Thinking about growing shrooms

Ive been doing a bit of light reading on Shroomery.org and have decided to try and grow shrooms. Do you guys think that $120 would cover for all the materials needed? And what exactly do I need to grow them? Is it still possible to get all the materials I need off the internet to be shipped to my area (in the US)? Experienced growers, please post! I'd love to ask questions and have it done properly so I don't screw up on my first try

 

well, you'll need to go to a container store or sorts and get a bunch of jars aswell as a tub to hold them in.

You'll need a humidifier aswell as a tank heater(get these at fish stores).
I've come to love cow shit when it comes to mushrooms, just inject the spores and watch them grow, though, if your fresh out of cow shit, then get some brown rice flour and some vermicite. You can get the rice at a local grocery store and the vermicite and lowes or home depot.

120 should be enough for all that you need to start. I'd recomend going to shroomery aswell as erowid and youtube for growing kits and techniques. If your going to do it, might aswell do it right.

A pressure cooker is also necessary.

 

you don't need anything too expensive really...unless you wanna do stuff that isn't too neccesary.

get some 1/2 pint jars to use for the cakes...also get vermiculite and brown rice flour.

get a low wattage light to use (a light with a blue tint is better because mushrooms like blue) it isn't entirely neccesary to get a fluorescent and a incandescent will do.

for fruiting get multiple 2 liter soda bottles, one for each cake. also get some perlite.
this is called a poormans terrarium. cut the bottle somewhere along the top where the bottle starts getting smaller towards the caps. the top part of the bottle should be able to fit tightly into the bottom portion. about and inch to an inch and a half of moistened perlite has to go to on the bottom of the bottle to keep humidity. you can find lots of information online about how to make a poorman's terrarium.

here's some sites you might find of interest:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1323317/an/0/page/0

http://www.fungifun.org/English/Pftek

http://www.spores101.com/



Poor Man's Terrarium.



Materials needed:

• 2 liter plastic coke bottle
• razor knife

This terrarium is made by cutting a section out of a 2 liter coke bottle. This serves two purposes. First, it allows you to put a fully colonized rice cake inside the bottle. The second purpose is it allows the volume of the bottle to be reduced to the point where the moistness of the rice cake can keep it humid.

Remove a section of the bottle using the razor knife. The cut on the lower part of the bottle is not very critical. The top cut is more difficult to do correctly. It needs to be right at the point where the bottle is starting to decrease in diameter. This is because the top part of the bottle is going to be inserted into the bottom part of the bottle and the two sections need to seal tightly.

The best thing to do is start lower than the diagram indicates and cut small sections off until the top piece of the bottle fits snugly and easily into the bottom section. Once you locate the correct place to cut for the type of bottle you are using, you can simply cut at the same place and make multiple bottles to handle as many cakes as you wish to fruit at any time.




The cap for the bottle must be screwed on tightly. A damp paper towel can be placed on the bottom of the bottle to help raise the humidity inside the bottle. Twice a day the bottle should be opened to allow new air to be available for the rice cake to consume. It is best to fan the rice cake to insure new air is surrounding the cake before sealing it back in the bottle. This is the major draw back to this terrarium. If you have a dozen cakes it can become a burden to exchange the air twice a day.

 

How long do mushrooms typically take to grow? I'm leaving for school in a month, or so.

Also, for the fruiting process, how much light does the fungi typically need?

 

they usually take somewhere around a month...a little more, a little less...depends on growing conditions and whatnot.

during colonization, you want the jars to get only a few hours of light a day. for fruiting you want the cakes on a 12/12 light cycle.

 

150 with a pressure cooker. then the spores are like 20$ max.

 

This ^ person has never grown mushrooms.

They can take anywhere from 3 weeks (if you wanna just grow mycellium and extract it) to 4 months (from LC to grain to bulk, then case), depending on how much you're willing to give a fuck. If you really want some answers, IM me (all my info is in my profile) or PM me.

 

haha well i think you only reason you know that i've never grown mushrooms is because i was recently discussing it with you =p

but everything i've listed here is what i've learned in my many hours of research

for p. cubensis, 4 months seems outrageous though unless you really didn't give a shit and did everything at a minimum..care to enlighten me?

 

Actually, it's because you don't really know what you're talking about. But it's OK. Mycology isn't easy, so just keep reading.

Actually, if you really didn't give a shit, you could have mycellium to extract psilocybin from in a couple weeks.

These are for a slow-colonizing Cube, or at temps too low (it only takes a couple degrees.)

LC - 1 month colonization. Not unheard of at all.

Spawn - another 2-3 weeks. Sometimes a month.

Bulk substrate - another 2 weeks to colonize.

Casing - it can take ANOTHER 2 weeks here.

Fruiting - if you suck at force-pinning, it might take you 3 weeks to see pins, then another 2 weeks for them to develop.

So that's 16 weeks. So roughly 3 months. I was a little drunk last night, but my point was that it can take a WHILE sometimes.

 

dude i've gotten all my information from the shroomery, multiple grow guides, and full length grow videos on youtube...this includes actually talking to people on shroomery, not just reading shit...i've gone over the pf-tek site a million times i have it nearly memorized so i don't see how i don't know what i'm talking about..



edit: i wasn't including casing or bulk substrate btw...it isn't necessary to grow mushrooms man all you need to do is colonize the jar and fruit the cakes...maybe dunk after each flush..

 

actually...come to think of it...some of my information even came from you -.-

 

About 6 weeks from injection to picking them, depending on colonization times in my experience. Dont go crazy, start small, buy a good PC and find a TEK that works for you then keep practicing, it gets to be second nature in no time.

 

Sorry, man, I know I came off as kind of a dick. I do that a lot, but I really meant no harm. I was just saying that not all your info is correct.

For example, you don't need light whatsoever during colonizaton, or really even for fruiting. You can get by with about 15-30 seconds (yes, I meant seconds) of light per day, or even none. The only thing the light does is tell the mushroom which was is up. They grow straighter for easier picking. It does nothing to increase yield or potency.

As far as fruiting from just cakes, yeah, you can, but I honestly don't see why anyone would. For one, I've had fuck all come from cakes before. I may have gotten 4 mushrooms to fruit from cakes. Don't know why, but they just never worked for me.

I appreciate that you respect me enough to value my opinion. No sarcasm. I try like hell to teach what I know and learn what I don't. I will say, however, even though I don't open my mouth without knowing I'm 110% right, don't take what I say at face value. Not only am I human and make (lots of) mistakes, but a lot of times I'll just give the general idea of things to make people curious. This way, you get enough info to work with (enough that you could fuck your grow up and figure out why for next time) but you still have some reading to do.

If you really want to learn what I know, you can PM me, or add me on just about any IM. All my info's in my profile. I'm not the best in the world at it (IMO, you can find those guys at Shroomtalk.com or the Shroomery) but I can help get you a decent harvest without too much work or money

 

Ok, I was under the impression that fruiting from cakes is the way to get shrooms. What is the "bulk substrate" and all this other stuff you guys are talking about. I'm not trying to act like a professional grower, I just want to know what's up with all the steps after colonization and birthing. Thanks.

The Mushroom Man

 

using the PF-tek I was able to go from spore print to cubes in about 6 weeks. it took about 8 days to colonize the jars and about another 30 day till fruiting(note all steps are not included). when I case things seem to take a bit longer. I would like to thank 36fucking5 because I learned a good bit from him as well as www.shroomtalk.com (better than shroomery.org in my opinion) but again thanks man without you I would have nevermade it this far.

 

I believe he may be referring to "casing" which is just one of many different method's however I would suggest that if you're a first time grower to start simple and use a tek similar to the PF-tek as it will give you a better understanding to the process of growing mushies and it's the hardest to screw up. lol

 

You can just fruit cakes, but it's not the most efficient by any means.

A bulk substrate is something like a mixture of vermiculite/coco coir/coffee grounds or horse poo/straw or various composts. You mix it with your spawn (AKA your grain jars) in a big tub, then throw a casing layer (like peat moss/vermiculite/crushed oyster shell) on top. The bulk sub provides extra moisture and nutrients so that you can get much better later flushes. It presents another risk of contamination, though, so it's usually not reccomended for beginners.

 

Ohhh, so kind of like using the cakes to colonize a big ol heap of another substrate, thus giving you a huge ass harvest? That makes sense, if I got it right. Yeah, I am going to stick to the PF, I don't want a ton, just anough for a few trips. Plus, not having an assload keeps me from doing it too often if I like it that much. Damn I'm lookin forward to my first shroom trip... Thanks for the info guys!

The Mushroom Man

 

I've decided that I don't have enough time to grow them. So I'll just buy the shrooms. How much should I take for a first trip, and should I smoke while tripping?

 

Yep, pretty much.

IME, it's not really too worth it to do the PF Tek without casing. It's just as expensive as buying them that way.