Seeker604 said:

Ben Phartin said:

Is there a consensus on which vessel to grow these in? I just started three SFF shoeboxes as they are unmodded. Ive never grown in tubs before only in bags, so I figured it was the most n00b friendly. 

Since they need more fae are there better options than an unmodded shoebox?

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Well, any tub/container will work. What matters is understanding the environmental controls you need to monitor regardless of tub/container.

You can do shoeboxes unmodded but will need to give them a ton of FAE once you've gone into fruiting. I personally like to use Bod's unmodded monotub tek for cubensis. And since Ps. Natalensis is conspecific with Ps. Cubensis - and based on the advice of all my peers here at Shroomery who have been growing Natalensis for a while now - you can use the same spawn and substrata for Nats that you would use for Cubes, and you'll still need to provide the necessary water and moisture content to the substrate, but you'll have to monitor air exchange and evaporation rates on the sub surface. Natalensis has a tendency to overlay, so you'll have to monitor that as well.

If you're only doing a few quarts of spawn, you could grab a 32qt monotub (with or without FAE holes/filters) if you don't want to have to babysit smaller shoeboxes.

I have 3 different varieties of Natalensis on agar right now in my LAGM journal, I am planning on using my Martha tent for them; but will be spawning to 6qt shoeboxes; 3 per variety so a total of 9 shoeboxes on three of my tent's shelves. This way I have constant fogger/vent fan control and can dial in the evaporation cycle to keep Nats happy.

But just realize once you understand the growth cycle and the environmental controls you need to tweak/monitor, you can get good results with Nats in tubs or shoeboxes.

Good luck!

Peace & Light,

Seeker604

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chris77 said:

i still don't see what you mean about Tons of Fae when using shoeboxes. i just don't see it. i have done nothing but unlatching early and dub tubbing later. that's it. no further caretaking. solid flushes of meaty mushrooms.

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Seeker604 said:

chris77 said:

i still don't see what you mean about Tons of Fae when using shoeboxes. i just don't see it. i have done nothing but unlatching early and dub tubbing later. that's it. no further caretaking. solid flushes of meaty mushrooms.

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You'd still need to fan the dubtub setup to get fresh air inside more often than you would with cubensis. Healthy Nats will grow straight stipes with full caps; not the spaghetti tangles a lot of people are getting. That spaghetti appearance (or bent over stipes) is an indication of not enough FAE with this species.

Unlatching and turning the lid upside down is FAE for a shoebox.

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Quote:

You'd still need to fan the dubtub setup to get fresh air inside more often than you would with cubensis. Healthy Nats will grow straight stipes with full caps; not the spaghetti tangles a lot of people are getting. That spaghetti appearance (or bent over stipes) is an indication of not enough FAE with this species.

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BlueAndOrange said:

Today is my one year anniversary of joining the Shroomery. In that time I’ve learned a lot, and completely changed my life for the better with these little fungi.

I’ve grown 2 varieties of cubes successfully, and managed to get my first success with nats. That would have been great first year success, but today I had my first harvest of my second year, on my anniversary. It was all nats. SFF Shoebox TEK in 44 shoeboxes.

I had some minor surgery last week and I went too far before harvesting these, but these were completely run with no interventions from me. I set up the boxes and ignored them for 4 weeks.

Of the 44 shoeboxes, only 6 weren’t caked in spores. I guess I’ll need to get spore prints from the next flush. Of the 44 shoeboxes, only one had overlay. I’ve been doing pretty well with that when it comes to nats.

Anyway, first harvest of 2023, first harvest of year 2 as a cultivator, and I got 8250g of nats. My dehydrator holds almost 2kg so this will be running non stop for 5 days. The extras are in paper bags in the fridge.

My 66qt tub used to collect my harvest. Yikes!

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RutherfordTheBrave said:

Anyone tried these in bottles or outdoors yet? I’ve tried my best to look through this thread but at almost 400 pages it’s kinda overwhelming.

Also curious about open air with a thick casing layer and humidity controls.

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Moopers said:

RutherfordTheBrave said:

Anyone tried these in bottles or outdoors yet? I’ve tried my best to look through this thread but at almost 400 pages it’s kinda overwhelming.

Also curious about open air with a thick casing layer and humidity controls.

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I have some notes that are essentially a summary of much of this thread, in a journal linked in my sig.

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That is a great summary thread you made Moopers.

myc_ousin_vinny said:

Bigworm said:

Holy shit I've been on here almost a year and never saw that feature! Wow I gotta start paying more attention to stuff.

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Damn! Just seeing that for the first time.

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I wish they had a tutorial on how to navigate this site. Trying to learn this site from a smart phone is a PITA. I just realized I've been up voting the wrong people's comments. Ugh

Seeker604 said:

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Norsern_vind said:

Seeker604 said:

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i still don't see what you mean about Tons of Fae when using shoeboxes. i just don't see it. i have done nothing but unlatching early and dub tubbing later. that's it. no further caretaking. solid flushes of meaty mushrooms.

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Had similar issues with unmodded shoeboxes and 32-45qt tubs for the last nat, running multiple ratios ranging from 2.5-4:1; only the shoebox made it, I believe (didn't take pics because I was so embarrassed with the 6g/qt result). It also took exponentially longer to fruit than I had hoped; think it was about 45 days of hell from total colonization, trying to keep things going along by attempting to address the ponds of metabolites and contams forming, which probably made things worse. Overlay was present in every tub and the one that made it only sent up side pins and nothing on the surface.

Cubes never gave me this problem and didn't in subsequent runs, but noticed a major drop off in quality/quantity and increases in contams using unmodded SBs and tubs and even the fish filter tek (gave me the best results historically), as well as attempting to exclude a liner. Tried out EZ's dialed in tubs w/ liners and things went back to normal, so I figured it was likely environmental factors; strange considering it's high humidity where I'm at, so maybe internal tub temperature and lack of FAE is the issue, alongside genetics not from the nat OGs here.

Hopefully EZ's tubs will fix the problem because I absolutely love this species and it's virtually unknown/unavailable in these parts.

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pm me your priv, will send you some good genetics.

chris77 said:

pm me your priv, will send you some good genetics.

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Thanks, Chris. I believe I already reached out during your last giveaway

Moopers genetics are also almost ready, so we'll see how these go.

Norsern_vind said:

chris77 said:

pm me your priv, will send you some good genetics.

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Thanks, Chris. I believe I already reached out during your last giveaway

Moopers genetics are also almost ready, so we'll see how these go.

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chris77 said:

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