|
Some of these posts are very old and might contain outdated information. You may wish to search for newer posts instead.
|
MagicalKnife
Shroomologist


Registered: 02/12/06
Posts: 135
Last seen: 15 years, 5 months
|
Liquid Culture Success?
#5480081 - 04/04/06 06:24 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Four days ago, I woss bored and decided to take a print of random (non-deadly) mushroom that was growing in a patch on my lawn.
I got a plastic container you put take-away food in, filled it with boiling water and added a teaspoon of solid non-liquid honey then microwaved it for 3 minutes in a 750W microwave.
After taking it out, with no preparation wot so ever except washing my hands for 2 seconds, I picked up a knife from my cupboard and flamed it with a match since I didn't have a lighter at the time. Soot covered it so I got a teacloth then wiped it off. I cracked open the lid of the container which smelt unpleasant and dumped some spores in, shut it and left it for a day at room temp by a window sill with a little foil to cover the top (room temp is 12 - 16 degrees celcius).
The next day I didn't see anything happen so I assumed that the 50 degree celcius (not sure wot the fahrenheit temperature is) temperature the solution woss when I dumped the spores in was too hot and killed the spores. I wanted to wait for it to cool completely but for some reason I thought there was something better to do so I put the spores in while the thing woss still hot.
With this in mind, I grabbed another knife without bothering to sterilize it, opened the lid and dumped some more spores in although not much as I dumped most of the print in the day before.
Two days passed with nothing really, on the second day I saw a very small speck of white fuzz settled on the bottom which got my hopes up.
Woke up today, looked at it and there was a mass of what I think is mycelium covering the bottom bit so I shook it a bit and watched it float around.
Six hours later it's almost doubled in size and growing at a huge rate.
Now that that's out of the way, I have some questions.
1. Should mycelium be pure white even though it's in a honey solution? Since the solution is still honey-coloured I can't tell exactly if it's pure white but it doesn't look dark either. If only I had a camera.
2. What are the usual contaminants that you would find in an LC? I've studied it hard and can't find anything but mycelium.
3. The whole purpose of not using sterility was because I'm lazy, it's not a psilocybe species and to see what kind of contaminants would grow so I know wot to look for when doing the real thing.
4. Why did it have two days of almost nothing then suddenly burst into action overnight, growing at an exponential rate by the hour?
-------------------- ?
|
mogur
regnartS

Registered: 11/15/05
Posts: 322
Loc: Puget Sound
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
|
Re: Liquid Culture Success? [Re: MagicalKnife]
#5480198 - 04/04/06 07:01 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
1. Should mycelium be pure white even though it's in a honey solution? Since the solution is still honey-coloured I can't tell exactly if it's pure white but it doesn't look dark either. If only I had a camera. Yes, at least cube myc is white/translucent.
2. What are the usual contaminants that you would find in an LC? I've studied it hard and can't find anything but mycelium. Bacteria, and it makes the solution turbid, or cloudy.
3. The whole purpose of not using sterility was because I'm lazy, it's not a psilocybe species and to see what kind of contaminants would grow so I know wot to look for when doing the real thing. Okay, but LCs in general are not as fussy about being sterilized as grain, for two reasons. They normally aren't rife with endospores which are the difficult contams to eradicate, and the high sugar concentration tends to suppress bacteria more than fungi.
4. Why did it have two days of almost nothing then suddenly burst into action overnight, growing at an exponential rate by the hour? Cuz it needed to figure what enzymes to produce that will break down the honey into usable (uptake-able) carbs, and when that happened, watch out!!!
|
MagicalKnife
Shroomologist


Registered: 02/12/06
Posts: 135
Last seen: 15 years, 5 months
|
Re: Liquid Culture Success? [Re: mogur]
#5480286 - 04/04/06 07:26 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
You're an on-to-it cat, Mogur.
Are there any websites I can look out detailing how the mycelium learns how to break down the solution?
The solution goes cloudy with mycelium (you can see the bits floating around) but not a "fine" cloud like a mist. That's alright is it? Or can the bateria form large colonies?
I looked at the honey tek for begginers and saw wot the myc looked like in the jar, has the same appearance as mine although mine's not as thickly colonized yet, just settling on the bottom and not necessarilly bound together strongly.
-------------------- ?
|
mogur
regnartS

Registered: 11/15/05
Posts: 322
Loc: Puget Sound
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
|
Re: Liquid Culture Success? [Re: MagicalKnife]
#5480415 - 04/04/06 08:04 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
There isn't a lot of specifics for psilocybes in the way of nutrient preference and mechanisms of enzymatic digestion. A few studies out there do give some clues to the effects of environmental and nutritional factors, but they are piecemeal and narrow in scope. I've found much more solid info just from microbiology texts and studies of more commonly cultivated mushrooms, but of course, it's a little too broad to be immediately useful. Look for general info on basidimytes, hyphea, and mycelium. So, I guess it's up to us to figure out the details.
|
|
|
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Shroomism, george castanza, RogerRabbit, veggie, mushboy, fahtster, LogicaL Chaos, 13shrooms, Stipe-n Cap, Pastywhyte, bodhisatta, Tormato, Land Trout, A.k.a 631 topic views. 20 members, 238 guests and 54 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ] |
|