Redboy 2012
It's been quite a trip between me and the Redboy Cubensis. I first got my spores from a local vendor in 06 and read about it in some cool threads about its return , because it was suppose to have been resurrected after decades of being "lost". I began working with it and growing it out , taking spores , cleaning up cultures and making isolates.
Eventually it started not to look like it first did , which was like a normal cube , opening cap etc , but fatter/meatier stems and it started looking more and more like Penis Envy over the years. The caps became inrolled and non-opening and the stalks took on comical fatness. This took place over a period of about 3 or 4 years and many grows.
Originally most of the caps opened , but now i'd say well under half are inrolled and sometimes almost all. Here's a picture of Redboys on the left and Amazon on the right:
Some of the funnier fruits end up looking like funky acorns ! Most have thick meaty stalks that blue severely on contact. In many tests , by many friends , these Redboys are up there with any Cube for potency. Still to this day friends ask for them by name despite having tried dozens of the usual suspects.
I almost lost this sub-strain after a series of moves , break-taking and bungles. Luckily I sent off spores at one point to a trusted topiate at one point because I lost my spore library and had to ask him if he could send me back a print and he did. That I took through a grow and made several prints which I again sent to a friend here who kindly ... very kindly , grew it out and sent me a half dozen dark prints. That set me up again and I'm extremely grateful. Just so you know , "Roc-Style" is a tip of the hat to our superior mod Roc , who inspired countless many to use Horse manure and even try it alone as a stand alone substrate. Here's to you old chum !
Here's what I'm doing this time around:
Started the spores on popcorn that I soaked for 18 hours and then PC'd at 15 PSI for 60 minutes. I used small jars because that's what I had around , that colonized quickly so I did a G2G transfer into bigger quart jars (and so on). When I had enough popcorn spawn I began to gather the other stuff I needed for the project.
I acquired some excellent quality Horse manure in large quantity so I decided to pasteurize a bunch and use it in a few different ways. First I soaked the manure for a few hours in containers and then drained it. It was already broken up well so I added it to a large tub and also a bucket. Those vessels I filled with hot water heated to about 170 F (it cools a bit). I submerged the manure into the hot water bath , covered the tub & bucket and waited one hour. After the hour I added more 170 F water to each vessel so that it was about 160F at least for the full 2 hours.
Next I took bungy cords and placed them over each container to keep the lid on and for the tub just moved the lid askew , enough for water to come out and let gravity do the work of draining each vessel. I used an outside set of stairs with a barrel below to catch the manure water for use in the garden. With the bungys it works excellent and no manure fell out in the process. I let each vessel drip dry drain.
After they were drained I scooped bunches of hot manure (with rubber gloves on) into a large pillow case. Now sometimes I do the hang it on a tree thing and wait till morning , but often I need to do it sooner. For those times I "Walk the plank" ... place the full , tied pillow case on a hard surface , put a board on that and get on up and surf on it , see-saw side to side and that extra moisture comes shooting out of there ... like I mean there is a lot of extra water. Roll it around , rearrange it and squeeze again. Dump that squeezed sack of shit out on a clean tarp (i'm outside) and repeat until all the poo is squeezed. Now let it cool completely , before bringing it inside in a tub.
Now the fun and laborious part started. Filling mono-tubs was the first order of business. I took my shiny jars of glistening popcorn , shook them to break them up and then mixed several jars worth into the tub with the freshly cooled manure. Mixed that around good and proper then commenced to filling. Started with some easy to do monotubs. Laid a few inches of sub & spawn in each , patted them down with gloved hand and put the lids on. The lids had 4 golf-ball sized holes in each filled with polyfill.
Then came the logs. I've always had good luck with them since my first grow , so I basically do it the same way I always have. Which is to wear gloves and stuff plastic incense bags like a mad monkey ... cram it , stuff it , tamp it , close it and repeat. Its not actually bad work at all , kind of a labour of love. After all the bags are stuffed I clean them up with a cloth , clean the tops wear they ziplock and make sure they are closed. Then they are poked with a large sewing needle to make airholes evenly around and placed in the incubator. 75 - 80 F total dark.
With the spawn that was left I pressed a series of pucks. This was done by stuffing manure/popcorn spawn into yogurt containers , packed and then slammed down and removed like you would a sand-castle. The finished pucks were placed in a chamber for colonization same as the others. These will fruit similar to cakes , they are basically pressed-sub cakes ... pucks.
Here's what it looks like making a puck.
https://mycotopia.ne...test-pucky1.jpg https://mycotopia.ne...test-pucky2.jpg https://mycotopia.ne...test-pucky4.jpg
https://mycotopia.ne...ookie-puck2.jpg
I'll keep you posted as it goes along. Hopefully the mycogods will shine on me and allow me a nice harvest of Redboys. I really love this strain and think there's something special about it. No word of a lie it rivals woodlovers for potency. I'm not sure if it acquired a genetic hiccup , or has some manner of "disease" , but it has been this way for years no matter how much it cleaned up or taken to agar , then spore and so on.
My goal is to continue picking good clone isolates and get a real even batch of the kind of shapes and sizes (and potency) i'm looking for. Also I plan on having some fun along the way.
Thanks for coming by. Will report back on progress.
:heartbeat
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Edited by Zen_, 05 November 2013 - 04:33 PM.
