Finally! Something good in 2020!

[null24]

I was afraid that like all other good things, that the fall mushy season would be another victim of this year when the weather looked like it was gonna screw the pooch again this year for NW Oregon. Well, the rains have come with a vengeance, the temps are steady at between 40 and 60F, and the mushies are finally popping. Last year was kind of a bust for me, with sleepless nights up in anger and frustration over the raiding of my best honey hole by jerks who ripped up the substrate and left trash including used syringes all over the place.

I checked a spot I've been watching yesterday and came home with about 75 mature ps. cyanescens fruits, and some of the strongest ones I've seen. Here's some porn pics and even a video for y'all---

EDIT: cannot upload an mp4, assessing other options for video...

 

[null24]

I've been hepped to the fact that cyans really don't care about wood chips, but like any rotting woody material and love it mixed with good soil and in the case above, burlap. A lot of community gardens around here use burlap to cover the fallow plots, I think to promote mycelial growth for nitrogen replenishing or something? But those guys up there are growing directly from burlap laid over soil used to grow peppers I think. It makes me want to try it out as a growth medium.

I fail every year, but this year I'm starting some more cardboardand once it is going may see about how easily it colonizes burlap. I just am not sure how to prepare it, obvioulsly this stuff is pretty stressed as compared to some I would buy. Maybe I should find some old stuff outside and boil it first?

Anyway, just thoughts. Here's another new patch from today clear across town, about 13 miles away from the other one, and right down the street from my house:

 

[Tony6Strings]

Very cool Null thank you for sharing. I am fascinated with cyans but have yet to cross paths with any.

 

[null24]

Very cool Null thank you for sharing. I am fascinated with cyans but have yet to cross paths with any.

They should be blowing up where you are right about now.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Urrrg... Null! How pleased you must be. I'm drooling onto my keyboard - those things are so... cute! It's been so long since I've found any - but then again, I don't really need to :?

 

[Tony6Strings]

I will go wander around some mulched areas.

 

[Exitwound]

Great pictures and great fruits null!

 

[metta-morpheus]

What a sweet patch You found. Those are beautiful and just right to pick. Good timing man. Enjoy!

 

[coAsTal]

I've been hepped to the fact that cyans really don't care about wood chips, but like any rotting woody material and love it mixed with good soil and in the case above, burlap. A lot of community gardens around here use burlap to cover the fallow plots, I think to promote mycelial growth for nitrogen replenishing or something? But those guys up there are growing directly from burlap laid over soil used to grow peppers I think. It makes me want to try it out as a growth medium.

I fail every year, but this year I'm starting some more cardboardand once it is going may see about how easily it colonizes burlap. I just am not sure how to prepare it, obvioulsly this stuff is pretty stressed as compared to some I would buy. Maybe I should find some old stuff outside and boil it first?

Anyway, just thoughts. Here's another new patch from today clear across town, about 13 miles away from the other one, and right down the street from my house:

If you want free burlap, go to any local coffee roastery-- the raw coffee comes in big burlap/jute sacks and the roaster always either throws them away or is happy to re-purpose it somehow or other.

 

[RhythmSpring]

Hey, is that what I found also?

 

[null24]

Today. Man, this year is nuts! Everything I'm finding is really meaty, and very potent, and very abundant. These were right in the open in a very well traveled park. Really quite surprised.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Rhythm spring - We'd need to see the gills and stems. Most importantly, the mushrooms will clearly bruise blue if they are the right ones. They will also have a very dark purple-brown spore print.

Based on the absence of these key features, as well as the rather pale cap coloration, I'd say yours look like a non-active species at best (Marasmius oreades?) but there are poisonous look-alikes such as Clitocybe rivulosa. The substrate doesn't look quite right either (Thuja/Leylandii clippings).

There is a whole host of small brownish mushrooms so my speculative ID's in the absence of valid mycological evidence are in no way definitive other than to say you're most probably out of luck on this occasion.

 

[null24]

Rythmspring, those look like a much more common grassland mushroom, but I'm not qualified to ID them nor could they really be from those pics. Cyans have white stems and you will see blue bruising at the base or along the rim of the cap where it meets the gills. Spores are dark purple, but gills can appear either yellow or purple depending on stage. On mature clusters you will see purple stains on some caps from sporulation. They typically grow in woodchips that are not too old or too new, and love all kinds of ground cover. They have crazy variability in their morphology. If you are in the PNW right now, it is one of the best seasons in years.

 

[null24]

Oh man, i shouldve been updating this post almost daily, this has by far been the best season ever in town that i, and several other veteran hunters have seen. I'm wondering if a concerted effort it spreading the myc throughout town by a non-organized bunch of folks eager to see Portland rival up north is starting to pay off? I know more and more people are doing it every year as the popularity and knowledge takes off. These things really know how to take advantage of us humans! Honestly, they use me a hell of a lot more than i use them.

Anyway, the reason i haven't been updating us because right at the peak i was sidelined by some kind of horrible stomach virus. I've been fighting it for ten days now. Mercifully, I will spare the details for you, but it's bad. I was terrified that I'd accidentally galarina poisoned myself eating freshies in the field, but that's an impossibility, and even if i had i would've eaten nowhere close to enough to do damage. I do think, however that i "mushroom poisoned" myself by eating fresh cyans in the field, because in my infinite wisdom decided to do so in a organic community garden. I imagine now that there's quite a bit of manure and manure loving organisms in the ground i pulled them from and a bit was on some of the mushroom material i ate. Just a working theory, i haven't gone to the doctor, but plan to tomorrow if symptoms return tonight and I'll discuss that with him in that case. I think I'll make a thread, I'm curious if others have experienced this, or some gardeners can tell me just how ignorant i was.

I do have some decent pics of a couple new patches i found I'll throw up later if they aren't on my phone to do so now. Even being yanked out of the running for this long (and it's not quite over yet, just winding down), i was able to collect more than enough to fruits to meet my personal needs and to be generous with until next season at least, so I'm happy and satisfied with that, at least.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Miso jelly

and, null - spore prints, spore prints, spore prints!!

 

[null24]

IDK about miso jelly, but miso is def a good friend right now! Thanks. What is miso jelly, btw?

Oh, like I said, they have me hard at work!

I'm colonizing a bunch of cardboard, which I then want to transfer to a tub of a hardwood chips, winter that indoors, then to woodchips, burlap, bamboo leaves and soil mix, maybe plant a little grass seed in it, and try to fruit from that outdoors. Or try to do the same basically but in a permanent bed in the ground. I don't really think I'll be in this location a year from now, so I'm not real sure how it's gonna play out. My stability-or lack of it- has been the deciding factor in the failure of past experiments, but we'll see I have high hopes for this one. The cardboard is really taking off too, I think I'll be transferring it sooner than later

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Partly I was just being silly:
miso jelly = me (I'm) so jealous
but...
Miso soup is really nice (too nice, perhaps) with P. cyanescens.

Both miso and agar would be good for your upset tummy, of course.

The holistic nature of this thought was quite satisfying. It makes up for me having to live with a mind like mine.


Great that you're having success with cardboard propagation. BBQ wood chips (beech or hickory) work well for the next step; a five minute simmer, the wait for them to start sinking as they cool. A plastic takeout food tub is a good size for this stage. Ride the mycelial wave once that gets going. For transfer to bulk wood chips I'd pre-soak whatever non-resinous chips you can get in a large bin of rainwater for two or three months until they're lovely and stinky. Put the chips in a large mesh bag (mesh sacks for root vegetables come in handy here) so that straining isn't too traumatic. Give the soaked chips a good rinse before inoculating. Mulch with leaf mould.

Back when I did this, there where these sturdy recycling boxes with a few drainage holes in the base. They were fantastic. Because they were for kerbside recycling they had sturdy hand holes and a snug plastic cover. This added up to an ideal combination of shelter, ventilation and drainage. Portability also - which could be useful for your transient situation.

 

[dithyramb]

Congratulations!

Can anyone describe the experiential difference between liberty caps and Ps. cyanescens? Liberty caps are more gentle and friendly, I guess?