75 replies to this topic

[YoshiTrainer]

I only know of one other person currently working w/this species so this thread might not be very active. There is a person on the other site that fruited these but gave very little info on how it was done. Hopefully this thread will openly share ideas on how this species should be cultivated. I currently have a few pints of wood fortified grains and am leaning towards a sub of COIR/verm/coffee/wood/+, similar to Semp, Caerulescens and Zapotecorum.

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[coAsTal]

I'll be watching this thread with great interest-- this is one of my most sought-after mushrooms to grow if I can find them one day.

FWIW, I know Zaps love straw, coming from an old hand that I communicated extensively with, so consider including some of that in one of your containers, and don't forget to try a simple BRF cake-- they work on damn near everything and could get you some easy fruit to print and/or clone

 

Very excited to see your progress, and good luck Yoshi!

[YoshiTrainer]

Thank you for the tips coAsTaL! One of the other subs will be straw/Hpoo/wood/+, for sure. I think I have 3 pints of Auck grain colonizing so I might try a wood based sub for curiosity too? Funny you mention BRF, I also have Auck on 1lb of brown rice to test for edible mycelium. It seems to really like brown rice. IF I can manage a clone or print, we'll both be doing the Snoopy dance!

[SporeyMF]

Welp! This is a new one for me all eyes are open

[coAsTal]

I poured 20 new plates of agar tonight, in addition to making three new LC jars up.

Tomorrow morning I will be putting these graciously given spores to agar, in addition to some new (to me) Zapotecorum genetics (since they should grow in very similar conditions)

 

Yoshi-- GAME ON!!!

[AlisonWonderland]

cool thread yoshi =) pulling up a chair. . .

[coAsTal]

OK, I put some of the Aucklandii spores to 2 agar plates this morning as planned.

Also nocked up 2 Ps. Zapotecorum plates.

 

I know Zapotecorum do well in straw base subs-- and they are also known to grow fine on BRF cakes.

My feeling is that the Auck's should be OK on BRF cakes as well...

 

So my roadmap is to start these both the same way.

Once I get good clean T1 (or T2 if needed) plates I'm going to get them into a LC.

I will use that LC to nock up trays with BRF/verm/and added ~10% straw pellets to air them up.

 

The meal prep container dimensions are 5" x 7" with sub depth just under 1". 2x 1/8" holes covered with micropore tape are on the lid sides in opposite corners.

Total weight of all ingredients averages 200g.

I'm making the sub airy and using LC to colonize these as quickly as possible--- these are just intended to get fast fruits to clone.

I made up 5 of these last night just to let sit for the next couple weeks and see if they are able to stay properly hydrated and sterile straight from the PC (90min @18PSI). If it works I will use this method again to accelerate germ-to-clone times for all my other grows.

 

Once I get a good culture for primary use, I'll nock up a mycobag with a couple pounds of sub for the main show.

We know that Zaps will do well on straw, so that will be at least 50% of my base for both.

I use a pet litter straw pellet product that becomes as fine as sawdust when hydrated.

 

As for the remainder, I have more research to do-- but I have seen where Auck's seem to favor clay in their natural environment, and I have heard that Zaps are found in clay rich soils as well-- so I'm thinking of using some of my local orange clay as a minor additive along with some rock and pumice to hold water and keep good water content. Still thinking it over...

 

Very excited to see how it shakes out... and I'm wide open to opinions and experiences!

 

 

 

[YoshiTrainer]

Good job coAsTaL, you are off to a great start! I think technically, Auckladiae is the same as Zapotecorum, just with a different accent. :)

I have both Auck and Zap on a pound of brown rice each, to test for active mycelium. They both seem to really like it so I would guess your mix with the BRF would work out well. Smart to do test runs on your containers. If the don't hold hydration, maybe some parafilm around the seams? I need to start working with LC again or maybe even Faht's GLCs, they really do speed things up.

I agree on adding straw and wrote a couple recipes with good % of straw in them. Your idea about using some of you local clay is intriguing too, maybe as a % of your sub or added to your soak water? Rock and pumice, maybe some nearby pine bits too? I'm excited to see what happens!

Unfortunately, I had a nasty bacteria outbreak that has now claimed 8 jars and possibly 2 more. So, back to agar. I did manage to put a pint of Zap grain to 3 qts of sub. This will be interesting, assuming it doesn't go bacterial. I made a sub for a pint of APE and noticed the APE was starting to go bacterial, so I swapped Zap. The sub is straw/Hpoo/verm/coffee/cacti soil/gypsum and chicken feed. If I'd known I was using Zap, I'd added some hard/soft fuel pellets to the mix. The pint of grains had maybe 1/4C fuel pellets in it. Next chance I get, I'm looking at using a similar sub to Panaeolus (and others) and add some fuel pellets, straw/Hpoo/COIR/cacti soil/+. I was also thinking of a sub with straw/Hpoo/fuel pellets (1/1/1) plus COIR, cacti soil, +. The subs will get put in bags and sterilized 2hrs. Im hoping the minerals in the powdered chicken feed will mimic some of the ones found in the clay soils they grow in. For casing, I'll probably stick with COIR/verm/playground sand (1/1/.25). I sterilize my casing too, in the oven at 250F for 60min.

Edited by YoshiTrainer, 10 January 2021 - 01:18 AM.

[newmoon]

I've tried zapotecorum on cased PF cakes quite a few times over the last year and a half without success; might just be something I'm doing wrong, but it doesn't seem so reliable to me. Semperviva, mexicana, etc do fine on PF cakes in the same conditions for me.

[coAsTal]

Sorry that so many of your jars caught the evil green-bug-- I spent the first 6 months of last year battling a seemingly invincible contamination monster-- it's what killed off my first Zap efforts over and over again. Learned a lot over that time period though.

This new place allows a (very small, but) dedicated clean area that has helped a lot.

That's why I'm comfortable enough to expand to having multiple mini-projects running simultaneously.

 

I see no reason that your APE sub wouldn't work with zaps-- it looks like a mostly common sub profile to me that seems to work on most everything.

 

These PP5 trays are holding in the moisture just fine so far. Here's a pic of them before PC to show the sub consistency

 

and this morning, three days post-PC

 

Based on my experience with using these as cactus seedling trays, these should hold their moisture content for at least a month or more-- I have some that held the same condensation from when they were made for several months. These are intended as meal-prep containers and the rims are air/water-tight. You can fill them with soup and turn them upside down with no leakage.

The difference here is the holes drilled in the lids with the micropore tape. I think the exposure to dry air will be minor enough to avoid significant drying, and recall that I will use LC to nock them, so that will add additional hydration by default even if they dry out a bit. 

 

RE: the clay soil and pine straw-- I have miles of each around here. I'm going to try and find some well-aged pine detrius and play around with it a little this summer.

Might be a matter of reducing down to half-pint sub quantities once I get a clone to A/B test and see if anything interesting happens with pine/clay/rock. My gut says the pine factor may be more incidental than essential, but the clay... well we'll see.

[coAsTal]

I've tried zapotecorum on cased PF cakes quite a few times over the last year and a half without success; might just be something I'm doing wrong, but it doesn't seem so reliable to me. Semperviva, mexicana, etc do fine on PF cakes in the same conditions for me.

For reference, I've seen several growers show that PF-tek/type cakes can work for Zaps--

 

One thing I'm doing very purposefully is leaving out a casing on these trays- I want them heavily consolidated first, and only then will I case.

I've been told that sect. Zap success improves a lot if it's well consolidated before casing.

 

In fact, my last attempt I made the mistake of casing when I laid the grain, and was warned that it may have screwed my pooch-- which it did. So going forward, it'll be letting the mycelium fully overrun the sub before casing and putting into fruiting conditions.

 

Whether this is an air access issue (casing seals up the sub too much) or what, I don't know-- but I'm not trying that approach again.

[newmoon]

That's really helpful to know! Seems generally that it's good with these slower-growing species to move slowly on casing, etc.

 

Yeah, I've seen reports of successful PF grows for zapotecorum, and caerulescens too. Not sure if it's just bad luck with genetics or what on my part.

[AlisonWonderland]

Great stuff guys! Taking a break from my lab but always love seeing what the mad scientists are up to these days!

 

Covid shuttered our farm and health food store and now have to work extra =( 

 

Hope someday again  *crossingfingers*

[coAsTal]

Got some life on my Auck plates-- too soon to tell how strong it'll look yet but I'm pleased. My Zap plates aren't germing yet-- but I expect them to take a long time....

 

[Jrotten]

Off topic... are your Zapos var Australia? Either way are they painfully slow? Mine aren’t dead, they just took forever on agar and now forever on grain. Pretty sure I need to reset, but I have so many species going at once and so much else going on I’m having trouble convincing myself to start over with anything right now.

[coAsTal]

Afraid not-- they're Mexican. I'm permanently on the lookout for any and all sect. Zap lines from Australia, but aside from the above Aucklandii bounty, I have yet to be so blessed with any other than "regular" Zaps.

And yeah, the culture I worked with last year took AGES to do anything, and eventually went bacterial-- but on agar it was actually fast. If I can get these plates alive I'm definitely going LC to nock up with-- I think that will go a long way to speed things up (for Zaps anyway-- they're going to be extremely slow no mater what)

[YoshiTrainer]

That is so sad to hear about your farm and store Alison!


I think we are up to about 4 people working w/this species now. They were wild collected and had some orange funk when mine sprouted. Both zap and Auc grow decently on fortified grains for me. The zap grains i added to a cube sub seems to be colonizing pretty well. I plan to it let sit for at least a month before casing.

@JR, my zap are supposed to be from Aus.

[Jrotten]

Thank you, I just need to start over. I did coffee soaked WBS and it is persistent. It doesn’t stall, it just moves in slow motion. I need to pour plates and start over.

[newmoon]

AlisonWonderland, sorry to hear about the situation! Your grows and photos are super inspiring, hope you're able to pick it up again soon.

[YoshiTrainer]

JR, I did a coffee soaked grain for a cube run and it behaved the same way you describe your Zaps. On the other hand, coffee in my bulk seems to work great!