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Land Trout
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Sawdust blocks for outdoor beds 1
#27587555 - 12/19/21 05:15 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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 Wanted to share how I’m making blocks because there seems to be a lot of ideas being thrown around right now that aren't real proven techniques. And I’m not saying this is the one and only way to do this but it’s a proven way to make blocks to make outdoor beds. This is how I’m doing it for all woodloving psilocybes, as well as Wood blewits and Wine caps which are new species for me. Also I’m terrible at documenting and recording especially when it comes to measurements. I’m trying to do this in the simplest most efficient way that I know works. I’m always looking for advice in areas I can save time and money while increasing production. A lot of what I’m doing is feeling stuff out, and trying to base my feelings off of real experience I’ve had with growing and hunting mushrooms I’m always changing because I’m always learning something new.
Step one, lets start with a clean culture on agar. You’ve already done the real clean work, and have a living culture. Im not as interested in isolated organized growth with woodlovers, though my eye is drawn to it, I just don’t think it’s as important as the sectors are still widely developing and your fruiting sectors can be sorted out in the bed, with the knowledge I have it’s more efficient to isolate a heavy cluster of fruits and clone from that. Maybe when I’m old as shit I can look at a germ plate and tell what’s better. I’ve always used lme agar it’s always worked on 100% or the woodlovers I’ve tried. I have had dead prints, maybe someone who has more time and knowledge could have done something to get them to germ, but it’s not worth it to me. Example
 That’s a simple t1, and it’s a year old and I wouldn’t hesitate to put it to grain. You can see multiple sectors and diverse growth. I just don’t want any mold or bacteria, and definitely no bugs.
Step two, agar to grain. These jars were knocked with an Ps. azuerescens germ plate that was in the fridge for a year. I had a couple extra grain jars and lots of left over plates, so I found out woodlover plates can be stored for a year, maybe I’m just lucky. I am not encouraging using old plates, use the newest freshest plates you have, That’s just the example I have today.
 Just cut up the culture and transfer it to whatever grain you choose. The picture is oats, but Im also working with wheat. I just use what’s available. And use whatever tek for whatever grain your using just as you would for cubes or any other mushroom, don’t add any wood chips or sawdust or cardboard, there’s no need so any extra steps are just a waste of time and a stumbling block if you’ve never done this before. Also wood in a glass jar just fucking sucks, I know. Those jars took a little over three weeks to colonize.
Step three grain to wood My preferred bulk substrate has been straight sawdust. No bran, no soy hulls or any other nutrient additives, just wood. The nutrient additives are for fruiting gourmets off the blocks. I am trying wood chips mixed with sawdust this season, it’s adding a couple extra steps but I feel, opinion, that it would be beneficial to break up the consistency of the sawdust. However because I’m using raw chips from outside they have to be heat treated to kill any bugs that are living in them. I don’t know what temp a fungus gnat larvae or egg is killed at but I imagine any standard pasteurization would work, for me it’s just as easy to bag them and run them in a canner so that’s what I do, however then you need myco bags that can handle a pc cycle, I reuse them for this. I stick with hardwood sawdust and I felt the best has been from a sawmill that has a round saw, usually the head saw, as opposed to straight band saw shavings because then you get larger bits of wood shavings, however hwfp work just fine are clean and can be spawned to without having to pasteurize or treat in any way. I just don’t like how fine the dust is in the hwfp or off a bandsaw, opinion. I’m not even going into wood species as I feel it’s been a huge stumbling block for me and people get hung up on one species of wood just because someone from a certain region where there is an abundance of waste wood used a certain species and wrote the tree specie in the tek. people get hung up on using what that author used and then end up not doing anything because they can’t get that type of wood where they live. I do plan on getting a load of Doug fir just so I know. If you have fresh sawdust right off the saw or hydrated hwfp just bag and spawn to it. You can use myco bags if you want, but I used gusseted polyethylene bags that are like 20”x10”. About the same dimensions of a unicorn 14a which is what I use for wood substrates that need to be heat treated. And I just load them with sawdust and spawn. You can also just dump the sawdust into shoe boxes and spawn those. I spaw my bags outside in the open air a lot and it works just fine. The bags are around 4 quarts of sawdust and one quart of grain can go to six bags. The bags I’m trying with chips is about 25% chip 75% sawdust.
 You see the myco bag there, I ran it through a 2 hour cycle in the canner because I used older chips that have been outside. Two hours may not completely sterilize it but should be sufficient at killing bugs and mold, and any spore load of bacteria “should” be set back enough for the fungi to take a good hold. However I’m still experimenting with using chips in my blocks. Also if you get your sawdust by the yard and can’t get around to bagging it quickly you’ll need to at least pasteurize it, gnats and other fungi will start making a home it your pile after awhile. I’ve made fine looking blocks with earth worms and live plants existing with the fungi, but insects really make a mess, and do no good to your fungi. I do a clean fold of the opening of the bag and close it up with a zip tie.
I mix the grains up by getting some air in the bag twisting the top and shaking it up.
Sort of deflate and fold over or zip tie the top, set them on the shelf and wait. I know this is not sterile, but it’s similar to spawning a monotub, as long as your grain is good it’ll beat out the other organisms. I could do this process in front of my hood if I wanted to, but I really don’t feel it is needed as long as you don’t add any unnecessary nutrients to your blocks.

The gusseted poly bags I literally just drape the top over. I did a few tests last year and this was the winning way for me. And then Just let them colonize, I just do it at room temp, and once they colonize I move them to a cellar shed garage or barn that’s cooler or plant them right away if I have beds that can take them.
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OldManRiver
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Registered: 11/12/17
Posts: 416
Loc: Pacific NW USA
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Re: Sawdust blocks for outdoor beds [Re: Land Trout]
#27587564 - 12/19/21 05:24 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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If you are growing winecaps, a super easy way to do it is to use straw bales. Just soak them with water, insert some spawn, and keep them moist. You can get easily 10 lbs per bale, over several fruitings, and the bale will disintegrate into great compost.
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Land Trout
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Registered: 01/08/18
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Re: Sawdust blocks for outdoor beds [Re: OldManRiver]
#27587576 - 12/19/21 05:31 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Hell yes! Thank you! I’ve got lots of wet straw. Is this wet pnw weather alright?
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OldManRiver
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Registered: 11/12/17
Posts: 416
Loc: Pacific NW USA
Last seen: 8 hours, 5 minutes
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Re: Sawdust blocks for outdoor beds [Re: Land Trout]
#27587601 - 12/19/21 06:04 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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If you are growing winecaps, a super easy way to do it is to use straw bales. Just soak them with water, insert some spawn, and keep them moist. You can get easily 10 lbs per bale, over several fruitings, and the bale will disintegrate into great compost. Quote:
Land Trout said: Hell yes! Thank you! I’ve got lots of wet straw. Is this wet pnw weather alright?
They won't do much until spring. Mine fruit from late april periodically through the fall. You could definitely start them now.
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OldManRiver
Fisherman at large


Registered: 11/12/17
Posts: 416
Loc: Pacific NW USA
Last seen: 8 hours, 5 minutes
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Re: Sawdust blocks for outdoor beds [Re: Land Trout]
#27587604 - 12/19/21 06:07 PM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Land Trout said: Hell yes! Thank you! I’ve got lots of wet straw. Is this wet pnw weather alright?
One thing, my winecaps invaded my azure bed and took it over. They are very aggressive. Cyans seem to resist them fine, but the azures gave up. The winecaps spread rapidly, and over surprising distances. The azure bed was thirty feet from the winecaps.
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