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captainbonkers
Stranger
Registered: 10/04/07
Posts: 42
Last seen: 15 years, 11 months
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gathering information
#7872740 - 01/13/08 09:40 AM (16 years, 19 days ago) |
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Greetings.
Thought I'd share my latest experiments. Trying to nail my substrate and have been trying many different things, mostly involving coir/coffee substrates. I think I found the truly supreme substrate, will get into that in a moment. First the coir.
First, the last trays I will ever use:

They were a straight mix of coir & coffee, with some ph buffer. The stems are thin and they are tall, two things that are no good.
Here is the first of my new monotubs:

According to a tip by Sillicybin, I wanted to try a side by side of with and without adding a little chicken shit to the mix. I had done two of each, but one without got mold, so I'm left with one without the shit, and two with. As you can see this one (without) has fruits that are the same (tall & skinny) as the two trays above.
The following two are the ones that have chicken shit in them:


as you can see they're not as far along as the other one, but the results look promising. The pins are MUCH more robust then the ones without the chicken shit. I'll follow up with a few more shots in a few days once they've matured. Very optimistic about adding around 5% shit, looks like there will be a considerable difference.
As well, I got a few sweater tubs to do some more side by sides.
This one was birthed a few days ago and should start soon. So far it's taken approx. 8~9 days for my coir to pin. This tub (with the foil in the middle to separate) has chicken shit on one side, and none on the other. Wanted to get some good evidence as to whether or not there was any difference.

In the spirit of experimentation, I did two others. In one I used a vitamine enriched calcium/phosphate bird vitamin thing to buffer, and the other half powder ph buffer for aquarium use. yes yes I know that neither of those are ideal, but that's all I can find where I'm at.


By the way neither of those two were cased. I'm going away for a while soon and I don't have time to wait, so they had to go right away. Also my first ones not using a casing, so they will also provide some valuable information. Both of them also have the chicken shit in them.
As to the master substrate that I mentioned:


not sure if anyone remembers the thread report I did on my visit to a real deal mushroom farm. I had picked up a dozen of their special bags that they use (in the thousands) to grow.
Not going into the details of the mix right now, mostly because I don't edven really know, but suffice to say that they've been in the business a LOOOOOONG time, so goes without saying that they probably have their shit DOWN.
I had inoculated the top of the bags with some rye, and left them for a long time because frankly I didn't know what to do with them, or what to expect. After they were all colonized to around halfway down the bag, I took two out and tried to fruit them. It looked promising, so I took all of them, removed the plastic where they were colonized, and put them in some rubbermades.
Lets just say that I'm pretty fucking impressed.

As you can see, the fruits are muCh thicker, and of greater size. I know that they're not in the same quantity as the casings, but I believe that they're just getting started. I had picked off a few huge fruits from one of them, and immediately more began to grow out!
These provided my very first 3~4gram dry fruits. When I get back, I will get a larger quantity of them, then just dump the magic substrate into monotubs. Very excited about that.


 I'll say sorry in advance because this is actually more of a gloat about having access to this wonderful resource, and I won't be able to field any questions pertaining to their contents, as it's a trade secret of their producer. I figure it's fair enough, seeing as I can't get horse shit here, (don't ask) so I can't reap the benifits of using that as a substrate, as many of you can.
However, if using Sillicybin's advice works out than maybe coir/coffee/chicken shit will pan out to be around the same anyway. Will have to do many more experiments in the next couple of months.
Stay tuned for updates on the chicken shit.
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Sillicybin
Registered: 02/14/05
Posts: 2,134
Loc:
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What you are noticing so far has been consistent with my own results. The pinset was actually better on the tubs that were coffee/coir, but the fruits were much larger and denser on the tubs with the chicken manure, which resulted (for me) in 25-40% more dry weight.
I have noticed in both situations though, casing does help improve pinsets and yields.
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captainbonkers
Stranger
Registered: 10/04/07
Posts: 42
Last seen: 15 years, 11 months
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Re: gathering information [Re: Sillicybin]
#7887808 - 01/16/08 10:40 AM (16 years, 16 days ago) |
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Well the verdict is in..
Here's without the chicken shit:


And with the chicken shit:




The tub in the last two needs another day before they're ready, but the pictures speak for themselves.
Just as the man said, MUCH larger and MUCH thicker! All of the stems are 3 ~ 6 times thicker! YOu can't really tell in the shot, but after I picked them I noticed some HUGE stems lurking about.
GREAT tip Sillicybin, ~5% chicken shit will now be a permanent addition to my mix.
Thanks again.
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Sillicybin
Registered: 02/14/05
Posts: 2,134
Loc:
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http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1117152258
Lookin' good. The supplemented tubs look SO much healthier.
Credit goes to RogerRabbit and Agar for originally suggesting composted chicken manure as a supplement to coir, though.
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