STrange, I thought I posted this several days ago. anyway, it went something like:
I certainly didn't intend to come across as patronising. I just think that the average home cultivator isn't equipped to measure the potency changes in any meaningful way. Regardless of the studies you mention, the home cultivator is judging potency via bio-assays. These tests have too many impossible to control variables to allow them to even be considered as tests of potency.
Also, I didn't knock millet, especially millet vs. BRF. But I didn't go from BRF to millet, I went from rye and wheat to millet. No noticable difference in potency, but again, only verified through bioassays. When comparing BRF to any grain, the variable that a typical home cultivator isn't going to account for isn't precurser levels in either substrate, but amount of nutrition of all kinds available to fungi. I'm sure you are familiar with the concept that any verm mixed into a substrate (as all BRF mixes are) reduces the total amount of nutrition available. A 1/2 pt PF jar has about a 1/5 or less of the amount of food as a 1/2 pt of any grain. As a starving culture certainly isn't going to produce as many actives as a thriving one is, comparisons of BRF to any grain are skewed in the first place. Comparisons need to be based on dry weight of nutritious substrate, not volume. Following a similar vein, due to it's size and shape, ime millet tends to be heavier per unit of volume than other grains. 1# of millet vs 1# of wheat would be a better comparison than 1qt of millet vs 1qt of wheat. Even at that, making the comparison based on a bio-assay is suspect unless you go through the trouble of doing double blind studies on your friends.
Now, while your fruits may seem more potent when using millet instead of BRF, I think that there are too many variables involved to say specificaly that it is due to the precursers in millet. I also think that for many users, simply telling them that the fruits were grown in a way to make them more potent will provide similar results.
I don't knock the work of the true scientists involved in determining potency variables, and I don't knock the attempt to incorporate their work into home practices. I just think that anybody using a particular substrate for the sole reason of increasing potency has either been hyped or is hyping themselves. Use grain because it's a more nutritious, higher producing substrate. IMO, none of the popular grains produces a noticable affect on potency once all other variables are accounted for as much as they can be in the home environment.
Now, some people approach things like this from the point of view of maximizing every possible variable, regardless of if the effect is noticable or not. The theory being that if you optimize enough difficult to notice variables then an effect is noticable. I completely agree with this opinion as long as people recognize that they may or may not see significant differences.
Again, I apologize for coming across as patronising. I just don't want anybody to get their hopes up for astonishing increases in potency, or for them to attribute any noticed increase to factors which may not really be at play.
-------------------- "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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