What are the proven facts that affect the growth of mushrooms and potency? A lot is said around different teks and posts but I was interested to find what was actually tested scientifically with controlled variables, and not just anecdotally.
Here’s what I found so far:
MYCELIUM GROWTH
1- Ammonium succinate, glucose content and acidic pH of medium increase psilocybin production in mycelium of P. cubensis, but no mention whether it correlates with fruit psilocybin content later on (Catalfomo & Tyler 1964)
2- Darkness improved colonization of panaeolus spp. mycelium (Bustillos et al 2014)
3- No strong correlation between pH changes from 6-8 and mycelium growth of Panaeolus spp. (Bustillos et al 2014)
FRUITING/HARVESTING:
1- With Panaeolus fruits, horse dung was 10x worse in yield compared to cow or buffalo dung. (Bustillos et al 2014)
2- To induce pinning, light is essential, UV and blue wavelengths of 370, 440, and 460 nm were the most effective. Green and red wavelengths greater than 510 nm were ineffective. (Badham 1979)
3- Darkness post-pinning till harvesting increases psilocybin content by 100 times (!!!!!) compared to indirect or direct lighting (Riahi et al 2009)*
4- After pinning, darkness and light makes no difference to mushroom growth speed and size (Badham 1985)
(Scientific-minded experiments by home growers)
1- Straw vs coir vs straw+coir - Similar results but coir best results (Rahz@Shroomery)
What surprised me the most from this is the aspect about darkness.. Why aren't people talking about this 100 fold difference??? (edit: * Found this comment from Loveall saying the method used to extract shrooms to test might have not dissolved psilocybin. Still would be interesting to try and reproduce this. I might try and contact the authors and ask)
Any other variables you know have been tested before, either in published papers or at least in home experiments that followed the scientific method doing side-by-side comparisons and not comparing in different moments with other uncontrolled variables?
Here’s what I found so far:
MYCELIUM GROWTH
1- Ammonium succinate, glucose content and acidic pH of medium increase psilocybin production in mycelium of P. cubensis, but no mention whether it correlates with fruit psilocybin content later on (Catalfomo & Tyler 1964)
2- Darkness improved colonization of panaeolus spp. mycelium (Bustillos et al 2014)
3- No strong correlation between pH changes from 6-8 and mycelium growth of Panaeolus spp. (Bustillos et al 2014)
FRUITING/HARVESTING:
1- With Panaeolus fruits, horse dung was 10x worse in yield compared to cow or buffalo dung. (Bustillos et al 2014)
2- To induce pinning, light is essential, UV and blue wavelengths of 370, 440, and 460 nm were the most effective. Green and red wavelengths greater than 510 nm were ineffective. (Badham 1979)
3- Darkness post-pinning till harvesting increases psilocybin content by 100 times (!!!!!) compared to indirect or direct lighting (Riahi et al 2009)*
4- After pinning, darkness and light makes no difference to mushroom growth speed and size (Badham 1985)
(Scientific-minded experiments by home growers)
1- Straw vs coir vs straw+coir - Similar results but coir best results (Rahz@Shroomery)
What surprised me the most from this is the aspect about darkness.. Why aren't people talking about this 100 fold difference??? (edit: * Found this comment from Loveall saying the method used to extract shrooms to test might have not dissolved psilocybin. Still would be interesting to try and reproduce this. I might try and contact the authors and ask)
Any other variables you know have been tested before, either in published papers or at least in home experiments that followed the scientific method doing side-by-side comparisons and not comparing in different moments with other uncontrolled variables?