good and spray a lot of Lysol in there before taking the cooker in. Let the cooker cool overnight. When you enter the room the next morning wear a hat, dust mask, and rubber gloves, also spray yourself very good with Lysol. Bring with you your spore syringe. Take the syringe and heat the needle until it is glowing red. While its cooling off. Bring in your Styrofoam container and spray it very well with Lysol, then place next to you.
One by one, take the jars out and in one quick motion barely lift the lid just enough to squirt 1 cc in the jar. Quickly close the lid and tighten. Now shake the jars a lot to disperse the spores. Loosen the lid and place in the Styrofoam cooler. Repeat the process for all the jars, make sure to heat the needle in-between jars. Put the lid on the cooler and put it in a warm dark place. After about a week check the jars for growth and also for contaminants. If you find any contaminated jars throw them out immediately.
After the jars become fully colonized leave them alone for another 4 days. Then move to the bulk growing phase.
Wheat Straw preparation:
Get about 4 big hand fulls of wheat straw and put it in a BIG bowl. Take a pair of scissors and chop it up into about two to three inch pieces. (this takes some time but its worth it) Fill your laundry bag with the straw and tie the top. Place the bag in a VERY LARGE pot. Fill with water until the bag is covered. Place a weight of some sorts on the bag to hold it under or else it will float. Heat your water until it almost boils, and keep it here for 1 hour. This is known as pasteurization and gets the germs out, but keeps the protective contaminant barrier coating on the straw. Once cooked, take the bag out and place it in the sink to both cool and drain.
Now get your shoebox growing containers and clean them very good with Lysol and let them dry. Take the containers and pour a thin layer of plain dry vermiculite on the bottom. Next place a thin layer of wheat straw on top of the vermiculite. Now take your fully colonized jars and take the lids off. Take out a fully colonized cake and break pieces up about the size of a quarter and drop them around on top of the straw. Next place a thin layer of straw on top the cake pieces. Then more cake pieces on top of that. Keep repeating these steps until your ?sandwich layered? substrate has been created in all containers. The top layer should be nothing but wheat straw.
Place a small sheet of the 3mil plastic in each container covering the straw. Press down with a lot of weight to squeeze the layers together. With a fork, heat it with a lighter and melt holes all around on the plastic so the mycelia can breathe. Now place these containers back in the dark for about a week to 2 weeks. Keep the temperatures at around 86 degrees.
Fruiting Preparation:
After mycelia has almost covered the top layer of wheat straw, move on to the fruiting stage. Take the plastic covering off all the trays and dis-guard.
Take your 25 gallon Rubbermaid container and wash very good with Lysol and let dry. Then fill with about four inches of wet perlite( take a bag of perlite and fill with one bottle of H20 and water then drain). Now place your containers with straw and mycelia on top of the perlite. Place a thermometer and humidity gauge inside. Now put the top on and place near a light source. The temperature should be in the 70?s for fruiting, but mushrooms are pretty flexible, so a range of 70-90 should be fine. The humidity should stay around 80-90 %. In about 1 or 2 weeks you should see pins starting to form. Now start fanning the Rubbermaid container with its own lid about 4 times a day. If you notice all the humidity is drying off the sides, then lower your fanning some, to 1or 2 a day. After the mushrooms break their veil you can pick them. Make sure to pick all of the aborts as well( small discolored pins that stopped growing).
There you have it, now go have some fun with growing.
Disclaimer: this tek is for informational purposes only and should not be taken seriously.

Now if you want to make compost on a small scale, skip the first part of this and go down to the Mini-tek . Hope all this helps.bluhoney
Nitrogen source:
70 pounds of horse manure
50 pounds of chicken manure
50 pounds of cow manure
20 pounds of blood meal
Carbohydrate source:
4 bales of wheatstraw
20 pounds of rice straw
50 pounds of cottonseed meal
Blending and curing items:
80 pounds of gypsum(essential for compost, prevents it from becoming greasy, provides Ca++ ions, a mineral essential to mushroom growth)
20 pounds of Superphosphate(promotes vigorous mycelial growth, but dont use to much it will turn the compost acidic to soon)
20 pounds of sulfate of potash( calcium carbonate)
1 gallon of compost activators.
Directions for use:
Soak the wheat straw for about a week, then drain out water and place in a large dark colored bin. Mix in all other ingrediants evenly and use water as needed to keep it moist not soaked. At about three days the temperature inside the compost will reach very high temps. Thats good, everything is working right. when the temperature begins to fall, turn the pile and mix it up again( around 6 days) do this until the pile turns a rich blackish brown color. Very airy with a lot of texture. My friend let heres cure for 3 months. But This time can be shortened. Depends on how much you have and how you want it cured.
* Now for the descrete people, here is a mini tek: 5 pounds chicken manure,(reason for chicken is its higher in nitrogen and phosphorous than horse and cow) halfbale of soaked wheatstraw(essential), 1pound bloodmeal, 2 pounds of cottonseed meal. 1 cup of superphosphate, 1 pound of potash, 3 pounds of gypsum,1 8 oz bag of activators.
Both of the above recipies can be altered very much in amounts. You just have to experiment. And remember to check your ph regularly. Try to keep it at around 7-8. This can be done by purchasing a small ph test kit at a pet store .
 


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Information listed here is for entertainment only and is neither real or proven

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Anonymous

Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #569526 - 03/04/02 10:52 AM (22 years, 20 days ago)

Here's a well illustrated Pasteurized Straw TEK

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OfflineSplat
Deviant
Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 80
Loc: Santa Cruz CA
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: ]
    #569592 - 03/04/02 12:26 PM (22 years, 20 days ago)

nice...

Thank you very much!

If I am casing this straw... shalll I put it on top of verm or perilite, or nither?

I was considering a large opaque rubbermaid... with prolly perilite along the whole bottom, then the straw over the whole surface... is this a good idea?


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-------------------------------------------------------------
You know what I always say....anything worth doing.... mmm....is worth overdoing!

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OfflineBeppoMarx
old hand
Registered: 09/01/01
Posts: 1,126
Last seen: 18 years, 11 months
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #569641 - 03/04/02 01:29 PM (22 years, 20 days ago)

yeah put a very small layer of perlite down (use more if you wanna spare a whole bag but its not necessary) then a 1" layer of chopped up straw and then lay some crumbled cakes down. then 1" of straw and another crumbled jar layer. lastly i put just straw on top for it to colionize but you could put more grain/brf on top of that too. cover and incubate 5-6 days then i case w/ 50/50+ and proceed.
but yeah the large rubbermaid idea is very good.


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Holy shit people; COMMON SENSE! we were all born with it where did it go?
maybe theres a tek out there to explain how to use it!
BUCKETS BRIGADE left hand man!!!

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Invisiblemycofile
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Registered: 01/18/99
Posts: 2,336
Loc: Uranus
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Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #570443 - 03/05/02 10:53 AM (22 years, 19 days ago)

No need to put the straw on a layer of anything. There is simply no need for it whatsoever.

A great way to do it is pasteurize the straw at 160 deg F for 30-45 min. Drain thoroughly! Put the straw in the large rubbermaid. I highly recomend using at least 4-6 inch deep layer of straw for outstanding results. Do several batches of straw if you don't have a large enough pot to past. all that straw in. Let the straw cool completly (it should be cool by now if you drained thoroughly).

2 quarts of grain spawn (or it's equivalant in well crumbled, or even ground BRF cakes) is sufficient for the largest tub I've ever seen, but the more the marrier. Use as much spawn as you have. Just dump it on top of the straw. Wearing gloves (or plastic shopping bags) mix the straw and spawn together. You may want to save a cup or so of spawn to sprinkle over the top after mixing as some of the spawn will tend to fall through to the bottom of the tub. Using your fists, or a clean flat board of some type, compact the straw as tight as you can. Tuck the straw in with a piece of perferated plastic ala shroomgod's tek. If you want to go to the trouble, a grate of some sort (like those sold as deflectors for flourescent lights) can be laid over the plastic with a weight on it, this speeds colonization somewhat.

Case with an inch to 1.5 inches of coir or 50/50+. Make sure that no straw pokes through the casing layer.

When fruit time comes, maintain parameters as you see fit. I recomend a coolmist humidifier ala shroomgod humidification.

Deep straw layers with high amounts of spawn and relatively deep casings yield like a mother fucker. A 50 gallon tub can easily produce a dry pound in only 2 flushes. Aged cow or horse dung can be added to the straw at pasteurization for even higher yields and larger individual fruits. Be careful.

I basically just retyped the shroomgod tek for you, but it works wonders...


--------------------
"From a certain point of view"
-Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi

PM me with any cultivation questions.

I just looked at my profile and realized I had a website at one point in time on geocities, it's not there anymore and I have no idea what I had on it. Anybody remember my website from several years aga? PM if so please.

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OfflineSplat
Deviant
Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 80
Loc: Santa Cruz CA
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: mycofile]
    #570727 - 03/05/02 05:24 PM (22 years, 19 days ago)

RAD!

Thank you very much... this sounds like a plan! all that and no perilite... got it... U dont think it would even help hu?


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-------------------------------------------------------------
You know what I always say....anything worth doing.... mmm....is worth overdoing!

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OfflinepsilocybinjunkieM
relaxin
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Registered: 03/17/01
Posts: 14,532
Last seen: 10 hours, 36 minutes
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Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #570788 - 03/05/02 06:34 PM (22 years, 19 days ago)

Here's what Afoaf uses.(Decent results too)
Its ready as soon as your done mixing in all the ingrediants.Alright this is gonna take me awhile to type
Recipe:
1.("black gold" Worm casings)
2.Wheat straw( You chop the wheat straw up and put in a ziplock freezer back and fill with water distilled water and let it sit for an hour or two)
3.peatmoss
4.vermiculite
5.Alder shavings
You mix em all together in a large bowl And bake em in a aliminium turkey roaster pan you buy at the store the larger the better. Bake for 1hour at 250-275F then after an hour stir it up and bake for an additional 30minutes.
No youv've sterilized your compost.
As for the exact ingrediant ratio its up to you.
Use about50-60% worm casings as much or little straw as you like use about half a bag per pan more or less
use about a cup or two of vermiculite, Use a decent amount of peat moss two to three times as much verm. Maybe less And use a good amount of alder shavings I believe they contribute alot to mush size. Dont use to much though you add the alder chips dry. Add water to your mixture distilled water till damp or moist not soaking.
You'll have to add more water to your compost after you sterilize distilled of coarse.
Don't get your compost too wet or it may not work appropiatly.
I thinks thats about it.


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OfflineSplat
Deviant
Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 80
Loc: Santa Cruz CA
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: mycofile]
    #570876 - 03/05/02 08:19 PM (22 years, 19 days ago)

Hmm.. sounds good...

I forgot to ask... do U typically sterilize or pasturize your 50/50 mix or do you just add it on there straight?


--------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
You know what I always say....anything worth doing.... mmm....is worth overdoing!

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Offlinebluhoney
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Registered: 05/23/99
Posts: 936
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Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #570993 - 03/05/02 10:22 PM (22 years, 19 days ago)

It would be a good idea to either sterilize or pasturize it before adding it.:)bluhoney 


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Information listed here is for entertainment only and is neither real or proven

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OfflineSplat
Deviant
Registered: 01/31/02
Posts: 80
Loc: Santa Cruz CA
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: bluhoney]
    #571115 - 03/06/02 12:51 AM (22 years, 18 days ago)

Pasturize it in a pillow case in the same manner ?


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You know what I always say....anything worth doing.... mmm....is worth overdoing!

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Invisible40oz
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Posts: 30,119
Loc: Sandy Eggo. Ca.
Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #571171 - 03/06/02 02:05 AM (22 years, 18 days ago)

yup.


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tiny_rabid_birds said:
"your avatar is dirty."

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Invisiblemycofile
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Posts: 2,336
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Re: Hmmm... Straw or compost? [Re: Splat]
    #571374 - 03/06/02 08:49 AM (22 years, 18 days ago)

Bottom layers seem useless to me, in theory and in experience.

Pasteurize casing mix in a pillow case in water, same temps and time. You need to squeeze a lot of the water out though, not just let drip dry. Or you can bake it dry in the oven at prescribed temps and time using your thermometer to verify your oven's accuracy. Then moisten with the correct amount of boiled or distilled water. This is a little easier to get the moisture content right.

The way I would do it though is to use coir (bed-a-beast works fine), put it in a cooler, add just boiled hot water per instructions on package. Stir to break up the coir and close the cooler for 30 minutes or so. Stir again to break up coir and add anymore water as needed. I like coir much better than 50/50+, not only because I didn't have to mix it, but because it performs better.

And that compost like recipe above sounds promising. Certainly worth experimenting with. I would try it if I grew, the wood shavings probably make a great contribution to the texture of the finished product. Why don't you make a picture tutorial on it to post in the pix forum?


--------------------
"From a certain point of view"
-Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi

PM me with any cultivation questions.

I just looked at my profile and realized I had a website at one point in time on geocities, it's not there anymore and I have no idea what I had on it. Anybody remember my website from several years aga? PM if so please.

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