Mycotopia Web Forums - View Single Post - Bulk grow plans, and a humble request for advice from the mycogods...

fulcanelli · 09-08-07, 08:31

Greetings to the denizens of the ethereal Mycotopian realm from a humble aspirant to the Mysteries, a fellow journeyman on the Path of Understanding!

I've been lurking the last few weeks and have been astounded at the level of experience and knowledge assembled in this forum relating to the numerous and wide-ranging subjects discussed here.

I’d like to offer my most sincere thanks to you all for the sheer amount and quality of information you’ve all made available here so selflessly and for the good of all who may need it. You’ve certainly suffused this jaded old alchemist’s eyes with a long lost mischievous twinkle in the light of the possibilities you’ve helped reveal to them!

This post is something in the nature of an initial hello, and a request for help in the last stages of planning a small scale ‘stealth’ bulk grow op.

This will be my second grow – the first was MS Transkei (via syringe on three pre-sterilized ‘Mycofarm’ 1Kg rye grain bags, large plastic sealable box w/ perlite humidification, misting and fanning and pure verm casing), and that was quite successful, but unfortunately my setup for this grow did not exist in time for me to clone/LC one of the better Transkei specimens, so I’ll have to work from a spore print I took.

I’d like now to experiment a little further with bulk grows after cloning/selecting a superior sub-strain, and I have my eye on Invitro (a-la-Sandman, BuckarooBanzai, Morthos, Indicaz, et. al) as the logical way forward.

However, I started this op very much from scratch – I had to buy tools, materials, a PC, and all that good stuff, and I’m now at the point where there are a few more questions to be answered before I get going, and I’ll thereafter keep a log (with pics) religiously of how it all goes.

I’ve had enough lab experience to know the importance of communicating every pertinent detail of an experiment between scientists such that the experiment is reproducible; I hope to be successful and learn as much as possible from this experience, and in order that I do so I’m going to try and give all the details I can. I’ve read so many posts on so many things here that if I fail to credit someone for an idea please forgive me as I mean no offence – I’m approaching you all with honest questions so please don’t misunderstand me as telling you all how to do it!

Anyway, I have a 3m x 4m box room in which everything will be done; at the moment I’m afraid I can’t supply you with pics (coming soon when I get hold of a new cam), but I’ll try and make the descriptions as simple and illustrative as possible.

I have built a laminar flow hood;

24” x 24” (610mm x 610mm) Erislam Minipleat 99.999% DOP HEPA, 1” (250Pa) static pressure at working point

Dayton 4C445 shaded pole blower, 495CFM @ 0” SP (Manufacturer states 265CFM @ 0.8” SP so this should be okay at the working point of the filt

Inline fan speed control unit, 300W power transformer

Box made from salvaged 20mm thick medium density fibreaboard (MDF) cleaned, sanded, buffed, sealed with internal gasket frame for HEPA. All joints silicone sealed.

? Prefilter – could anyone suggest a suitable prefilter from a supplier in the UK?

Additionally, I’ll be running a Bionaire HEPA/Ionizer in the room during and outside ‘working’ time to keep the air clean, as there is smoking going on in the rest of the house!

I’m awaiting my blower fan and fan motor control unit to arrive from the US (I live in the UK) – for some reason I couldn’t easily get hold of a fan of the appropriate output and type here.

For an incubator;

I plan on using two HDPE 80Ldustbins (the black stackable kind) as a kind of T-I-T incubator with a thermostatically controlled 250W aquarium heater in the water between them, with that aluminium foil type insulation/cladding wrap around the outer bin to seal in heat, together with an aquarium pump running filtered air into the incubator on a timer.

There will be chickenwire around bulk substrate bags to maintain their shape and to provide spaces for air circulation.

I hope to be able to easily incubate bulk substrates in this cavity, although never having built and tested one before I can’t be sure whether it will work well or not – could someone give me a suggestion based upon their own experience of T-I-T setups if this would work, or what improvements or alternatives are a good idea?

I Also toyed with the idea of using a couple of my Habistat heat mats (17"x11" 20W each) inside the inner bin on chickenwire ‘shelves’ wired to the thermostat to ensure the temperature inside the incubator is evenly distributed and constant. Alternatively, maybe putting a smallish ‘Heat Bomb’ (Hippie3) suspended inside the incubator wired to the same thermostat as the immersed aquarium heater.
Please advise on whether this hypothetical incubator would be suitable and viable to incubate 50L or more of substrate in invitro ‘sandbags’ (bulk) and large autoclavable gusseted filter patch bags (spawn).

For sterilization/pasteurization;

I will be using a Hawkins “Big Boy” 14L pressure cooker (I couldn’t afford a larger one – or I could, but I didn’t trust the quality of some of the other offerings available in the UK. I would have waited longer for an All American but the shipping costs proved prohibitive) to sterilize consumables, tools and containers.

I’m yet to decide definitively on a pasteurization technique; I’ve read many but I’d like to get some feedback first on which method you guys would recommend for the grow after you’ve got all the info on what I’m doing, strains, substrates etc, so please advise as necessary.

Strains;

I’d like to begin with spore prints of the following strains (any comments or suggestions on the performance of these in vitro and nutritional preferences of these varieties would be extremely helpful. I will select for preferred substrains over a a month or two by first inoculating agar and selecting rhizomorphic tissue over three or four iterations plus or minus producing casings from LC of the favoured agar sections, to birth and clone the strongest fruits from the best pinsets;

Orissa

P. mexicana “A”

Ban Phang Ka

Palenque

Koh Samui Super Strain

Thereafter, the preferred substrains of each of the above (please correct me if I’m using the wrong terminology – I’m a medicinal chemist by training, not a mycologist!) will be prepared as LC (probably simple dextrose solution) to inoculate grain (spawn).

I’ll be using popcorn in jars with filters sterilized via PC. This will be used to colonise a bulk substrate in large PE bags (similar to sandman’s sandbag TEK and some aspects of BuckarooBanzai’s bulk nugget TEK – namely the PA).

At the moment, I’m thinking 50/25/25 manure (I got pasteurized cow poo pellets)/coir/Polyacrylamide bulk substrate with a wrinkle – I’ll be using a liberal amount of M. Hostilis whole rootbark fibres mixed in before pasteurization. I’m curious, and I’ve got a whole load of M. Hostilis from previous elf-spice experiments

so there’s no added expense, although I’ll be experimenting with how the rootbark affects the overall consistency, water retention (field capacity) and pH of the substrate (which I’ll try to keep at or near 7.5) before going ahead – any suggestions? Of course I’ll be doing controls in parallel without the DMT admixture to test the difference in potency.

The large heavy duty clear sandbags will have polyfil patches I’ll make myself sealed at intervals over their surfaces (could someone point me in the right direction for a supplier of polyfil in the UK, or an effective alternative? I’m not convinced Tyvek is the way forward).

Once fully colonized, the substrate will be shaped into 4” deep clear plastic trays while still in the bags, incubated again for a few days, then set into fruiting conditions (indirect sunlight for 5 hrs daily, room temp. maintained at approximately 24 deg. C / 76 deg. F, HEPA filtered/ionized air blown at shelves via fan twice per hour for 10 mins).

The idea is to maximize the surface of the bulk substrate in contact with fresh air in the bag as well as encourage fruiting from the sides (and possibly the bottom, since the trays are clear and the shelves on which they rest will be transparent?).

This is my (tentative) reason for the shaping of the colonized bulk into trays while it is still in the ‘sandbags’, with the sealed top of the sandbag suspended from the underside on the shelf above to keep the volume of air above the substrate as large as possible (and to expose as many of the polyfil filter patches to clean air fanned along the shelves).

After first flush harvest the substrate in the bags will be sprayed with H202 solution (all done under HEPA laminar flow) and the bags closed to await the next floush. If I can come up with some method to dunk high volumes of substrate, I’ll probably do that instead (had excellent result with dunking my Transkei casings!) - maybe put some dry, microwaved verm in the bottom of freshly PC’d sand bags with filters, and transfer the dunked substrate into those under the FH.

Talking numbers, I’m thinking of spawning 1:4 ratio of colonized WBS to bulk substrate – invitro fruiting will take place in trays on up to 8 shelves of length and width 25” x 18” each, so the trays the bags will be fit into can be any area up to those dimensions but the depth of the trays will be approx 4”.

If someone could suggest the best (maximal) dimensions for the trays given that shelf size and substrate depth, that will allow me to calculate the volume of bulk substrate in each bag and therefore the quantity of spawn I’ll need, etc.

I’d greatly appreciate any advice at this stage, especially on the choice of strains and substrates I’m mulling over – if there are improvements or any information anyone here can suggest to help me before I finalise my plans, please do so and it will be greatly appreciated.

F

09-08-07, 08:31	#1 (permalink)
fulcanelli Alchemist Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 7	Bulk grow plans, and a humble request for advice from the mycogods... Greetings to the denizens of the ethereal Mycotopian realm from a humble aspirant to the Mysteries, a fellow journeyman on the Path of Understanding! I've been lurking the last few weeks and have been astounded at the level of experience and knowledge assembled in this forum relating to the numerous and wide-ranging subjects discussed here. I’d like to offer my most sincere thanks to you all for the sheer amount and quality of information you’ve all made available here so selflessly and for the good of all who may need it. You’ve certainly suffused this jaded old alchemist’s eyes with a long lost mischievous twinkle in the light of the possibilities you’ve helped reveal to them! This post is something in the nature of an initial hello, and a request for help in the last stages of planning a small scale ‘stealth’ bulk grow op. This will be my second grow – the first was MS Transkei (via syringe on three pre-sterilized ‘Mycofarm’ 1Kg rye grain bags, large plastic sealable box w/ perlite humidification, misting and fanning and pure verm casing), and that was quite successful, but unfortunately my setup for this grow did not exist in time for me to clone/LC one of the better Transkei specimens, so I’ll have to work from a spore print I took. I’d like now to experiment a little further with bulk grows after cloning/selecting a superior sub-strain, and I have my eye on Invitro (a-la-Sandman, BuckarooBanzai, Morthos, Indicaz, et. al) as the logical way forward. However, I started this op very much from scratch – I had to buy tools, materials, a PC, and all that good stuff, and I’m now at the point where there are a few more questions to be answered before I get going, and I’ll thereafter keep a log (with pics) religiously of how it all goes. I’ve had enough lab experience to know the importance of communicating every pertinent detail of an experiment between scientists such that the experiment is reproducible; I hope to be successful and learn as much as possible from this experience, and in order that I do so I’m going to try and give all the details I can. I’ve read so many posts on so many things here that if I fail to credit someone for an idea please forgive me as I mean no offence – I’m approaching you all with honest questions so please don’t misunderstand me as telling you all how to do it! Anyway, I have a 3m x 4m box room in which everything will be done; at the moment I’m afraid I can’t supply you with pics (coming soon when I get hold of a new cam), but I’ll try and make the descriptions as simple and illustrative as possible. I have built a laminar flow hood; 24” x 24” (610mm x 610mm) Erislam Minipleat 99.999% DOP HEPA, 1” (250Pa) static pressure at working point Dayton 4C445 shaded pole blower, 495CFM @ 0” SP (Manufacturer states 265CFM @ 0.8” SP so this should be okay at the working point of the filt Inline fan speed control unit, 300W power transformer Box made from salvaged 20mm thick medium density fibreaboard (MDF) cleaned, sanded, buffed, sealed with internal gasket frame for HEPA. All joints silicone sealed. ? Prefilter – could anyone suggest a suitable prefilter from a supplier in the UK? Additionally, I’ll be running a Bionaire HEPA/Ionizer in the room during and outside ‘working’ time to keep the air clean, as there is smoking going on in the rest of the house! I’m awaiting my blower fan and fan motor control unit to arrive from the US (I live in the UK) – for some reason I couldn’t easily get hold of a fan of the appropriate output and type here. For an incubator; I plan on using two HDPE 80Ldustbins (the black stackable kind) as a kind of T-I-T incubator with a thermostatically controlled 250W aquarium heater in the water between them, with that aluminium foil type insulation/cladding wrap around the outer bin to seal in heat, together with an aquarium pump running filtered air into the incubator on a timer. There will be chickenwire around bulk substrate bags to maintain their shape and to provide spaces for air circulation. I hope to be able to easily incubate bulk substrates in this cavity, although never having built and tested one before I can’t be sure whether it will work well or not – could someone give me a suggestion based upon their own experience of T-I-T setups if this would work, or what improvements or alternatives are a good idea? I Also toyed with the idea of using a couple of my Habistat heat mats (17"x11" 20W each) inside the inner bin on chickenwire ‘shelves’ wired to the thermostat to ensure the temperature inside the incubator is evenly distributed and constant. Alternatively, maybe putting a smallish ‘Heat Bomb’ (Hippie3) suspended inside the incubator wired to the same thermostat as the immersed aquarium heater. Please advise on whether this hypothetical incubator would be suitable and viable to incubate 50L or more of substrate in invitro ‘sandbags’ (bulk) and large autoclavable gusseted filter patch bags (spawn). For sterilization/pasteurization; I will be using a Hawkins “Big Boy” 14L pressure cooker (I couldn’t afford a larger one – or I could, but I didn’t trust the quality of some of the other offerings available in the UK. I would have waited longer for an All American but the shipping costs proved prohibitive) to sterilize consumables, tools and containers. I’m yet to decide definitively on a pasteurization technique; I’ve read many but I’d like to get some feedback first on which method you guys would recommend for the grow after you’ve got all the info on what I’m doing, strains, substrates etc, so please advise as necessary. Strains; I’d like to begin with spore prints of the following strains (any comments or suggestions on the performance of these in vitro and nutritional preferences of these varieties would be extremely helpful. I will select for preferred substrains over a a month or two by first inoculating agar and selecting rhizomorphic tissue over three or four iterations plus or minus producing casings from LC of the favoured agar sections, to birth and clone the strongest fruits from the best pinsets; Orissa P. mexicana “A” Ban Phang Ka Palenque Koh Samui Super Strain Thereafter, the preferred substrains of each of the above (please correct me if I’m using the wrong terminology – I’m a medicinal chemist by training, not a mycologist!) will be prepared as LC (probably simple dextrose solution) to inoculate grain (spawn). I’ll be using popcorn in jars with filters sterilized via PC. This will be used to colonise a bulk substrate in large PE bags (similar to sandman’s sandbag TEK and some aspects of BuckarooBanzai’s bulk nugget TEK – namely the PA). At the moment, I’m thinking 50/25/25 manure (I got pasteurized cow poo pellets)/coir/Polyacrylamide bulk substrate with a wrinkle – I’ll be using a liberal amount of M. Hostilis whole rootbark fibres mixed in before pasteurization. I’m curious, and I’ve got a whole load of M. Hostilis from previous elf-spice experiments so there’s no added expense, although I’ll be experimenting with how the rootbark affects the overall consistency, water retention (field capacity) and pH of the substrate (which I’ll try to keep at or near 7.5) before going ahead – any suggestions? Of course I’ll be doing controls in parallel without the DMT admixture to test the difference in potency. The large heavy duty clear sandbags will have polyfil patches I’ll make myself sealed at intervals over their surfaces (could someone point me in the right direction for a supplier of polyfil in the UK, or an effective alternative? I’m not convinced Tyvek is the way forward). Once fully colonized, the substrate will be shaped into 4” deep clear plastic trays while still in the bags, incubated again for a few days, then set into fruiting conditions (indirect sunlight for 5 hrs daily, room temp. maintained at approximately 24 deg. C / 76 deg. F, HEPA filtered/ionized air blown at shelves via fan twice per hour for 10 mins). The idea is to maximize the surface of the bulk substrate in contact with fresh air in the bag as well as encourage fruiting from the sides (and possibly the bottom, since the trays are clear and the shelves on which they rest will be transparent?). This is my (tentative) reason for the shaping of the colonized bulk into trays while it is still in the ‘sandbags’, with the sealed top of the sandbag suspended from the underside on the shelf above to keep the volume of air above the substrate as large as possible (and to expose as many of the polyfil filter patches to clean air fanned along the shelves). After first flush harvest the substrate in the bags will be sprayed with H202 solution (all done under HEPA laminar flow) and the bags closed to await the next floush. If I can come up with some method to dunk high volumes of substrate, I’ll probably do that instead (had excellent result with dunking my Transkei casings!) - maybe put some dry, microwaved verm in the bottom of freshly PC’d sand bags with filters, and transfer the dunked substrate into those under the FH. Talking numbers, I’m thinking of spawning 1:4 ratio of colonized WBS to bulk substrate – invitro fruiting will take place in trays on up to 8 shelves of length and width 25” x 18” each, so the trays the bags will be fit into can be any area up to those dimensions but the depth of the trays will be approx 4”. If someone could suggest the best (maximal) dimensions for the trays given that shelf size and substrate depth, that will allow me to calculate the volume of bulk substrate in each bag and therefore the quantity of spawn I’ll need, etc. I’d greatly appreciate any advice at this stage, especially on the choice of strains and substrates I’m mulling over – if there are improvements or any information anyone here can suggest to help me before I finalise my plans, please do so and it will be greatly appreciated. F __________________ Learn to KNOW, Learn to WILL, Learn to DARE, Learn to KEEP SILENCE.