In reply to:

3M's Dung Tek

I have used this particular Tek to grow mushrooms for awhile now. Credit has to go to Psychonaut for turning me on to using dung and also to the gremlin that screwed up and didn't follow my instructions. This is the result of his screw up and if it works for you like it has for me then I doubt that you will want to try any other way.

What I use:

* 1 5x9 aluminum bread pan
* 1 cup of colonized wheat
* a pillow case full of well composted horse dung
* a large pot of boiling water
* a bread knife
* a grow chamber



Step 1: place colonized grain in an aluminum bread pan and allow to sit in chamber until the grain knits together nicely(2 or 3 days). With this size of pan you get a layer about 1" thick.

Step 2: Bring pot of water to boil and submerge pillow case of crumbled horse dung in the hot water. Remove from heat. Allow it to steep for 45 minutes.

Step 3: Drain the dung and allow to cool overnight.

Step 4: Squeeze excess water from the dung with your fist and crumble it over the grain in the pan. Fill the pan to the lip with the crumble dung. Consider the dung as a casing. Place back in your chamber and keep humidity around 85-90%

Step 5: Initiate pinning when mycelium starts breaking through the surface.

Step 6: After you have harvested your flush remove the mycelium from the pan and gently hold it on it's side. You will see the line where the dung joins the grain. Carefully slice off the entire dung layer and recase with fresh dung. Repeat steps 1 to 6.

After the 5th flush remove the dung layer and crumble the grain into fresh dung filling the pan to about 1/2-1" below the edge and case with more dung. Post flush in this phase slice off the top 1" of your mycelium loaf and replace with fresh dung again.

My record using this method is 9 flushes and 4 months before contams claimed the pan. You will find that your subsequent flushes are larger then you are used to since there is more nutrition available to the mushrooms then when using verm or peat based casings.

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