238 replies to this topic

[hyphaenation]

I guess, if u can keep the leaves from matting down with the verm ,then the texture should be good

Something struck me about what you said there. I did compact the leaves in the bottom of the jar and then laid loose leaves on top to mix with the inoculant. Do you think it would be better not to compress the leaves? I was concerned about large air pockets....

thanks

H

[golly]

I didn't say anything about your Weed jar cause i'm green with envy...heh..It is kewl tho.

Was just thinking about how leaves can matt together when moist..Mixing with verm should help prevent that..

[prism]

What if you went leaves and straw? The straw might loosen the leaves up a bit.:rasta:

[hyphaenation]

I did some jars of leafs and others of leaves + verm. Outside I mixed poo soaked leaves with shredded straw with oyster spawn. Just checking how the oyster takes to the leaves.

[myco-curious]

I won't be able to post anything on the topic until after the new year but I've gotten my hands on a 40 lbs supply of shredded beet pulp (the remains of sugar-beets after they've been pressed to extract the sugars) from the local co-op feed-supply store that I'm going to be testing out in the near future.

It's very similar to coco-coir in it's ability to hold up to 3-5x it's volume in water when soaked and if you take a look below at it's nutritional value you'll see that it's very high in calcium and crude proteins that (at least, so far, on paper) mycelium should absolutely go ape-shit over...

Nutritional Breakdown of Shredded Beet-Pulp.
Beet Pulp, Shreds


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Wish I had some results to post now but until then it'll sit in this thread as "theory"... But I'm telling you, I'm pretty sure this is a real, viable, cheap source of substrate here.

[hyphaenation]

Beetnicks... :rasta:

For me beets are much more local than coconut trees.

[hyphaenation]

The leaves on top looked a touch dry so I took some horse poop water and diluted it and sucked it into a syringe. PC'd the syringe like an LC and when it cooled "sprayed" it into the leaf jar. Hours later it looked a bit worse for wear for doing that but the next day it was twice as fuzzy and white. I think the RB liked its poo water shower.

Today i'm going to try chipping/shredding bamboo stalks that I harvested locally and dried. I'm curious how they do. Neighbours have normal sized patches that they never use a bit and could probably fill the yard with chips...

[MrMycelium]

this is a great thread. :headbang:

[hyphaenation]

Update:

- Garlic straw chips that were shaken are fully colonized plus a couple days. I covered the sub with tinfoil to repel light and put in a nice window.



- Garlic straw chips that were not shaken and had spawn dropped on top are almost at the very bottom.(picture coming. Mycelium is nice and rhizo.



- Buckwheat with no verm is doing okay. Somewhat stalling out to my eye but moving along. I think I was a bit adventurous starting with 1000 ML jars for tests.



- Buckwheat with verm looks pretty good. I think the verm throughout really helps the process of colonization. It doesn't look as pretty for sure, but it works. I'd esitimate they are 75 % colonized or more.

- Leaves with verm are not bad , moving a bit slowly. I think I will try again but not intentionally mat the leaves down in the jar.Thanks to golly for pointing that out.

- Leaves with no verm are doing better it seems. I did as I mentioned above give this jar a poo shower last nite. Like the above I will try this again today and leave them fluffy, or at least not pack them down as hard as I did.





The Bamboo chipped up really nice. It shredded it really. I'm now soaking the first batch in horse manure water. I plan on also running tests on bamboo straight with no dung or poo-water , but I felt like doing this way first.








More to come, feel free to join the fray

H

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[djsollest]

Brown Rice Syrup... its not really a substrate but you can mix it with things to make one, like Beet pulp shreds said by myco-curious.I have access to beet pulp pellets and will also try a G2G to it in the next day or 2. Brown Rice Syrup makes a good Agar mix,,, BRS Agar and it grew as fast as MEA with less contams...also had a better color to it. look for it at your local health food store next to the orgainic honey. Im still a new-B on his first grow.

[djsollest]

heres a pic of the one I use...

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[hyphaenation]

I'm excited to see beet fiber in use.

I inoculated the bamboo last night. This time I used the same RB ( ralphster ) for cube and oyster that I got going from store-bought. Its fun to experiment with the cubies , but I really want to see how oysters do as well.

In other news i'm going out on a limb and even leaving the vegetable kingdom. I've put a 2 inch verm layer in the bottom of a jar and then inserted a custom-fit poo-water soaked sponge. I plan on injecting cubensis LC water and observing... Not sure why i'm doing this :rasta:

[hyphaenation]

Buckwheat update. I think i'll have to do another test with less soak time.The straight buckwheat jar is getting wetspot badly and shutting down growth. The 2 jars with buckwheat mixed with verm are rocking along and are mostly finished. I'll fruit them and try again with straight buckwheat.

http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1194591312

The leaves are doing surprisingly good. They are even reaching down into the purposely matted leaves. I wan to try more jars that are unmatted to see if it speeds things up. also i'd like to try oysters on leaves for fun.

http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1194591312

Last shot is of the bamboo jars. One is oyster, one is RB cubensis.

http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1194591312

cheers

H

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[myco-curious]

I was talking to a couple stable owners about the difference between beet pulp shreds and pellets (i think you mentioned you had pellets) and they made it seem like they would expand out much the same way coir bricks do when exposed to very hot water. They said sometimes they presoak the pellets for their horses so they don't have to have so much fresh-water available ... which is hard to maintain for pasture horses in below freezing temps.

I'm still "shut down" until early spring. Promised the wifey I would build a new terrarium for the iguana (4ft. green iguana) after the holidays...lol. And we're talking about something that's going to take up half of a 10x10 room, lol.

[hyphaenation]

The leaves are moving along. Still wishing I had not matted them down but they seem to still be reaching for the bottom of the jars.




The bamboo has really surprised me ! After 48 hours the growth for both oysters and cubensis is excellent. The two myceliums look quite different. By the look of the picture the cubensis is way ahead but actually the feathery greyish oyster mycelium is there but harder to see in a picture. No dought about folks, cubensis likes to move through bamboo chips... its on !



I am now eyeing up all the patches of 15 ft tall bamboo in my area that people would be more than glad for me to clean up. I'd recommend that other people check up on bamboo and see what kind of growth they get with their strains. Redboy seems to really like it.

more later

H

please ignore the suillis mushroom pic

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[mycobri]

very cool experiments hyph:rasta:

i love mix it up subs :thumbup:

[hyphaenation]

Good news on the garlic straw ....

:dance: Garlic Pin Dance :dance:

Both the unshaken and the shaken jar of garlic are pinning ! Theres even the odd pin coming off garlic chunks stuck on the side of the glass. Cute lil buggers. I'll get pictures as soon as I can.

I also set the buckwheat that had verm mixed in to fruit. Today I will soak some more buckwheat for futher tests, this time with less soak time.

Come on leaves (can't wait to see them fruit)

cheers

H

[prism]

:dance::dance::dance::dance::dance:

[hyphaenation]

Finally got a couple of shot of the garlic straw pins. Its difficult to get clear shots for me. Here's the best I can do. Hopefully soon the fruit will be bigger and easier to film.





Also last night I decided to try a couple things that are new to me. Amaranth is a tiny grain, basically as small as they come. I believe its originally from North Africa like quinoa, millet etc.

I made up jars with straight Amaranth and others mixed with millet 50/50. I plan on inoculating these with spores momentarily.

Next I PC'd a jar of soaked Mung Beans. These are what you would call "bean sprouts" when they open. I soaked them until I could easily bite through the shell (about 8 hours). I'm not sure how legumes stack up to other grains, but will find out shortly.



More later

H

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