Here's a fun thought- anybody ever tried growing mushrooms on spent caapi bark?? swim was thinking about giving it a try. Maybe he'll add some verm and/or coir to fluff it up a bit and see what happens. If that doesn't work, maybe he'll just try tossing it in as an additive to a bulk coir substrate. He likes the thought of recycling the spent vine this way.
Anybody see any obvious reason why this wouldn't work? Is caapi known to be antifungal? And if so, would it retain its antifungal components even after having been brewed for 9+ hours??
Anyhow, it's just an interesting thought swim had and wondered if this very thing has ever occurred to any other fellow Nexians after having completed a brewing process.

I don't get it...

I mean, sure, it will add volume to a bulk sub mix...or I guess you could try to incorporate it into a casing mix...but why? What's the point? What do you hope to get out of this? It's almost certainly not going to add anything to the actual fruit body and I can't see it being particularly beneficial to the mycelium either. You ask if it has ever occurred to anyone to try this...I still don't really get what you're trying. Strikes me as the same as "I like cannabis...maybe a few leaves in my substrate would be fun to do" and sure, it might be fun, but does it do anything? Is there any reason to do it? Personally I don't think so, you'd probably get more out of spent plant material putting it in a compost pile, but that's just my thoughts on it and I'm by no means omniscient. If you give it a go, please let us know how it turns out.

Nothing would most probably happen.
But mushrooms can synthetize stronger substances if a tryptamine is added to them.
Well thats what Dr.Shulgin say's.

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/shulgin/blg/2005/12/4-hydroxy-5-methoxy-nn_07.html

Jeesh, growing mushrooms on spent plant material IS composting (which takes nowhere near as long as his outdoor piles for that matter). None the less, I thought I was fairly clear in stating that the only reason swim had for attempting this was simply for invoking the spirit in his shamanic undertakings, and that he just likes the thought of recycling the byproducts of his entheogenic efforts this way. swim isn't expecting to get enhanced fruit-body formation out of this or any such thing.

Does reinvesting the remnants of one project in to another "do anything"? Sure, in swim's mind it does. You see, this is all a very personal, and spiritual undertaking for swim, and he believes that the energy he has incorporated in to his shamanic practices will reflect and feedback in to the results. He invested that caapi* with many careful and loving intents and wouldn't mind re-channeling some of that in to some shrooms. Now at this point you're more than welcome to chastise swim for sharing his personal philosophy towards these matters as well, but note that swim isn't too interested in having that conversation. swim didn't come here to have his open thought sharing be greeted with snarky replies by those who question the point of his methods.

Sorry if I misread you in any way Snozzle, swim just happened to find your tone a bit judgmental.. a bit patronizing.. and a bit belittling of swim's ways. swim is always happy to receive critique and helpful suggestions, but condescension.. not so much. Misunderstandings happen all too easily with internet communication though, and swim IS sorry if this is one of those times.

*A plant which many of us know to have an extraordinarily powerful essence to begin with.. most of which swim has already captured as tea, but besides the point..



Sigmund, what do you mean that nothing will happen?? Do you mean that you wouldn't expect the fungus to take to caapi?? Do you suspect it may even be detrimental to growth? See, this is the kind of thing swim is asking about, so that he doesn't end up wasting his time doing something counter-productive in his entheogenic experimentations if he doesn't have to.

I would think that alkaloids would more likely be anti fungal than good nutes. The extraction process should leach most things from the material...actives and otherwise. Seems like it would be better as a casing.

But, who knows...... You can use lawn grass cuttings sooo maybe

Well if you want ;try it out,but be careful.If the alkaloids were to be somehow absorbed,who knows what can happen.A new substance may be produced ? Who knows.Its a possibility but i wouldnt get my hopes up.I recommend you try it out,do 1 batch with a spent caapi bark casing and the other with a normal casing.And try them both later on,write a report for each one of them and compare notes.Maybe youll discover something new for the community!

Since growing mushrooms evidently can produce new, interesting chemicals from tryptamized substrates - see the link in post #3 above - it would be an even more interesting experiment to add spent , properly sanitized, chacruna and chaliponga to your mix ... and maybe some jurema and acacia confusa. Please report back with the results!

I've been composting with "spent" caapi bark and chacruna and chaliponga leaves for some time...but I add it to vegetables and fruit trees, not mushroom substrates. The compost - which includes lots of banana skins, coffee grounds and dead leaves - is of very good quality, but there are no psychedelic carrots in my backyard.

From that Shulgin page you gave me..

"Apparently the enzymes that are responsible for the 4-hydroxy group of psilocin are indifferent to what it is they choose to 4-hydroxylate."

Lol, so it will essentially 'mushroomify' most any tryptamine it encounters? Interesting thought..

"I'll give you even odds that if you put spores of a psilocybe species on cow droppings loaded with 5-MeO-DMT you would come out with mushrooms containing 4,5-HO-MeO-DMT. This way you avoid a 10 step synthesis by growing a psychoactive mushroom that contains no illegal drug."

Wow.. now that's cool. Many interesting thoughts spring to mind indeed. To me this looks like hard physical evidence that choice of substrate really does influence the character of experience a mushroom will provide. That's interesting, because the prevailing view right now among many growers (which seems due largely in part by RogerRabbit over at Shroomery) is that potency and effect is a fixed genetic outcome, which is predetermined regardless of substrate. This new information would seem to contradict that reasoning, which I never much agreed with anyway.



What you have shared here so far opens up an entirely new set of possibilities to my mind. If fungal metabolism is largely indiscriminate as to which tryptamines it chooses to 4-hydroxylate and if we can figure out how to work with this to our advantage, the many possible outcomes could be enormously 'fruitful'.

Yeah, I'll be careful about what I'm doing, for sure, but thanks for sharing this knowledge. Opens up some very intriguing avenues indeed.

I wonder if woodlovers would like the caapi vine...

Your ideas sound interesting and at least in form of an interal ecology I can definitely relate to what you have in mind. I'm not sure how this relates to anything physical that could be measured other than by the measuring-apratus-human, i.e. through subjective experience but that's beside the point.
Technically I wonder if the caapi would be nourishment to the mycelium at all, how easily it could decompose it ect. In the worst case you will have a bunch of dead-weight in your substrate that the myc couldn't eat. maybe the collonies will survive, maybe not.

I think you should go for trying it. Not sure if you woudl go for woodlovers or regular cubes. I find growing mushrooms a spiritual and scientific practice at the same time. The idea of cultivating things that alter my mind, feels like one is already cultivating the alteration in the mind by ones work with them. so from an internal perspective I can see how keeping things in the cycle for as long as possible would be nice. It's all energy of an internal nature towards the improvement of the spirit, that is to say, thoughts cultivating thoughts whith positive intentions...
As I've said, I don't know if there is a way to measure this out, if there is external validity to this energy, but if it is a psychological energy, a spiritual one, then I don't see why we shouldn't equally follow this idea to cultivate ones inner life. The mushrooms in themselves may never be different from others, nor your trips with them, but the quality of your relationship to the use of entheogens itself is diferent when you are growin your own, that's all I can say. That's why I'm generally open to this idea. I find that one can easily mirror ones work with plants or mushrooms with the work that one is doing on ones own spirit or mind, a kind of inner gardening. Here anything goes though - any kind of symbolic relationships you have, they all come to baring on this inner landscape that you are the architect of.

The real question then is can this step of looping the caapi energy back into your other gardening projects be manifested in physical reality and how well would it perform? I think you will have to try this for yourself. I would be very interested in hearing the results. If it doesn't, if the mushrooms don't grow well on it at least you can still compost it and so re-introduce its energy at least into the cycle of your overall garden.

sorry if this was incoherent...
much Love from Someone Different
...Enoon

Indeed, these are all experiments that will have to be undergone. Swim doesn't really like working with isolates (for many personal reasons which aren't the focus of this discussion), but maybe he'll deal with it for a while in order to see for himself just how much impact substrate could possibly have on effect.

Of course, swim's experiments will be far from definitive, but they'll serve his needs for sure

You understand what I'm saying exactly. Even if it's all entirely self-suggestive, that's of absolutely no consequence to swim's experiences. He wants to make sure that purity went in to all of this, because when he does so, he tends to get purity back.

Be it for subjective reasons, or perhaps some form of physical energy transfer which we do not understand, Swim IS cultivating his experiences by the very practices that bring them about, and he wants to make sure that he's done everything within his power to invest in them wisely. This is why the thought of recombining the essence of his leftover caapi with some wonderful psychedelic fungi is so appealing to swim.

swim has had bad experiences in the past which he manifested through carelessness (ie: driving all around town, polluting and consuming heavily in an ironic and desperate attempt to touch some kind of enlightenment, only to have his doings thrown back in his face come trip time where he is suddenly brought to realize his own recklessness as it appears to him in endless, tunneling garbage heaps and plastic bins in the mirrored halls of infinity).

It's as if we are condensing each and every little act that we enter in to cultivating these sacred agents down to a single, infinitely magnified point of kaleidoscopic proportions, being the trip itself. In the end it all comes flooding back. Each and every experience is literally what we make it. So of course what's really taking place here, is the cultivation of ourselves- and with that, the cultivation of all that we bring to reality. swim definitely believes that.

(from that Shulgin paper noted above): "I'll give you even odds that if you put spores of a psilocybe species on cow droppings loaded with 5-MeO-DMT you would come out with mushrooms containing 4,5-HO-MeO-DMT. This way you avoid a 10 step synthesis by growing a psychoactive mushroom that contains no illegal drug."

That may have been written when 5-MeO-DMT was not illegal.

Could there be other, non-psychoactive species of mushrooms that, grown from substrate infused with acacia confusa for example, could produce psychoactive chemicals in the fruiting bodies? This way you might avoid not only dealing with illegal drugs and substrate additives, but also illegal mushrooms!

...or how about genetically engineering a mushroom does just that?

skullhuman,

Please forgive me, your analysis of my post was completely correct. I've been having an awful week at work and fired that post off in a haze of frustration and anger at the end of the workday. I do not say that to excuse my actions, merely to inform you where I was coming from. My response had no thought and no substance, hell, I didn't even consider wood-loving fungus, as Enoon pointed out. I really appreciate you holding up the mirror to my actions, as I saw myself taking a similar tone in other posts recently but had avoided addressing it. I'm sorry to have lashed out at you for no reason; my only comment on using caapi in sub/casing mix would be to make sure to adjust pH if you use acid when brewing.

apologies,
SB

This give swim all sorts of fun and exciting ideas. Swim is thinking of a Psilocybe Ovoideocystidiata spore print- a woodlover that's fairly easy to cultivate. He thinks some experimentation is in order!!



Snozzle,

Thank you so much for your humble apology. As a fellow traveler along for this human journey, I understand and can empathize completely with where you were at. I find myself constantly apologizing for subjecting others to my own frustrations and inner turmoils. But not everyone is so willing to look inward, and I really appreciate it that you are!! See, this is the kind of thing that makes the Nexus such a great place. There are only a few groups of people around that are this introspective, and it's a big part of why I love it here. You all are such humble, wise, and compassionate people and I'm so thankful that you exist.