Anyone grown magic mushrooms before?

Question

I'm an ex-shroomer, missing those halcyon days before the government ban a couple of years ago ( er... I used them for 'ornamental and/or scientific purposes'...)

Was contemplating buying one of those grow bags from a site on the net, but am dubious as to how easy it is to do this and of the quality and quantity of the yeild.

Any insight?

Answer 1

First of all. When you get ripped off you have no recourse. Second, like kiddie p**n is the site a sting, has it been shut down or under investigation. It really is harder than made out to be as contamination always gets in, even with those who are use to sterile procedure, inoculation and the glove box. But I think fourth is most important, in that you need to stop using intoxicants. The reason they intoxicate is the "toxi" part of the word, meaning toxic or poison. You get high because you poison yourself in a somewhat controlled way. Your brain is so special, so complicated, with an incredible number of chemicals that all work a special way to allow you to see and hear, to move and feel and think and learn. Every time you take any intoxicant you have changed your brain and it's chemistry permanently. Those vital little interconnections of all the dendrites, those little nervous tissue cells, and the minute chemicals that come and go in the connections that allow us to "think", are altered and it is not for the best as all the guru's would have you believe. So much life to live, leave the intoxicants alone and enjoy. This coming from someone who has been there done that and didn't learn from what others said. Your choice.

Answer 2

go to wales and pick your own

Answer 3

God wildineverything you sure do know your mushroom growing!

With her knowledge and my 200 acres and slurry tower full of cow c**p we could all get a good business going here!

Us farmers are all for some diversification!

Answer 4

Come to Kodaikanal, Tamilnadu state Kerala

Mosta beautifulla mushroooma growing in da wilda

Answer 5

Never grown magic mushrooms before but I have had good luck with bags and starter blocks of other mushrooms.  Oyster, Shiitake, and Reishi all have done well starting from the kits.  It all boils down to the trust you can put in the supplier.  It should work out OK for you, but I would say it's pretty much of a toss up in a case like you have here.  It is easy enough but the quality and quantity may be in doubt here. Good Luck.

Answer 6

I know you can put cow c**p in a jar with rice not cooked in water and cow **** and put it somewhere dark and they should grow ??????? idk though Ive never tried it before

Here you go

One last note. A terrarium is required to complete the growing cycle. You can perform the steps to inoculate the culture jars and over the next few weeks build your terrarium. It takes time for the cultures to grow and this should provide you sufficient time to make a suitable terrarium if you are in a hurry to get started.In order to grow mushrooms, a suitable substrate must be inoculated and colonized by the fungus. This step requires sterility because the substrate contains no preservatives and can be overrun by any mold or bacteria that is present. This first step takes place in canning jars prepared in your home's kitchen. It uses brown rice flour and vermiculite which are both readily available. A substrate is prepared, placed in the canning jars and sterilized with heat. After the jars cool, they are inoculated with a spore syringe. This phase of the cycle can be completed for less than $25 and will produce enough substrate 9D8 to yield many ounces of dried mushrooms.

After the substrate is inoculated, you wait until it is colonized completely by the fungus. Once the substrate is colonized completely by the fungus, sterility is less of a concern because the fungus is pretty much able to fight off invaders and the rice cake substrate can be removed from the jar. This typically takes between two and three weeks to complete. At this point, the substrate is placed in a terrarium where high humidity is available to the fungus. While waiting for the substrate to colonize completely, no effort is required.

The terrarium is kept at around 90% humidity and the carbon dioxide that is produced by the fungus is constantly eliminated. Within a week of being placed in the terrarium, the rice cakes will start growing mushrooms. Within several weeks of being placed in the terrarium, the cultivator will have numerous mature mushrooms ready for consumption. The cakes continue to produce mushrooms until either the nutrients in the rice cake are used up or the moisture in the rice cake is depleted. Depending on how the cultivator chooses to implement the terrarium, more or less attention is required at this phase in the cycle. With the fully automated terrarium setup described later in this document, attention is only required every few days. Mostly, this involves picking mature mushrooms and adding water to the humidifier used in the setup.

It is very likely that the mushrooms will be produced faster than they can be consumed by the home cultivator once the cropping phase of the cycle starts. It is fairly easy to dry the mushrooms and preserve them for many months. In fact, some people prefer the dried mushrooms to their fresh counterpart. Being the master of understatement, let me state that they do not taste as good as mushrooms available in the grocery store.

Occasionally, a sterile spore print from a mature mushroom needs to be generated if the cycle is to continue. This is used to produce a spore syringe to inoculate new culture jars. It is a little bit of effort and requires very careful, sterile procedures to be successful generating a spore print. Of course, this can be circumvented by simply ordering a new spore syringe. A 10 cc. spore syringe should be sufficient to inoculate a dozen jars of substrate. It is the cultivator's choice which path to follow for successive generations.Mushrooms are grown on a substrate of nutrients. Just as a common house plant is grown in a pot of soil, mushrooms can be grown on a cake of substrate material. The big difference is that the substrate must be free of competing bacteria and molds in order for the process to be successful. Any contamination of the substrate will result in failure of the process.

Materials needed:

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.

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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. See the following figure:



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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. s***w 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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.



A 10 cc spore syringe is sufficient to inoculate a dozen jars if you inject slightly less than 1 cc in each jar.

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Step 11:

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.

The above pictures show a typical germination and colonization cycle. 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.

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Step 12:

Once a rice cake is fully colonized, it can be taken out of the culture jar. At this point, there are no areas on the substrate that can easily be infected by competitor molds and bacteria. Once the mycelium is established, it can usually prevent other organisms from gaining a foot hold and destroying the rice cake.

Unscrew and remove the lid from the canning jars. Scrape all the loose vermiculite on the top of the substrate into the garbage. Take care not to gouge into the substrate material as this can leave areas open to infection. You do not need to get all the vermiculite off of the cake. In fact, the only reason to remove any of it is to keep the terrarium neat and orderly. Turn the jar up side down and slam it onto a table top. The rice cake should slide out of the jar. The rice cakes will typically shrink a little during the colonization phase of the process and will come out of the jars easily with a little tapping on a table top.

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Step 13:

The rice cakes need to be placed into the terrarium. It is assumed that you have a fully functional and checked out terrarium setup at this point. This document contains all the information you need to prepare a terrarium.

You can handle the cakes but remember that the less you handle them and the more gently you handle them, the better off they will be. Also, you should wash your hands thoroughly and be sure to rinse with water just as thoroughly to remove any soap before touching the cakes.

If you have disposable sterile gloves available, it isn't a bad idea to use them. You can get away without using them, but they are a good idea. Contamination is the mycophile's worst enemy.The main purpose of the terrarium is to provide the high humidity required for mushroom development. The rice cakes will live inside the terrarium during the cropping phase of the growing cycle.

There are four different setups described in this document. The first one is a very simple, minimal terrarium that works well, but can only handle one rice cake. The second two are based on work done by Psylocybe Fanaticus. They will hold more cakes than the first terrarium, but they still require attention several times a day.

I encourage you to choose the last option. This one uses the same growing chamber as Psylocbye Fanaticus developed but an ultra-sonic humidifier is introduced to keep humidity up. It requires very limited maintenance and works very well.

The first terrarium, the "Poor Man's Terrarium" requires no humidification. It relies on a very small volume of air and the fact the terrarium is sealed very tightly from the outside environment.

All of the last three of the terrarium setups require the same growing chamber. The difference is the strategy for keeping the humidity high inside of the growing chamber. If you want, you can start with one of the simpler versions and switch to a different setup later if you are unhappy with it. Note that if you start with the ultra-sonic humidifier version, we don't expect that you will want to switch to one of the other two.

Good luck and do you know this illegal lol stay out of trouble

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Answer 7

Randomly eat wild ones until you die or fly.

Answer 8

I have a friend who used to grow them. She used to rather recklessly add them to her home-made-wine and beers. I seem to recall she organised fantastic parties, she was a very popular girl and was always being invited to other peoples` "bring a bottle" parties.

Answer 9

By the time you invest enough $ to get it up and running, you could just take a trip to Amsterdam and buy some in a shop...get it out of your system and get back to real life.

Answer 10

The proper grow kits work, and shouldnt be too hard if you follow the instructions.

Look at the forum on this site - www.everyonedoesit.com - Lots of people grow on their, though I think the grow kits for sale on that site are a little expensive so look elsewhere for buying.

Or you could just look for libs in the fields - the shroom season is just about to start!

Answer 11

no