Mushrooms have been used for centuries by traditional people and shamans or medicine men to go into altered states of consciousness and visit other dimensions. Magic mushrooms or hallucinogenic fungi such as the fly agaric or Amanita muscaria must be used carefully as they can be toxic, especially when identified incorrectly. Many species or varieties of mushrooms that may appear very similar can have vastly different properties.

Mushroom identification out in the woods or forests is a skill our ancestors acquired eons ago, but in our modern age that puts more value on science and material wealth than appreciation of nature and spirituality, being expert at identifying specific plants and knowing their applications are talents and abilities that have fallen by the wayside. Unless you are a mycologist, a mushroom scientist, or a serious student of the different kinds of mushrooms that grow in nature, you are likely to be ill equipped to correctly know the difference between, for example, an Amanita muscaria and one of its look-alike cousins in the mushroom family.

When it comes to finding any kind of mushroom out in the wild, your search will be most productive if you know not only when but also where to do your looking. Wild mushrooms are not like vegetables in a garden that are planted and harvested on a convenient time schedule. To the uninitiated observer it may seem that they have minds of their own, appearing and disappearing with very little rhyme or reason. But, like our ancestors of old who were in tune with the natural rhythms of the earth, those who closely study wild fungi know there are likely areas and seasons when one’s quest for these marvelous morsels will be most productive.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Amanita muscaria grow as natives all through the temperate and boreal regions. In addition, they have accidentally been transported to a large number of Southern Hemisphere countries. Searches will be most productive in woodlands where birch, pine, cedar fir and spruce trees are abundant. Although they are most often found in the fall, the seasonal variations are dependant on various climate zones. Whereas in the greatest areas of North America they appear during the summer and autumn, in Pacific coastal regions they come out later, in the late fall and early winter.

In some parts of Australia, particularly in the southeast, Amanita grows like a weed, and there are concerns, especially in rainforest areas around Victoria and Tasmania that it could be pushing out some native species.

For someone desiring to plant their own garden of Amanita mushrooms, they are advised to do so in the autumn or spring. Most of the growth happens underground during spring and summer, and depends on how much rainfall there is, or, if you are watering the garden yourself, according to how much moisture the soil contains.

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fragment of a discovery channel video about the rainforest. I like the mushroom part and actually it is not that difficult to make a similar video

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Advice on the easiest way to find Amanita muscaria mushrooms is available online at the Amanita muscaria report website, http://amanitamuscariareport.com.

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Your cup of steaming hot coffee every morning isn’t something as easily prepared as you might think. Creating coffee needs more than just putting hot water and stirring sugar into it. It doesn’t even come in instant granules that we are so used to.

The coffee that we drink actually comes from the coffee plants that are cultivated in various parts of the globe. Brazil is the number one coffee producer in the world with a market share of about 30-35 percent. Most countries that produce coffee are from South and Central America and the Middle East. Some Asian countries like Indonesia and India also have coffee plantations.

Coffee plants are evergreen plants that are grown in specific situations. They need specific amounts of water, air and land in order for the flavor to be achieved. It involves a lot of back-breaking work and is pretty labor-intensive. This is perhaps why it is so hard to grow them.

Plants are sown as seedlings in what coffee-growers call nursery beds. The land needs to be well aerated since it should have a healthy amount of oxygen in the roots in order to grow well. After about 8-12 months, the seedlings are then replanted to the coffee fields where there are wet and fertilized holes.

As mentioned before, specific conditions must be kept true in order to cultivate a good coffee bean. Sunlight shouldn’t shine directly. In fact, diffused light is best. Moisture should also be kept constant with frequent and regular watering. The soil should also be fertilized and kept healthy by removing weeds and protecting them from pests.

When planted, it takes a long time before it can mature. The coffee grower needs to wait for about 5 years before his first crop.

What the trees look like Coffee trees are big and broad with dark green leaves. The flower, which resembles jasmine, is where the coffee granules are gotten. That is why harvest time are timed at the period when these flowers blossom. The fruits are also great sources of the coffee beans. The cherries or the berries will begin to come out about 6-8 months after.

It is a must that these fruits are harvested immediately as they can ripen easily- within 10 – 14 days. Manual harvesting is still preferred even if it takes a longer time. This is because the picker needs to keep the good beans apart from the bad ones.

The long wait is however very profitable for the coffee grower. One tree can produce about two pounds of beans, which is around 2000 coffee beans. After the harvest, the coffee beans are then processed. They are dried and then roasted. These coffee beans are then ready to be sold on the market where they will be grounded before being served.

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A look into how we make compost and how to grow your own mushrooms with a kit from our website: www.mushroom-compost.co.uk

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Want to find out about green tea caffeine and kombucha tea? Get tips from the Types Of Tea website.

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Creating Grain Spawn

Cereal grains such as wheat, rye, millet, maize, amaranth, quinoa, etc. can be used as a vehicle to expand your substrate mass into bulk substrates. If you’ve mastered half-pint jars, making grain spawn is the next logical step. When a jar of grain is completely colonized it can be used to inoculate other jars of grain using what’s called a grain to grain transfer. G2G for short. Paul Stamet’s explains that 1 jar of colonized grain can inoculate 10 more jars of grain. Each of these jars in turn can inoculate 10 more jars and finally those can inoculate 10 bags of bulk substrate each. Do the math and you are expanding your mycelial mass up to 10,000 times the original jar. (Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, 2000).

Check out our Pre-Sterilized Rye Jars with our special self-healing injection site lid if you don’t have a pressure cooker or the time required to process them.

If you would like to create your own Rye jars, simply follow these instructions and start making your own grain spawn to experiment with.

There are many lid designs that can be used with your quart jars. We recommend drilling four ¼” holes as you normally would in half-pint jar lids. Then drill one larger hole in the center. This will be filled with a High Temp Gasket sealer to create a self-healing injection site. If you are using the quart jars for grain to grain transfers you can leave out the injection site.

Depending on the size of your pressure cooker you will want to adjust the amount of ingredients to suit how many quart size jars you will be able to sterilize at one time. For each quart jar measure out 200g or 250 ml of organically grown rye. You can use the quart jars for measuring. Simply pour the rye into each jar to the 250 ml level. We will need to set a pot large enough to hold enough water to cover all of the rye grains put together.

Fill your pot with enough water and heat to boiling. Immerse your grains in the water and then lower the heat. Keeping it up high will cause the grains to break open and this can lead to contamination later on. We want to steep the grains for one hour stirring now and then. For my stove I lower the heat from level 8 to level 3 when putting the grains in and then on down to level 1 after twenty minutes. Your stove will be different but I included these settings to show an example. The grains will start to swell from absorbing water as time goes on.

After your hour of steeping is up you will want to drain off the excess water and then pour the grains through a strainer. I usually rinse off the grains before loading them in the quart jars. Scoop enough grain so that each jar is evenly filled. Place your lids on loosely and cover them with a square of aluminum foil to keep water droplets from landing on the lid and seeping through to the interior.

Load your pressure cooker with the jars and fill the it up to the desired water level. Now, take your jars back out and preheat your pressure cooker water to boiling. This will help prohibit more grains from exploding during the heating process. After the water has started to boil, load the pressure cooker again and place the lid on. After the pressure cooker starts to sizzle at 15 p.s.i., set your timer for 90 minutes.

Allow the pressure cooker to cool to room temperature before removing the lid. Shake the jars when removing them to mix up the grains. The grains on the bottom might be more moist than the rest and will need redistributed. Allow the jars to cool for 24 hours before attempting to inoculate them.

When you inoculate your jars, it is best to work in a clean area to prohibit bacteria from contaminating your substrate. Cleanse the area well and nuke the air with Lysol. Using a culture syringe, insert the needle through the self-healing injection site and administer 1 cc of solution per jar. Shake up the grains to distribute the solution and incubate at between 82-86 degrees F. After five days, you can shake the jar one more time to aid in speeding up colonization time. If the jars have not colonized within 14-21 days the jar is most likely contaminated or the temperatures are too low.

Grain to Grain Transfer

When a Quart Rye Jar is fully colonized it can be used to inoculate up to 10 more jars to expand your mycelium and increase substrate mass thus increasing yields. Inoculating a grain jar with colonized substrate is faster than using a Liquid Culture because there is more mycelium to reproduce and proliferate. The procedure is fairly simple. The main concern is sterility when opening the uncolonized substrate jars.

First thing.

You should wait approximately 1 week after the jar has colonized to ensure the interior has colonized as well and allow the mycelium to digest the substrate in preparation for fruiting. A rye jar usually colonized in about 3-4 weeks. Sometimes this can take longer if the temperature is not between 82-86 degrees during incubation.

When you are sure colonization is complete you will need to break up the grain so that you can inoculate your other substrates. Using a tire is perfect for this. Just make sure there are no cracks in the jar or it could break. You should also use safety goggles when doing this.

After the grains have broken up, place it back in your incubation area and wait 24 hours. This will help rule out contaminations. The next day, mycelium should be growing again. If it has not within 24 hours the jar is considered contaminated by bacteria and should be thrown out. If you use it then you are potentially contaminating all of your new substrate jars.

The following day when you are ready to inoculate your jars, you should clean your work area, table and air with some cleaner. Any automatic air should be turned off one hour before the procedure. This helps calm the air and reduce the risk of airborne contaminates entering the jar when you open it. Ideally, you should be working in front of a Flow Hood but a Sterilized Glovebox will work as well. If you are using a glovebox, load the jars at this time.

The Procedure: Reshake the colonized jar to break up the grains. To inoculate the new rye jars, remove the lid from your colonized jar and the lid from the fresh substrate jar. Shake some colonized rye grains into the fresh substrate. There should be enough to divide the 1 colonized jar into 10 new ones.

Continue with the rest of the jars. Remove the lid, quickly inoculate with rye grain and replace the lid. The less time the lid is off the better. Incubate your jars the same way you did the first one. After these have colonized you can do several things with the grain.

• Use each jar to inoculate 10 more jars each

• Fruit the mushrooms right out of the top of the jar (depending on your species; not all mushrooms fruit directly from grain)

• Use the colonized grain to inoculate any of our 3 lb Substrate Spawn Bags. In most cases these can be fruited directly using our grow chambers or a humidity tent.

• Use the colonized grain to inoculate Pasteurized Straw

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Kenny Point demonstrates how to grow your own crop of gourmet mushrooms through hardwood inoculation. View Kenny’s Blog: www.veggiegardeningtips.com Follow Kenny on Twitter twitter.com

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Be sure to check out our website for a wide variety of mushroom growing supplies including live culture syringes and complete mushroom grow kits
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http://www.the-shroom-room.com/

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