
Fire fang in Horse Manure
#1
Guest_freakachino_*
Posted 01 November 2005 - 06:26 PM
I always try to wait until I see firefang on my manure before I pastuerize it for use. These pieces always crumble the easiest for me and have the best texture.
If you see pieces like this out in the pasture or in the pile your picking your manure out from, try to get these. They can be used immediately without waiting to dry it out. Just crumble and pastuerize.
Hippie, I hope you can add more beneficial comments on firefang then me. I read all of mine off of composting links etc. But I know you'll put it in better terms for mushroom cultivation.
#2
Posted 01 November 2005 - 07:23 PM
#3
Guest_freakachino_*
Posted 01 November 2005 - 08:03 PM
This is just the stage I like to see my manure at before I pastuerize and spawn to it.
What do you mean you saw trich in it? Was this dried manure?
#4
Posted 01 November 2005 - 08:35 PM
trich will come out when U dont follow procedure and get enviroment screwed or dont spawn heavily so substrate doesn't colonise in time. The spores are everywhere, always, except in Ur pc'd jars!
Anyway trich is the pits, pray I don't get struck down for taunting her.
#5
Guest_freakachino_*
Posted 02 November 2005 - 12:35 AM
I like to lay my manure out on a tarp on the garage floor. Then I stir it up a couple times a week. I like it so its not a thick huge pile. I've never had green on my manure, but I always leave it inside so it doesn't get rained on, and its always got air circulating around it. I'm glad that worked for you and it all came out fine. I'm sure there was mycelium of some sort growing on it if you had it in a wet humid environment.
#6
Posted 02 November 2005 - 09:25 AM
#7
Posted 02 November 2005 - 09:30 AM
aged field gathered manure,
it already kinda self-composts
as it lays out there in the weather.
archive material,
nice pix.:kewl:
#8
Posted 02 November 2005 - 09:37 AM
#9
Posted 02 November 2005 - 09:43 AM
more info
old japanese method for composting fresh manure.
one takes 1 amount of fresh manure,
1 amount of plain earth,
about 5 kilo of wheatfibers (that what makes the differce between white bread and full fibered bread)
a little yeast and some yoghurt.
Mix the earth, manure ands fibres (dry)
then add water,
until having a nice water content, not too moist not too dry (you know) yeast and yoghurt (20 cl)
pile it up, about 50 cm high.
cover it to prevent drying.
Turn it over twice a day (this thing heats up alot)
and after a week (max 10 days) you have fully compostated manure.
#10
Guest_freakachino_*
Posted 02 November 2005 - 10:23 AM
My thinking is, the less breakdown of material by heat composting the better for my mushrooms. I think more of my manure than composted broken down material. I think of it as food. Its got the hay left in it, the grain left in it. This is one of the reasons I like to use horse grain (sweet feed) that is fed to the same horses that produce the manure. I guess I like to view it as a close relationship between food source and mycelium. Strange as that may sound.
But Captain Max is right, if you want to do it the same way as all other "by the book" composters what he says is correct.
Hippie, I have just been reading on that japanese composting recently. I found it really interesting.
#11
Posted 02 November 2005 - 04:38 PM
Fresh is fine hip but the firefang won't show until it's composted for a few days by which time it won't look like fresh anymore....
#12
Guest_i'm fun, Gus_*
Posted 02 December 2005 - 08:43 PM
anyway-
I have seen many white strands stretching from one piece of manure to another in active growth and the conditions for it's growth seem to be adequate moisture levels and 75-90/F heat.
So, I think that if we want to create lots of firefang then we need to build and handle our piles accordingly.
The center of a fresh, classic (got yer browns and greens proportioned?) compost pile is going to get about 150/F. Too hot for our purposes. And yes, 150/F is supposed to kill weed seeds and ideally speaking, ok, but in practice, no, it hasn't worked for me.
So keep the pile warm and not hot by keeping it medium to smaller. Covering it and uncovering it can help regulate the temperature also. Covering manure discourages the release of it's nitrogen and carbon as well. FYI-A layer of just two inches of dirt will accomplish their preservation.
Hydrate the pile as needed but don't soak it. We want the consistancy of a barely wrung out sponge.
Fortify your pile with amendments and additives if you like, these will begin to be distributed and processed right in the pile if the micro workers are on the job.
I think the firefang probably lives in the soil. Innoculating your pile with active garden soil does transfer zillions of micro workers to your (re)construction site even if it doesn't transfer firefang.
I wonder if there is benefit in innoculating a pile with the psilly herself so as to provide custom infrastructure building blocks for our flushes to come.
Re the heat encouraging microbial activity: yes and no, the microbes which benefit our plants need at least 50/F to operate but 150/F kills them in minutes.
Microbial activities and their corporeal substances are what makes the difference between compost and manure.
They are in the yogurt and the yeast. You can kick start a pile by pouring a beer on it as well. Large populations are in the urine but much of that is generally voided by inadequate preservation facilities. Bacteria are busy boyz and they make cow patties into micro burgers in no time. Microbes can colonize the substrate of manure at a rapid rate and according to Dr. Hulbert, discounting death, one microbe would enable a mass of generational offspring equal in size to the Earth in 24hrs. This is equal to the human growth curve from it's origin til now. (he's got a chart and everything, you can even see bacteria grow in a time lapse)
anyway~
Not only do the wastes and corpses of microbes make great baby food for our plants but the microbes (like myccorrhiza) are also quite happy to participate in other synergistic relationships with plants. Microbes exchange many materials with plants in the root zone.
*gets up on soapbox*
The possiblity exists that many secondary psychoactive compounds are formatted by or fortified by the trace nutrients offered up by these traditional microbial root attendants.
*stands on tippy toes on soapbox*
Microbes are obviously one of the most likely catalysts to inspire any evolutionary advances regarding the formation of active compounds in flora.
Is sterilization really all that necessary in mycoculture?
i think i shall be rejecting this rejection of our microhelpers on the grounds of Darwin's respect for God
{the thought of god being a product of evolution seems quite possible to me, he didn't make it in 2000 but he might be here yet...}
Long live micro macro cultivation~~~~~

manure
ya got the Ma, which is good
and the Newer, which is also good-
Well, as Freakachino pointed out, and what points they are girl, you gave me an *ardon and i ain't even got one to get *ard..
ok, what you put into it is-
hey, puddin, do you want a candy cane?
yup, what we put into them is what we can expect out of them
*cough*
If you feed your animals sweet feed then sweet feed is what you will get out of them. Mineral rich grass will yield mineral rich poopoo.
potash, N or carbs- it seems to apply to all of it
We can actually guess the fert value of our sweet dung if we know the content of the sweet feed we are putting out.
80% of the nutrients ingested by milk cows will be excreted
90% by fattening cattle or hogs
age, health, products produced will affect this figure slightly
Species also affects it.
The average content of manure is 1.5% each of N-P and K.
(.5% in fresh, due to water content)
These nutrients are not all excreted in the solid dung.
dung contains 1/3 the nitrogen
and the urine has the other 2/3's
dung has 1/5 the total potash and nearly all of the phosphoric acid
urine has 4/5's the potash and hardly any phosphorus
Using rotted manure for it's texture is an admired technique in my gardening book and they agree horses are the shit but they also highly recommend sheep manure for it's dryness and rich quality. There are averages to manure quality of course but there are also extremes.
Sheep leave the highest level of potash behind in the barnyard and you know what else they say about their behinds... The potash in a sheep's manure is a 1/3 more than that in a horse's and twice that of steers.
Rabbits win the N race though, and by way more than their nose. Rabbit pellets have more than 3x the N that horse manure has and twice the N of birds.
If you like the idea of rotted manure but hate to give up all of those prerot nutes, then maybe fortification with manure tea is called for.
>tailor make your concoctions and send them to freakachino@damnaintshefine.yea
So Honeybees, you do have some control over what sweetner your manure tea has in it.
Want N? use fresh manure to make the tea, preferably with the urine intact, or you could have a pee party of your own and water your psychonaughts with some of your personal essences. Let them get to know their friend and future host.
like i said tho,
Nitrogen is most water soluable in fresh manure.
Want potassium or phosphorus?
K and P are most water soluable in rotted manure;
harvest them for use from the more demure manure.
now distill to desired strengxh and apply to growing medium.
Remember what the doormousekachino said, what you give them is what they'll have to give you back. Actually, this is a commonly acknowledged standard when it comes to the vitamin and protein content of vegetables; the food that plants receive is directly correlated to their final nutritional value for humans. What degree couldn't this apply to when it comes to the magic powers packed into the medicine bags of our psilly sages?
feed their heads~!

The experimentation with substrates documented within this website is quite impressive. Beesides the investigation of entirely liquid cultures, there also appears to be room for experimentation with substrates comprised of the widest variety of relevant fertilizers possible.
example:
I read that potassium is highly involved in the production of sugars in cannabis and since I also read that sugars are supposedly what THC is made from, I will be adding exotic clays to my soil mix. diversity is good and bouquets are meaningful, not to mention my pet evolutionary catalyst theory.
There might be great Headwaz to be gained from opening up the thought of closed pit composting. This CO2 rich, semi-anaerobic environment creates many valuable nutrients and can eliminate all pathogens with enough time.
*offers soapbox to mycologists*
Building immunities seems pretty important in the fungal arena. If an army of psilly warriors were to be unleashed in a closed pit compost coliseum, would any of Darwin's proteges triumph? Would an immune survivor remain? How about any of Psilly's records of the battle, are they usable?
(DNA? damn i wish i knew stuff sometimes)
Even without the stardust aspect you still have the poor man's way to utilize the classic approach to immunizations; feed corpses of the pathogen to the patient so templates can be manufactured and are in place in case of exposure to real live dangerous germs.
Innoculating the pit with the "appropriate" germs might be of benefit in this pursuit. Their delecti remains could be delicious death denying doses to our Sage.
Anaerobic compost tea is a hippy favorite. I almost laughed when i heard it was supposed to buried underground in a bull's horn for three months but I know better than to doubt the value of Uncle Steve's advice now.
For anyone interested in pathogen combat, remember that sometimes there are small differences that allow the survival of one organism and the demise of another. Finding even a small difference in the survival requirements between host and invader can end the battle.
Perhaps the disease is not active below X temperatures but the host can hibernate quite comfortably at X while waiting for the disease to die.
factors i know of- moisture, pH, salt, light, temperature, nutrients and Time
Does this crap interest you?
if so, then my advice to you is - Keep notes and experiment.
About everything you have time for.
example:
This cross checked notation about fert tendencies is quite a valuable rule of thumb if you're thinking about kicking up the ppm's.
~~~
Applying manure to spent fields will double the field's crop output.
Application of manure is 2 tons of poultry manure per acre.
But applying 4 tons yields only 2% more....
To double the 2 ton yield, you must apply 8 tons of manure.
Now the field is saturated and not even the application of 10-10-10 will increase the harvest.
~~~
This experiment took five years and that's a long time to remember how many bushels were pulled off just one of your fields. Especially since you probably have multiple investigations going on at all times. Who would have thought to keep track of how much output a spent field puts out? but control groups are very important...
Lots of notes become valuable for suprising reasons so do not slack on the details. Seemingly simple shorthand has become indecipherable to me just a few years later so don't slack the details and spell it out if you can make time.
moral of the story~
everybody has the magic and adds something to it
isn't that some sweet shit?

#13
Guest_pissybee_*
Posted 02 December 2005 - 10:04 PM
#14
Guest_freakachino_*
Posted 03 December 2005 - 09:04 AM
Nice writeup, Gus....
Very well said Fun_Gus!!!!! It is the Shit! :D
#15
Posted 04 December 2005 - 09:37 AM
#16
Guest_i'm fun, Gus_*
Posted 07 December 2005 - 10:54 AM
I came across some cool info about the yogurt and yeast.
Lactic acid (like in yogurt) is a great source of aerotolerant bacteria. That means the microbes work in the prescence of oxygen but do not use the O2 we would rather give to our plants. yea!
Yeast contains the highest concentration of B vitamins of any known organism (yea! again) and there are other things, like it provides a source of microbes on it's own and a source of food for other microbes.
Molasses might interest you too. It's a great compost starter, animal feed or fertilizer (1-0-5, sulfer, iron, etc.). For those of you who like the micro words, molasses is a great chelating agent.
and speaking of great things, you mysillies probably know this but it tickles the heck out of me~ the largest known living organism is a Honey Mushroom living in Oregon, USA. He is 2,200 acres in size, and he's edible. (who isn't?)
sorry, that might have been in spore taste
#17
Guest_i'm fun, Gus_*
Posted 07 December 2005 - 10:51 PM
#18
Guest_freakachino_*
Posted 07 December 2005 - 11:30 PM
Max, I understand your points about what you've read as far as composting. By the book just doesn't appeal to me all that much. If we all did it exactly the same as the book how can we expect to learn and try new things. My method may not be "right" because I'm not doing what the book says. But I feel my flushes say enough for my method that I use and I always hope I'm on the right track to making my compost right for my mushies. I never tell anyone to compost like me. I just wanted to show the firefang on my manure and that that is the time I like to crumble it to use. Thats all I was trying to show.
#19
Guest_i'm fun, Gus_*
Posted 08 December 2005 - 02:54 AM
I wonder if there would be benefit in combining the two methods, here a pile, there a pile, everywhere a...
And thanks for this firefang 411.
Actually, i had always shyed away from firefang when i tip-toed thru the pasture because i considered it a mycothreat to my seedlings but it's a whole different story when you look at it right.
Do your horses like Oriental food? There's a lot of K+ in Kelp, i mean potassium, potash, karma tea. And it's about the most nutritious thing around when it comes to grub for humans and animals. Plants love it too doh'hOHo, Have a Hempy New Year. Each variety of kelp usually has different micro-ingredients, based on where in the sea pasture it was gathered from. It's not real expensive.
#20
Posted 08 December 2005 - 09:51 AM