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OmnipotenTurd
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Please help me understand how to recognize when the veil looks right for harvest
#26459926 - 01/30/20 09:46 AM (4 years, 18 days ago) |
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What I've learned is it's recommended to harvest right before or right after the veil breaks. The idea, as fas as I can tell, is that once the veil breaks the mushrooms likely won't grow a lot more but will instead start releasing spores which makes a mess and doesn't bring any benefit. I have also heard theories that once the mushroom starts dropping spores, it's putting energy into spore production and is no longer producing psilocybin so waiting longer doesn't improve the quality of the shrooms.
Ok, so I'm looking at my first harvest of golden teacher and trying to get a feel for when to harvest. In many cases, it's very easy to tell, like when you can actually see the veil dropping and hanging off like a little tissue.
And I am starting to recognize shrooms like these, where the veil is visibly stretching and clearly starting to break up - these seem like they are in the ideal harvest time.

Then there are these smaller ones which have a sort of white ring that drops down from the main body - it's not really veil, as far as i can tell. but, it's looking 'open' so I harvest them. Perhaps these are just smaller, so they look different and haven't stretched out into a thin veil.

But I am never sure when I see shrooms like these ones below. They have that sort of white ring around them, but it's not really formed yet. Something is happening there, though!

It's those last ones that I am never sure about. Is there any rule of thumb, guide, or info to help understand when to take them?
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A.k.a
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Re: Please help me understand how to recognize when the veil looks right for harvest [Re: OmnipotenTurd]
#26460037 - 01/30/20 11:11 AM (4 years, 18 days ago) |
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All those pics look good for harvest, last ones could go maybe a little longer but won’t be much difference.
The veil usually breaks from the cap opening up so you can sort of gauge it by the cap shapes as well.
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TheApprentice
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Re: Please help me understand how to recognize when the veil looks right for harvest [Re: A.k.a]
#26460084 - 01/30/20 11:37 AM (4 years, 18 days ago) |
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the first veil tearing is a sacred time for most cultivators...
you can harvest whenever you would like after that point. over in amsterdam when you buy mushrooms at the coffee shops they come packaged looking like your first picture. before the veil tears or just after.
i personally like to let my caps fan out.
you want to harvest definitely before the spores drop, which is pretty quick after the caps fan out.
spores dropping onto your substrate signals the end of the life cycle, but you want to hold that off to get a couple more flush's out of your tub/cake/substrate
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OmnipotenTurd
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Re: Please help me understand how to recognize when the veil looks right for harvest [Re: TheApprentice]
#26460154 - 01/30/20 12:21 PM (4 years, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
A.k.a said: The veil usually breaks from the cap opening up so you can sort of gauge it by the cap shapes as well.
Ahh thats helpful. Thanks for all your help during my first grow!
Quote:
TheApprentice said: you want to harvest definitely before the spores drop, which is pretty quick after the caps fan out.
spores dropping onto your substrate signals the end of the life cycle, but you want to hold that off to get a couple more flush's out of your tub/cake/substrate

Thanks for this info.
Why don't we just want for them all to open? If spores fall onto the substrate, why is that such a bad thing? It will prevent further flushes?
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A.k.a
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Re: Please help me understand how to recognize when the veil looks right for harvest [Re: OmnipotenTurd]
#26460209 - 01/30/20 12:53 PM (4 years, 18 days ago) |
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No but they get everywhere and taste bad, and possibly the shrooms get bigger without producing more actives.
Not sure about that last one but I’ve seen it said.
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OmnipotenTurd
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Re: Please help me understand how to recognize when the veil looks right for harvest [Re: A.k.a]
#26461960 - 01/31/20 11:16 AM (4 years, 17 days ago) |
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Well, I didn't have a chance to check on them last night, and sure enough I woke this morning and the veils were open in all the shoeboxes and clearly spores had been dropped! The mushrooms that were bigger had covered some of the smaller ones with spores, and I could see it on the substrate.
They were bigger, though! They looked kind of sloppy, stainy, etc but otherwise healthy. Here's a pic from mid-harvest:

I did a little reading and it seems that the general consensus is if the shrooms are allowed to grow massively after opening the veil, they MAY not be adding potency and therefore would become less potent in terms of weight. However, since these just grew a little after opening up, I doubt that's an issue.
So, I plucked them and gently washed each of them in the sink - the spores came right off. One thing I noticed is that they didn't turn blue after being handled, so that's a concern. But, I'm curious if anyone has an opinion about whether this last harvest might be lower potency or not.
It's easy to say 'just try them and see' but time is limited and there's only so much sampling I can do
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