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Hi Yall!!!
Just started a strain of ps cubenis echadore to get ready to do some hawaiians. Have grow before we have started with six rice cakes and made a spore shringe using a spore print. Spore shringes are controlled and getting one will alert the DEA. So the best way is to get a spore print. I will buy fresh while in a-dam the prints there are the best. Not the sh-t I bought here. Any one who needs to grow shrooms i will go for installments for those who need to know. Now becuase this is illeagal in the fruiting part of things and you never know who reads the posts. So this batch of shrooms never exists. Was destroyed by the girl friend.
Frank

Day one
Sterility is key. If your spore print is contaminated or you introduce contamination into the spore syringe, you will have difficulty later in the process. Ideally, there should be no fans blowing or drafts of air. You should clean the area where you will be working carefully and make sure that everything is tidy.
Materials needed:

spore print
10 cc. syringe with long needle
shot glass
regular glass
coffee mug
cigarette lighter
X-Acto knife or sharp steak knife
microwave oven
Several things need to be accomplished. First, we need to sterilize a shot glass to easily mix the spore solution and we need to sterilize a syringe to hold the solution. We also need some sterile water in which to suspend the spores. The following procedure will accomplish all of this.

Fill a coffee mug with water and place a shot glass inside the coffee mug. Make sure the shot glass is completely submerged. Place the coffee mug in the microwave oven and get the water to a full boil for 10 minutes. It does not need to be a violent boil. Adjust the heat level of the microwave oven to keep too much water from being lost if necessary.

Remove the shot glass and empty the excess water out of the shot glass. Place another glass over the shot glass. This will keep air born contaminates from settling in the shot glass while you wait for the shot glass and water in the spore syringe to cool.

Fill the syringe with hot water from the mug. Eject the hot water and repeat several times. This will insure the inside of the syringe and the needle are clean and sterile. This is especially important if you are using a syringe from a previous crop. When the needle is inserted into the substrate, it is possible to get nutrients up inside the needle and for contamination to grow. The last time you fill the syringe with hot water, do not purge it. Let it sit in the syringe until it is cool. This is useful for two reasons. First, the continued heat from the water can still work to eliminate any remaining contaminates. Secondly, once the water is cool it can be used as the sterile water needed to fill the syringe. Make certain that nothing touches the needle of the syringe.

The Psilocybe mushroom spores will be killed if they come in contact with anything too hot. You need to wait until the shot glass and spore syringe are at room temperature. When it is safe to proceed, use the cigarette lighter to flame sterilize the X-Acto knife and the needle of the syringe. Let the blade of the knife cool, but make sure it does not touch anything. When it is cool, carefully open the spore print and scrape a fleck of spores into the shot glass. A fleck 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch is more than sufficient for a 10 cc. spore syringe. Use the needle of the syringe to stir the spores into a few drops of water. Usually, there will be a few drops left over in the shot glass from when you emptied it. Otherwise, you can get the drops from the syringe. Stir the fleck of spores until they are well broken up and 'dissolved' into the water. Purge the water out of the syringe into the shot glass. Pull the water back into the syringe, being sure to suck the spores in also. Do this once or twice more to make sure the spores are well mixed in the spore syringe. Often, it takes several tries to get the spores fully broken apart and well mixed.

If the spores in the print have been dried and are not fresh, it is best to wait six hours to use the spore syringe. The spores need to rehydrate. If your in a hurry, the spores can still rehydrate in the culture jars.

Frank

Day two
1/2 pint canning jars
Vermiculite (from any garden department. K-Mart, Target, etc.)
Brown Rice flour (from a health food store --- No Preservatives!)
Large pot with lid
Measuring cups
Mixing bowl
Hammer and small nail
Spore Syringe
The canning jars need to be tapered. This means that the opening of the jar is wider than the body of the jar. This is important because the fully colonized rice cake needs to be removed intact from the jar. You simply want the cake to slide out when the time is right. If you use a jar that is not in the following list, check to make sure the box says it is a tapered jar. The following jars are acceptable:

Ball 1/2 pint jelly jars.
Kerr wide mouth 1/2 pint canning jars.
Ball regular mouth 1/2 pint canning jars.
Step 1:
Prepare the tops of the culture jars so that they can be in place, on the jars when inoculating the jars with the spore syringe. Part of the reason this system works so well in the non-sterile kitchen environment is the fact that the sterilized substrate is never exposed to air born contaminates. Get a small nail and use the hammer to poke 4 holes in the lid of each canning jar
Step 2:
Decide in how many jars you are going to initiate cultures. The average terrarium that is built will hold 6 rice cakes but you may have some jars destroyed by contamination and some jars colonize quicker than others. It is unlikely that every jar you prepare will be ready to be placed in the terrarium at the same time. The rice flour and vermiculite are cheap enough that it makes sense to do a dozen jars.
For each 1/2 pint jar mix 2/3 cup vermiculite and 1/4 cup brown rice flour in a mixing bowl. When these ingredients are well mixed, add 1/4 cup of water for each 1/2 pint jar you plan to prepare. If you are using 1 pint jars you need to double the recipe. Mix all of this stuff up well. This mixture is the substrate material that the fungus will consume and use for growth.

Step 3:
The next step is to fill each jar with substrate material. This document used to suggest gently packing the substrate into the culture jars. It has been found that keeping the substrate as loose and full of air as possible is the best way to fill the jars. The jars will colonize faster this way. Incidentally, the faster the jar colonizes, the lower the risk that some competitor contamination will get a foot hold and take over the substrate. Fill each jar to within 1/2 inch of the top with substrate material. If you run out of substrate material, either mix up enough for one more 1/2 pint jar or cannibalize a jar to fill up the rest of the jars. This is important because you need to make sure the substrate is high enough in the jars for the spore syringe to inject spores into it.
Step 4:
The top 1/2 inch of the glass on each culture jar needs to be cleaned. No substrate material can be left on the glass above the compressed cake. First wipe it with your finger to get the bulk of the material off of it and then do a thorough job with a moistened paper towel. The glass needs to be spotless. The reason this is necessary is that bacteria and mold can use any material left there as a wick to infect the main substrate body.
Step 5:
Next, fill the top 1/2 inch of the each culture jar with vermiculite. This layer is pure, simple, dry vermiculite. Nothing else. Fill the jar level with the glass edge. This layer is a break through pioneered by Psylocybe Fanaticus. What this layer does is insulate the sterilized substrate from any air borne contamination. This layer gets sterilized with the substrate later and air borne molds and bacteria can not (usually) get through it to contaminate the substrate. At the same time, it allows some gas exchange to occur. The fungus needs oxygen and gasses can filter through the vermiculite.
Step 6:
Now, place the jar lids in place. Normally, the jar lids have a rubber seal that is placed in contact with the glass of the jar. Traditionally the rubber seal is not placed in contact with the glass. It was placed on the upper side of the lid. The reason was that people thought it would make too tight of a seal. This does not seem to be an issue. If you wish to follow tradition, place the rubber on the upper side of the lid. Screw the lid down tight. Note that you need to have the four holes poked in the lid in Step 1. Otherwise you can have real problems when you heat these jars up!
Step 7:
Next, place a piece of tin foil over the top of each jar and crumple it around the sides of the jar. This is to keep water drops from going in the four holes in the lid while the jar is being sterilized. If you poked your holes in the lid such that the sharp edges are pointing up, be careful not to rip or puncture the tin foil. If you need to, you can add a second or even a third piece of tin foil to make sure water will not drip into the holes in the lid.
Step 8:
Now the culture jars need to be sterilized. Place the jars in a large kitchen pot and add water so that water comes half way up the side of the jars. Bring the water to a slow boil and place the lid on the pot. From the time the water starts to boil, the jars need 1 hour to be sterilized. Water should not be bubbling and splashing all over the place. The jars should not be floating around in the water. The substrate in the culture jars has the right amount of water in it already. You do not want water leaking into the jars and changing the ratio. The jars should not sit flat on the bottom of the pan. Too much heat can transfer directly to the jars and cause a loss of moisture. You can place a wash cloth inside the pan and set the jars directly on the wash cloth to help prevent too much heat from transferring to the jars.
Step 9:
Let the jars cool slowly. Leave them covered in the pan that was used to sterilize them. Let them cool completely. The jars need to be at or close to room temperature in order to inoculate. The spores will be killed if the jars are not cool enough when they are inoculated. It will take several hours to cool sufficiently. You may hear sounds as the jars cool. This is normal.
Step 10:
Now comes the good part. Inoculation of the culture jars. Assuming you have a viable, sterile spore syringe, you are now in a position to inoculate the cultures and start the first phase of the growing cycle. The needle of the spore syringe must be sterile. If your fingers or anything other than the lid or contents of the culture jars comes in contact with it, assume it is no longer sterile. If there is any doubt about its condition, use a cigarette lighter to heat the entire needle. Heat it until it glows red. Let it cool for a few minutes and squirt some of the solution out of the syringe.
Shake the syringe. Make sure the spores are mixed well within the syringe. This can be accomplished more easily if you pull the plunger back on the syringe to get a little air into the syringe.

Remove the tin foil from each culture jar as you prepare to inoculate it. Insert the needle of the syringe as far as it will go into a hole in the lid of the culture jar and get the needle to press against the glass. Examine the next figure for a simple diagram of how things should look. Inject 1/4 cc of solution at a site under each hole in the lid. A total of 1 cc of solution for each jar.


It will be next week to see what has started
Frank

oh the memories.
I used a very similar techniques back in the day.....good to know about the DEA watching the syringes, was actually talking about it the other day.

That's pretty interesting...never grown my own just waited until late August and went to the fields and picked for free Haven't done shrooms in years and some of the ones I have seen in a-dam frightened the crap out of me with some of the warnings. Still knowledge is king and I thank you for the time explaining this.

This is the easy part. Put the culture jars in a dark place and wait. The fungus will first appear as little splotches of white fuzzy stuff at the inoculation sites.
As the time goes by, the fungus will spread throughout the jar. Eventually, the entire surface of the glass will be covered with fungus. Typically, the bottom of the jar is the last area to be colonized. Be on the look out for any contamination.
Any odd colors that might appear are contamination and the jar must be thrown out. Do not take any chances. If you think the jar might be contaminated, throw it out!. Some molds and bacteria produce toxins that can kill you. Just because a mushroom is growing on the opposite side of the cake from the contamination does not mean you are safe. The mycelium network carries nutrients and moisture to the mushrooms from far away and can easily pick up the toxins and bring them to the mushroom. The fact that you are using this guide means you are not an experienced mycologist. You do not know which molds and bacteria are deadly. Do not take a chance.
The one exception to the previous statements is the mycelium will some times change from a bright white to a very pale yellow if it has water droplets touching it on the side of the glass. It is very unusual for any area that is colonized by the mushroom fungus to become infected while in the jar. The uncolonized areas of the substrate are usually significantly more prone to infection.
If your spores are old, or the temperature is not optimum, or you did not mix the substrate very accurately you can easily add a week to the above time frames.
The cake must stay in the jar until the entire surface area is covered with mycelium. As the substrate gets more colonized, the growth slows down. This is a result of CO2 building up and less oxygen being available for the fungus to consume.
The cakes can not be taken out of the jars while there is still uncolonized substrate.

Hi Yall!
By this time you should start seeing growing white spots in the jars that you have started. Now is the time to start getting your fruiting chamber ready. The key to fruiting is a temp of 76F to 80Fand humidity of 90%. I have to use a Ultra Sonic Humidifier to get to 90% or average here is 15%. I will post more this soon.
Frank

The birthday cake:


THE BIRTHDAY CAKE
The primordia have appeared and it is now time to birth the cake. Wait until you see this, and the fruiting will be maximized. The fruiting is fairly relative to the primordia that appear.
The best time to remove the fungus cake from the jar is when the primordia (tiny worm like structures with reddish heads) appear on the cake while still in the jar. Be careful not to damage them in handling. The rule is to handle with care.

Remove the lid. With a clean fork, scrape away the majority of the dry top vermiculite layer. There will probably be seen some wispy mycelium here and there in the top layer. Place an old jar lid over the jar mouth and turn the jar upside down. Lightly slam the jar down on a table cushioned with a magazine. The fungus cake will slide out onto the old jar cap (BIRTHDAY). The jar cap functions as a base for the cake. When handling the fungus cake, be careful as not to squeeze and bruise it. Bruising results in a bluish mark. This fungus is resilient and can tolerate a certain amount of handling, but handle it as least as possible. The aroma is distinctly mushroomy, very pleasant.

As soon as the fungus cake comes out of the jar, daub the cake with a piece of loose tissue paper to soak up any water droplets that may have deposited on the cake as it comes out of the jar. Immediately after the birthday, place the cakes into the dual chambered terrarium for the fruiting cycle.

Some of the first mushrooms to form are "aborts" (convoluted caps, gnarly stems and stunted growth), and ironically they are primo in magic alkaloids. They are even more powerful in magic than the stately beauties that will soon dominate the cake. The tiny "baby mushroom" aborts are likewise good. After witnessing the growth of the fungus, recognition of these aborts is easy. As long as the aborts are healthy and pure, they are primo. Also, another form of mutants will manifest, blobs of fungus with little or no cap, also good for harvesting. And along with these mutants, appear the perfect specimens, the sporocarps.

It has been reported that Psilocybe cubensis is a "weak" mushroom. PF and others have seen this to be not necessarily so. It all depends on how it is grown, on what medium and how it is harvested and preserved.

The secret to potent mushrooms is in their age when picked. It has been scientifically proven that the small immature specimens are significantly more potent than the larger mature specimens. Over half of the small primordia that first form will abort (cease growing, convolute and deform). Pick these before their heads turn black. A pointed knife blade works well for removing these high potency primodia. These are among the most potent. The abortive mushrooms are also high potency. Harvest them when they are young and before their heads turn black. When the fruitbodies are normal, harvest them before the veil under the cap breaks. The mushrooms will be smaller and their heads will be roundish. It is important to note that the mushroom cakes pictured in this book are all mostly well matured. While these mature specimens are beautiful and perfect, they are not as potent as the diminutive specimens. The mature specimens are good for spore collecting and showcasing but are weak in psychedelic potency.

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.

Now is the time to get the frurting chamber ready I use a 30 gallon aquarium. Now the humidifier is kept in a seperate chamber with a tube running to the fruiting chamber. This is done to get the water droplets out of the produced fog/mist. Ideal temp 80F and 90% humidty. About two weeks later you have your first flush.

I do have a little question. Do you have to act in such a sterile way when you prepare an all-in growkit from a smartshop? Because it doesn't say so anywhere :s Or is it best to do each handling with gloves?

GOD HOW WISH I COULD BUY ONE!!!!

No what you have in one the kits is a add water and grow. You mught have to mist it with a spray bottle. Not much needed in grow kit from smartshops just follow directions. Its my birthday today in more ways one
I will have to find the link that smartshop that has the best kits

I'm sorry to inform you, but most smartshops don't send to US. I actually haven't seen any that do ship to US. Well, thanks for the advice, my kit just arrived today ^^ so in a few weeks I'll let you now how big the harvest was .

Bluespike

That was a joke. I know I can't get that here in US.
Will Post more soon.

Pan

Well, it was early in the morning okay
Btw, is it possible that smartshopmushrooms have these poisenous fungus you talked about? Or is it absolutely safe to eat them, even if they are a bit black?
Thx