cybesa said:

So what about those big pieces of mulch on top?

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Tweeq said:

Lol. Yes. That's wood chips.

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Mr Piggy said:

I personally wouldn’t.  Woodlovers like wood chips that are chunks about the size of your thumb.

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Unless you're making sterilized woodlover blocks in bags with those sawdust pellets, you're going to have a bad time.

Woodloving psilocybes like wood chips, like the big ol chunks you see in tweeq's beds.  Not shavings, or sawdust pellets, just woodchips. 

Churpee Choozle said:

cybesa said:

Ive recently boiled some Alder wood pellets and they have turned into VERY fine powder.. can I mix this with beech chips of various sizes to create a great bed? I'm wondering what the best size ratios are and if mixing with super fine sawdust is good or not.

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Sawdust tends to sog up / dry out too quick. Plus it's essentially an industry byproduct... Wouldn't use it. You never know what else has been through that sawmill.

Compressed Alder pellets should have the same reddish color as the woodchips in Tweeq's bed (you wondered about the color). When you cut the wood, it initially has a Linden / beech kinda color, quickly turning reddish in an oxidase type reaction.

Question (perhaps for you, Mr P): I was told P. ovoideocystidiata thrives among Alder, but I don't have the right type over here. My first spawn is ready, would it benefit from being laid out under A. glutinosa or another Alnus species? Was a link ever proven? It obviously isn't a mycorrhiza forming species.

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Churpee Choozle said:

I get that. I wondered if the beds would benefit from being placed within the root zone of live Alder.
The association must be based on something else, like a moisture gradient or another niche overlap

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Mr Piggy said:

When we grow mushrooms we're not trying to mimic their natural environment, we're trying to optimize their potential in an artificial environment.

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ghiajake said:

Churpee Choozle said:

I get that. I wondered if the beds would benefit from being placed within the root zone of live Alder.
The association must be based on something else, like a moisture gradient or another niche overlap

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You're making the most common mistake of over-thinking things. Saprophytic fungi do not benefit from any live plants at all, other than the plants creating a shady humid microclimate. There is no "golden substrate" species of woodchips that works better for primary decomposers in any real measurable way, only a select few species that you shouldn't use due to natural anti-fungal properties. And WL's will even eat those eventually if mixed in with any old regular chips.

The key to WL's is patch location, substrate depth, shade, humidity, and consistent fruiting temps for a long enough period to initiate pinning. You will not get flushes like Tweeq's without those parameters being dialed in. And the most important part is your culture.... I am going to assume that Tweeq has worked his culture enough to properly clone for consistently even canopies. His flushes are not just 1st or 2nd generation MS culture... There is no magical shortcut to getting yields like his, it takes years of culturing because there are very few stable isolated strains available like with cubes. You have to understand that every new bed you make from cloned tissue to evolve your strain takes around 18 months before you're ready to clone the next generation. Learn patience.

Mr Piggy said:

When we grow mushrooms we're not trying to mimic their natural environment, we're trying to optimize their potential in an artificial environment.

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As to what Piggy says here, I completely disagree. "Artificial" environment is indoors, not outdoors. Outdoors is their "natural" environment, and their natural substrate is forest litter (sticks and leaves). They already grow "naturally" where conditions are optimal for them, that's why they evolved over thousands of years to need their specific requirements. What we do by building our outdoor beds is attempt to mimic their optimal NATURAL environment outside of their native geographic locations.

Yes, there are several people in here attempting to grow WL's in "artificial" indoor environments. But that is not the main focus of this group. People really need to stop being so arrogant as to believe we as humans can do things better than Nature, especially when everything we do as a species is an attempt to mimic what Nature already created long before it created us. Even a fully "artificial environment" is still just attempting to mimic natural environments in a controlled fashion. But as long as your beds are outdoors, you don't control shit....

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ghiajake said:

As to what Piggy says here, I completely disagree. "Artificial" environment is indoors, not outdoors.

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ghiajake said:

What we do by building our outdoor beds is attempt to mimic their optimal NATURAL environment outside of their native geographic locations.

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Stipe-n Cap said:

You cannot take an orangutan from the Congo Borneo

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