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Offlineholofractal
Woodlover experimentalist


Reged: 10/14/18
Posts: 479
Loc: Pacific Northwest
Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas.
      02/21/22 07:33 PM

Many say indoor woodlovers are next to impossible, and even if, the yield is so bad compared to outdoors. Indeed, they are a challenge, but I think that they require new ideas that are outside the box of standard cube cultivation. That's a given, but what are those ideas?

Well, after some work and much, much failure, nature calls me to give me some inspiration. Sometimes, the answers are right before your eyes, so simple, that they are nearly entirely missed.

So a little filling in here. If any of you have grown woodlovers, let's say a tub of chips. You'll see that the surface will become extremely colonized, thick with aggressive puffy clouds.



Thing is, you never really see this outdoors, at least I haven't and not close to this level. What you will see is:



Or something to that effect.

So there is a difference, and I believe that's one of the keys. Ideally, you'd want to get the surface to appear as if it were outdoors, mostly mycelium condition in that regard. I've also thought that the seasons play a role in their growth, where we have spring, full of moist conditions to encourage growth, then summer, which can be hot and dry. The summer will stunt growth on the surface, among wind and light of course.

Point being is I am inclined to believe that treating an indoor cake as such to make it appear as if it had been growing outdoors might be necessary. Not talking about leaves and other organic matter, but stunting mycelium growth on the surface.


This idea has basis in reality. The woodlovers here in the pnw do fine in our hot ass summer in the abscense of water; they've evolved to cope. Maybe then, they've also become to expect such conditions?

Anyways, I came up with an idea to maybe test that. My "summer" simulator. Just a seedling heating mat and controller, placed on top of the shoebox, temp sensor placed just barely below the surface. 14 on / 10 off, for one week. Foam block to not waste half the heat. Temp is set to 83°F. 



Well, you'll also notice that the mycelium gets sort of hydrophobic in a way, almost traps a layer of air around it, which makes it hard to get water into the cake deeply.

Here's an example (not same cake nor recipie):



The mycelium seems to behave in this way. So, my point is, a casing here will be required, or at least some access to a moisture reservoir.

I did try a layer of soil sandwiched between the wood chip layers, but that's not the surface is it now lol? The mycelium in this condition, in a fridge, will repel water, doesn't store much water, so just dries fast. Never going to get fruits like that, ever.

In the wine fridge, I've tried to hold it at around 55F give or take a few degrees. There is a reptile fogger hooked up to an inkbird humidity controller. I did install extra LED lights but to be honest, they just increased the temperature undesirably, so I don't use them. I used an old PC fan to blow air at the fridge's cold plate, hooked  up to some variable DC wall plug.  Issue is with the wine fridge, it wasn't meant to be used with humid objects or pumping in excess humidity, so it is a little precarious getting the balance of temperature, humidity, and airflow right. The wine fridge model I have is MCWC50DBT, got it used on Craigslist, I really wanted a glass door.




The BIGGEST thing with this, you must absolutely extend the drain pan to an external water bottle, or you will basically piss all over the compressor if you use the fogger. You don't want a bunch of water hanging around main AC. All you need to do is get some clear plastic tubing, melt a hole in the drain pan, and then jerry right it in there and seal with some glue. It doesn't have to be pretty, just make sure it doesn't leak! Then, insert the other end into whatever container you want, soda bottle works.

You can also see the fogger tubing, I wrapped part of it in foil because that piece of shit cracked and would drip water everywhere, thus leak out the front and make a mess. The hole was made with a hole saw attachment on a drill, most of the space is empty, just lined with foam. You'll want to extend the fogger line in, down towards the bottom so any condensation can gently drain without splashing everywhere.



OK, now to the good stuff, this was done using a clone of my outdoor ps allenii from last season.

So after the "summer" phase with the heating mat, I did a long dunk, about 24h, flipping the cake 12h in, then the cake was then cased with some plain coir, very lightly, not packed hard.

Then, I let it colonize a tad, you'll see some tendrils coming in:



At this stage I popped the cake out of the tub, and placed it on the lid, transfered the cake onto a 12qt., using the tub as the lid. Just a few holes for FAE, 4 on each side, 2 top, 2 bottom, on each long side.

That was when I threw that mofo in the fridge. I would mist (even with fogger going) a few times a day, directly, with a spray bottle. They don't mind, they get rained on so I figured they'd not care.

A few weeks later (we got more back story to this :wink: ) I did see some pins!



Fuck, some side pins? Better than nothing! Long story short they aborted, I'm kinda learning as I go here so tallied another failure on the proverbial chalkboard, but I don't give up.

Anyways, the issue I've realized is water. They wanted water! Misting was not enough! The issue with the fridge is once it reaches temp, the temp will rise by 5°F until it kicks back on. The cake's temp maybe changed slower than the air, and when the air was colder and cakes were slightly warmer, the water evaporated off. I noticed a lot of condensation forming in the tubs, and that water had to go somewhere, but also, it was leaving something, the substrate.

So what I've been doing is dunking 2x per day in cold tap water, very briefly, just until my fingers hurt from the cold, tilt the cake and let the water dribble off, put back on the lid of the tub and put back in the fridge.

Ever since that, I'm seeing A LOT (relatively 😄) of pins, ON THE SURFACE of the coir. Fuck yes!



Here is a general view, I did break it in half for ease of transport.



Those are all new since the dunking!



Anyways, in short, I'm still experimenting, trying to dial this in. I think I'm on the right track, just needs tuning. I am also of course reproducing my work to prove to myself this is indeed working, and with other species. My goals are reproducibility, predictability, trying to keep the start to finish time as low as possible, and of course, getting yield to be something worth talking about. This is a net loss, but the knowledge gained is immense, and getting to know this group of Psilocybe, indoor and outdoor, has been a blessing. I've really enjoyed all this work so far, and hopefully I (and hopefully others!!!) can work towards making them a more worthwhile endeavor. We give a handful of species all the attention (and for a reason of course), but there's a whole world out there and they all need a bit of love :smile:

--------------------
Woodlover lover!
I am open to questions about wood lovers, I don't know everything, but if you like my posts and have a question, feel free to ask in a PM
I do a lot of indoor experiments. I, one day, WILL figure out a surefire method for indoor woodlovers. Nothing is impossible.

Indoor Woodlover experimentation Journal
Indoor woodlover information - condensed
Indoor azurescens :laugh:


Edited by holofractal (02/21/22 07:52 PM)

Post Extras Print Post Remind Me! Notify Moderator
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   02/21/22 07:37 PM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   02/24/22 03:49 AM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   02/25/22 10:12 AM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   02/27/22 04:52 PM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   03/03/22 07:51 PM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   03/16/22 06:22 PM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   03/20/22 12:55 PM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   03/31/22 12:26 AM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   05/01/22 09:50 PM
. * * Re: Fully indoor woodlover notes, experiments, observations and ideas. holofractal   05/06/22 11:11 AM
. * * Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. holofractal   05/06/22 11:16 AM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. holofractal   05/08/22 02:39 PM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. holofractal   05/14/22 04:09 PM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. holofractal   05/17/22 01:17 AM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. holofractal   05/19/22 09:39 AM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. roflcopterg   12/29/22 06:29 PM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. more4u2c   12/13/23 09:57 PM
. * * Re: Preliminary guide on how to get started with indoors. mredman06   09/10/23 12:56 PM


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