Alright as promised Plex. I asked some fellow fungi enthusiasts and did some research as I have never grown azurescens.
They grow in the PNW(Pacific North West), I'd imagine this is because it rains there, whereas more towards southern calif it is fairly dry. Though your climate may be disadvantaged I believe it is still very possible for you to grow them.
I would avoid doing an indoor grow however. There has only been a few and very small yielding indoor azure grows that I know of. Not to mention the techniques involved are very questionable and hard to replicate.
What your going to need:
- Azure Print
- Still Air Box
- Syringe(18 gauge as usual)
- Pressure cooker
- Wild Bird Seed
- Hard-wood woodchips(check the pet store or look for grilling woodchips)
- 1 wide-mouth pint jar(with an injection port lid for sterility plenty of teks on how to make these)
- A flower bed outdoors that is pretty shaded
- Patience(these puppies take a long time to grow)
- Empty grow bag
I would start the outdoor bed in a fairly warm season. I am not so sure how the weather patterns are for california but Azures like to fruit in a colder climate. However you can prepare in a warmer time by getting your spawn ready.
Preparing Spawn:
1. Make your spore syringe how you normally would for any other kind of mushroom from a print(if you dunno how there's plenty of teks out there but be VERY sterile).
2. Make a wild bird seed jar(Soak WBS for 12-24 hours, then rinse with water)
3. Sterilize jar in pressure cooker(an hour at 15psi should be fine)
4. Allow jar to cool(don't worry about the bag you won't be using that for a little while)
5. Innoculate jar in a STERILE CLEAN still-air box. Don't bother using the whole syringe or anything, 1 CC should be fine.
6. A day or so before you imagine you will have full colonization of your WBS jar, soak Hard-wood wood-chips in water for 24 hours, then put them in a grow bag.
7. Once the WBS jar reaches full colonization make sure there are NO contaminations. If there is, make a new WBS jar, but if your sterile you wont hafta
. Remember you can NOT save a contaminated jar.
8. Depending on how big you made your grow bag with wood-chips sterilize at 15 psi for maybe 1.5-2 hours. Some people claim wood-chips won't contaminate, but why not take the extra precautions.
9. Allow wood-chips to cool COMPLETELY
10. Transfer grow bag and fully colonized WBS into your still air box.
Wood-spawn:
11. Make sure the air in your still air box is as sterile as humanly possible. It's safe to spray some 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol in the air prior simply because your not going to be using any flame for this part of the procedure.
12. Open grow bag, and open the jar.(pretty much follow Grain To Grain procedure)
13. Quickly pour the whole pint of WBS into the growbag of sterilized wood-chips.
14. Close & seal the grow-bag, and wait for full colonization. This will take a WHILE. So forget about it for seven says at a time and check up on it. Repeat until fully colonized.
15. Once fully colonized, it's time to move this thing outside
.
Azure Pit:
- This might be best to start in a warmer climate and expect to fruit 3-4 months later in a colder one
- Also do not put this in a place where it receives full sun. Fungi do like some radiation/light but they do not like to be cooked! Between big bushes or behind a fence would be adequate.
16. Dig a hole probably 7-8 inches deep, try to make it so the total volume of the whole is 5 times the size of your fully colonized grow-bag and not too much more/less.
17. Lay down an inch of more soaked for 24 hours hard-wood wood-chips.
18. Lay down some fully colonized wood-chips(maybe a 1/3 of the bag)
19. Lay down 2 inches or so of soaked wood-chips.
20. Lay down more fully colonized spawn, repeat until the hole you dug is just about full and all of your spawn is used, but with a layer of uncolonized spawn on top.
21. Put maybe a half inch of vermiculite ontop for stealth and protection from the arid climate
22. Water well. If you see Mycelium crawl on top of your casing layer(vermiculite), then just put some more verm on top.
Like I said before I have never grown azures before, and they aren't native to southern california. But if your going to give it a shot I believe this is your best shot at it. Please if anyone sees anything outrageusly incorrect, correct me
.
There is still a lot of research that needs to be done on azures and cultivation, so if you find anything please report back!
