Hey guys, I cant seem to figure out why but Ive had nothing but failures in my attempt to cultivate any kind of mushrooms. Ive spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on all kinds of equipment, even a flow hood, and I do every single thing directly by the book and sterile as humanly possibly. Ive been working with the %22Golden Teacher%22 strain and just about the only thing i had any luck with was making a couple LCs, both of which after a while began to look lifeless in a way. Due to my exceeding skill in human error and failure, i decided to try another process where if irony continues to function properly, i will at last have a successful grow. Ive attempted to use many different substrate mediums, pretty much every single type Ive heard of on here. In all of my attempts i was using bags. Recently i decided that i would give manure (horse) a shot, but Im not about to pay such insane prices for nothing more than shit. Instead i went to a friends Stud farm and got a full truck load (standard 8 foot bed). I chose only the manure that was old enough to have absolutely no smell left and was dry to the touch, so i think its aged more than good enough. all around the farm theres mushrooms, you literally couldnt go more than 10 feet without stepping on one. I picked several main kinds i saw with intentions of posting them on here out of curiosity, but never got around to it. The one type i saw the most were what i believe to be liberty caps, though. Anyway, i departed the farm and began my journey home with my wonderful fecal matter. Once i arrived home i laid out a gigantic tarp and shoveled out the manure on it in one big pile, later mixing with it cocoa coir, gypsum, fruit bat guano, urea (45%25 nitrogen content), and typical field test amount of moisture. (i believe many of my failed attempts was due to too high of a water content) After mixing all of this up, i leveled the pile out to the best of my ability at about 6 - 8 inches. Then to knock up the pile i did two things; the first thing i did was pour out two jars of LC and just in case the LCs are lifeless as they look, i squirted out two 12 CC syringes full of spore solution. Afterwards i folded the other half of the tarp back over, rolled up the edges on all sides, placed rocks on the corners so they all stayed down and wouldnt unwrap. I think it actually might work quite well, the tarp will keep out all light and also keep in a decent amount of humidity when its baking in the sun. Anyway, i was just wondering what you guys had to say about all of this. Every other attempt Ive made as stated earlier has been a failure even though i followed sterility techniques to an absolute T and followed all other instructions and/or advice i was given. I figured it couldnt hurt just to give this a shot. After all, these mushrooms grow in nature all over the world every day and its not as if mother nature is wearing latex gloves and a face mask and working under a flowhood and shit like that. Ill be uploading pictures of my project tomorrow on this same thread if anyone is interested in seeing. And, if i have any success, ill have daily photo updates and a brief journal of what exactly is going on. the bed is about 10 feet by 10 feet and 6 - 8 inches deep as stated earlier, so if this does work what do you guys think ill be harvesting after a couple flushes?
Thanks alot for everyones help
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You are trying innovate before learning the basics. Experimentation is great, but you need to master a basic, proven method first. Once you successfully produce mushrooms with a basic method, you'll understand what the shroom cycle consists of and will be able to more safely improve upon it. Are basic methods going to give huge yields? Nope. Will they do better than repeated total failure? Yup. Don't deviate and you're almost assured a satisfying result for personal enjoyment and sharing with a few friends.
BTW, Mother Nature has a horrible success rate. There are spores all over cow pastures and they land on thousands upon thousands of cow patties. Mother Nature is lucky if she gets successful grows out of at least 1% of her inoculations, and even those have yields that would disappoint most of us based on the size of the manure substrate.
(I just posted the following somewhere else a little while ago)
Go here: http://www.mushroomvideos.com/BRF-Pf-Tek
Watch the videos, start to finish. Several times. Every step shows extremely reliable, extremely low cost techniques that reflect the most current practices. They demonstrate exactly how to use boiling water instead of a pressure cooker. They also show every step you'll need to do after that until it's time to pick. If you copy the terrarium EXACTLY, you'll get maximal results and spend less than most people (including myself the first time) who try to improvise.
Innovation is great, but it's best to master a proven method before experimenting.
Watch videos! Follow directions! Enjoy massive bounty of psychedelic fungal goodness!!!
-------------------- Check out my first ever TEK!
Shroom capsules with the Cap-M-Quik (pics)
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