-SWIM found DMT very "snakey, and zig zaggy", the visuals were VERY much different to his ENOURMOUS Brasilian shroomie dose.

>BUT, like he said, it was years ago in Brasil, probably too much sunshine, and too many CaipirinHas!!

I noticed you let the caps fully open up, but I've read that each fruit doesn't get any more potent by doing so. Have you noticed any real difference in potency when harvesting before the veil breaks vs afterward? I know this is hard to test, but just curious about other's experiences. Some say pins are the most potent (for their weight).

powerup

in this recent thread by someone else there is a pic of mushrooms that are flat- they get even a lot more ripe then that - the caps go from convex to concave on top.
if you go back to the op of this thread you will notice the caps are all clean of spores except about 5 fruit(very very mildly stained by spores) and none of the fruit are flat or concave yet.

as a mushroom grows it is constantly producing actives until the time of sporulation, after this it just gains weight
the dropping of spores is most often around the time that the veil separates from the cap - this is as one picks it
if a mushroom weighs 50g wet as the veil breaks - one could still grow it to 150g yet it will have the same amount of actives as if it were picked when it weighed 50g

one harvests all mushies at the same time - most often all the fruit are the same size - thus, this monotub was harvested at the exact right time for peak potency.

Great Job!

Always wanted to grow them like that. Swim uses mason jars with success but yield is lower. Could you share your technique?

DimensionlessBeing

No worries, it was just a horse dung and vermiculite casing with some calcium carbonate added...


Much Peace and Happiness

"as a mushroom grows it is constantly producing actives until the time of sporulation, after this it just gains weight
the dropping of spores is most often around the time that the veil separates from the cap - this is as one picks it
if a mushroom weighs 50g wet as the veil breaks - one could still grow it to 150g yet it will have the same amount of actives as if it were picked when it weighed 50g

one harvests all mushies at the same time - most often all the fruit are the same size - thus, this monotub was harvested at the exact right time for peak potency.""

Phlux, this is just plain not true.

First of all, once a mushroom drops its sporeload, it essentially aborts its life and stops sucking nutrients from the substrate, it DOES NOT keep growing, but rather degrades into a pile of mushy gooey flesh if not picked within a few days. So i dont know where you got that info, but next time, watch a shroom after it drops its spores, it shrinks and gets smaller and withers away, it does not triple in size from 50 to 150 grams (lol).

Secondly, the reason many think smaller shrooms are more potent is because by weight smaller shrooms contain less water than their large bretheren, but once everything is dry, in most cases at least, it doesnt matter. Some will still say they have wilder rides with aborts, but im still very skeptical of this.

The ideal time to pick is just AFTER the viel tears and cap starts to open, but before it drops or even forms its spores. Once the veil tears the shrooms arent gunnu grow much more at all, but will focus on spore production. If used only for eating (not for printing) it is ideal NOT to have spores in the shrooms you eat, or in your tea.

Also if some larger shrooms are forming faster than the rest, it is advantageous to pick them, even before they fully grow up, because they will steal nutrients from the rest of the pins on the flush, this causes a lot of aborts, because the mycelium is considering these stragler big mushies the first flush and diverts all energy to them, killing the pins.

haha - harmalosa you crack me up
have you ever grown mushies before ?
i ask as i have seen what i speak of countless times as iv grown many many kilo's of fruit - iv been growing mushies for the past 7 years or so.

im glad i could ammuse you!

But seriously my friend, yes, i have indeed grown many enourmous tubs of cubensis, it is my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

Im editing my post to change the tone of the message:

I personally have always picked just before or very soon after the spores drop, as is advised. So I haven't wathced mushrooms long after dropping, but my understanding which may or may not be correct, is that once dropping spores a mushroom has comleted the life cycle and rots from the inside out.

I would be very interested to see any proof that a mushroom can significantly increase in size after the cap is fully turned up and the spores dropped.

Either way it is inadvisable to let the mushrooms drop spores, the best time to pick is when the cap opens but before it becomes dark with spores, unless taking prints of course.

Cheers and have a good one

strange that we have such conflicting experience with this
do you live in a hot country ?
where i stay it is tropical - outdoor mushies do the same as indoors and the only ones that iv seen act as you say would be coprinus spp outside.

I just finished a couple of grows myself but they were fruited directly from rye grain injector bags with a vermiculate casing layer, next time i'm going to spawn to 50/50 coco/verm for a bulkier grow.

The thread title reminded me of one of my nicest experiences with mushrooms... i find that psilocybin can give me a kind of slowmo perception at times and one night i saw this meteor/shooting star, only this time i clearly saw it as a ball of fire slowly breaking/burning up into nothingness. It must've been quite a large meteoroid and very low in the atmosphere to see it like this so clearly, certainly not the size of a grain of sand like most meteoroids are supposed to be.

With all due respect, I also think that it is best to harvest as soon as the veil breaks as the shroom will enter "spore creation phase" and it will not produce much more (if at all) actives later even if it continues to grow.

The main problem is that the shrooms consume the nutriments from the soil for creating spores and not psilocybin so the next flushes will have less food to use.

Nevertheless, those shrooms seems very healthy and appetizing

Peace.

I seem to have the issue of if i pick say 2 mushrooms where the veil is about to break, which is definitely my preferred time of harvest, the medium/small mushrooms that are left behind don't grow anymore, the fresh mycelium keeps growing but everything else gets stunted, i've even seen the mushrooms that get left behind get totally enveloped in fresh mycelial growth

Yet time & time again i hear people saying dont harvest all at once, only pick the mature ones... i just play it by ear now.

I actually prefer to pick em before the veil breaks. It's a little easier to eat "nugget caps" than "veiny cracker" type. It obviously dosen't help with the weight of the harvest but I don't mind as I always have plenty.