The Mad Ass Scientist Returns

I had 3 1/2 pints of Honey water left over from the Honey Tek days which I gave up on due to Aspergillus formation, sporatic leap-off rates and Stamets general view on sugared waters as breeding grounds for all sorts of nasties.

Yet with the substrate of choice used in this experiment Honey water maybe viable.

2 1/2 pints refridgerated after 1 week of innoculation and 1 1/2 pint at ambient temperature brooding for 3 weeks were used.

A 45 gallon rubermaid(tm) trashcan full to the top of fresh horse manure was the reciever of these jars. A good shaking and all three were poured out onto the top of the manure. The lid was replaced onto the trashcan and it was weeled (they are very heavy when filled with fresh/wet manure) around the side for partial shade/partial sun exposure.

And now I wait. I will keep you all up to date on the results.

MAD ASS EXPERIMENT#3

A small amount of extra horse manure that wouldn't fit in the bin was placed in a hefty garbage back. 2 holes approx 2 inch in diameter were already torn in the bag so I left them as is.

A half pint of half colinized mycelium and half starting Aspergillus contam was used to innoculate the garbage bag. The mycelium only section was hand scooped out of the jar and broken up and thrown into the garbage bag containing the fresh horse manure. The contam remainder was hosed out onto the lawn for the insects to enjoy. A good squirt of water from the hose was used to wet down the manure and it was hauled to a more shady section to sit on the ground with the top of the bag loosely twisted and folded on top.

------------------
"I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments." J.M.

Northern Touch Spores

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
If these experiments work out for you, your going to have as mountain of spawn.
Good Luck

---

Well you know I got my fingers crossed but I am not shitting bricks after all failures end up going into the mushroom composter process and sterilization process anyway.

With all the fresh shit I am expecting a heapload of endemic bacterium, fungi and hopefully not too many dreaded nematodes. Now this is actually good news in my book actinomycetes infected mycelium grows almost twice as fast as mycelium running through sterilized substrates which is why all the dung teks seem to do so well.

I will admit to being real lazy and trying to avoid a 2 to 3 week mushroom composting cycle . The 45 gallons of horse shit won't grow through though because of the bulk it should have an anerobic core in it. I am only hoping to have a mass of mycelium that I can remove as the top layer and throw a chunk back in to the lower layer to start it going.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moe Howard:
Question, is this good for indoor growth?

---

Seems pretty good to me. I wanted to incubate the Jiffy in complete darkness but in a temperature zone that would at least hit the low 70's F if not higher. So into my dresser drawer it went! And I can't notice any odor with the fresh shit hanging around.

The Jiffy lid is all covered with condensation and I place a flashlight against it and move it around the lid looking for signs of the paper card stock. I see that a lot of them are almost half covered in dark brown wet water from the shit leechate. I'm happy

Mad Ass Experiment #3 looks good too. I don't think I have seen leap off yet but even better I havn't seen dead mycelium or large pest infiltration.

It's tough being a mad ass scientist when pulling off 8 college classes and a night life. 5am to 11:30pm 7 days a week! God I need a vacation!

[This message has been edited by The Learner (edited April 10, 2000).]

Mad Ass Experiment#1- Paper strips are soaked and nothing visible yet of great magnitude. Notices a few whisps of mycelial like structures on the dung in areas not paper stripped, another mold or mushroom lets hope it is fire fang that will combine with the mushroom mycelium and increase growth exponentially.

Mad Ass Experiment#2- Not much to see in the garbage can as of now.

Mad Ass Experiment#3- There is leap off or at least grabbing of some horse dung by the mycelium chunks. They are looking very white and very fuzzy. No rhizomorphs yet (curse them Eq.) may go squirt some more water in the bag as I saw that the turd near the holes were looking rather dry.

Mad Ass Experiment#2, lifted the lid and to my suprise saw a huge amount of thin whispy mycelial like threads all over the top of the horse shit. About 3 large circular areas affected kind of mimicing the dumping patter.

However I feel it would be fools hope to think this would be my mycelial and is probably inky caps or some other resident horse dung shroom. Not to worry though we will see how this rides out. Shit looking compact and kinda darker compared to Mad Ass Experiment#3 but I water #3 a lot and the bin has had no additional watering or even a first watering!

If it is my stuff and not the honey water feeding the native residents then these boys sure have found their RAMBO!!! --ahh what a pipe dream.

Mad Ass Experiment #3 Nothing much new here, decided to finally sick my butch ass water hose on the bag. Its still rather light green and I am thinking how happy I am its horse shit with such little bad odor. Got sick and tired of sitting on my haunches with the bugger on fine mist so I clicked in shower and just drowned all the shit in there.

Experiment#1? Well too lazy to go dig it out and look at it, will give it about a week before examining.

Change of plans, I need the 45 gallon deal to pick up some more (another 45 gallons) of fresh horse shit :-)

So I sectored the majority of the threaded shit to a container and used the rest of the 45 gallons of shit along with some remaining mycelial threads to build a large compost pile of grass clippings and horse shit.

2 feet high by 2 feet wide by 11 feet long 3 layers of horse shit stacked between 5 layers of grasses, paper, twigs and good shit, and a ton of water.

So Mad Ass Experiment #2 is now split between Mad Ass Experiment #2 (Sectored threaded shit in a box and Mad Ass Experiment #4 (The compost pile)

Thank you for your time.

The Learner

ThE UnSeEn

quote:

---

Originally posted by unseen:
damn learner,you've inspired me.I have acess to unlimited cowshit. THREAD OF THE DAY in my opinion.keep posting the progress.peace

ThE UnSeEn

---

We will overgrow the world yet!

I just came across another SUPER MAD ASS IDEA especially for those who don't have access to Horse shit or Cow shit but want the get the best Mad Ass Growth by Dung Inhabiting Shrooms so I am starting a seperate thread called "WormCastings - Ultimate Dung?" ... check for it!

The Learner, Oh lord, let these influx of ideas never end

I had turned over the long pile into one huge mound and I noticed the steam and good off gasing as I dug out the original pile. It then started raining! A gentle misty rain and the ambient lighting was a mellow 85% of norm. The whole block was silent with the people all snug in their houses. I was hit with an sudden overwhelming happyness for some strange reason, I had a mother nature grin.

I felt like I was very close with nature and communing in a co-creator state. Here I was tending a massive amount of substrate, creating a world for billions of microbes, thousands of fungi, and hundreds of insects to play out their lives and die and they were thankfull to me, and I felt it. I broke out singing along to Pink Floyd-Comfortably Numb while thinking about the future. These little lifeforms would not know my purpose but would only know I am giving them life, food, and shelter... if they could I bet they would errect little temples to me and do some arcane worship and start web sites and debate on chatlines about the meaning of life.

Ah well... it was totally bizzare and almost trippy but I never felt more alive out there.

Its amazing to compare the long compost pile when I was finished, it is probably near 20 feet long because I have also added another 45 gallons of horse shit with more mounds of grass clippings. The older end which I had finished tending is about 2 to 3 shades darker than the new end and I can see it traveling on its way to forest litter earthy tones of browns and blacks.

I turned around to discover HUGE white mushrooms smiling at me. Caps must have been 9 inches or more in diameter. White stems, white caps with cracked remnants of the outer surface material leaving curly flakes all over the cap. Stem white, hollow about 6 inches tall. Gills white.... wonder what they are, I don't have any non-(psilocybe and dangerous lookalikes) field guides to mushrooms. But its happy under the shade of a bush in the nice loamy soil of an underground composting experiment done years back.

Speaking of which maybe I had better move Mad Ass Experiment#3 to where the shrooms are growing, I notice that the black plastic bag got quite a good bit of direct sun. The mycelium/BRF-VM clusters inside are still alive and grabing ahold of the horse balls but no explosive growth yet. Notice a few small flies and beetles in there... hmmm

P.S. have to add this edit. This horse shit is great stuff to work with. No odor at all and lots of good fuel for the compost engine. I smell the wet grass way more than any detectable manure odor. If you got a choice between cow and horse go for the horse like industry does for your composting piles. If all you got is cow go ahead and use it. Donkey, Elephant, whatever you can get

[This message has been edited by The Learner (edited April 17, 2000).]

Mad Ass Experiment #4 Compost Pile Turned over last 10 foot half of the 20 foot pile and saw something in the corner of my eye while in the dissasembly phase. Close inspection revealed some clumbs of horse shit with thick white mycelium. Yes it could be another specied yet it is extremely similar looking to that found in Mad Ass Experiment #3. Multiple core temperature samples of its sister pile, the first 10 feet (turned over 2 days back). Spots run from 100F to 110F or so. Average color is now a nice deep darkening brown.

All other Mad Ass Experiments ignored for now in neglect-tek mode letting them do their own thing.

The Learner
The King of Shit
...it's all good!

[This message has been edited by The Learner (edited April 22, 2000).]

2 days of overcast weather cut down on temps and I saw some bizzare fruits in the garbage bag near the mycelium. Theres a massive run of thin non-cubie mycelium and two pins came up with mycelium spikes sticking out.. Looked like two tiny spiked clubs gladiators might wield ...

A day passed with a lot of stuff to do so I didn't catch up on it.. I went out and observed it and saw about 5 stems fallen over. They were from this fast growing thin whispy mycelium as the stems were very hollow with a mycelium outside shell only. Couldn't see any caps as they were dissintegrating already. No stain on cell membrane rupture (wasn't expecting any)... will watch the innoc'd mycelium and see if it overtakes the speedy primary decomposer and use its leftovers for food.

I have found that, for outdoor growth, all you need to do is get a bunch of dried dung (horse or cow) let it sit overnight in water and then crumble up with spawn and wait...

------------------
Be sure to check out www.3mshrooms.homestead.com for your spore needs