2 parts birdseed**  to 1 part water

Pressure cook for 60-90 minutes @ 15psi

Allow to cool completely (overnight) before removeing from the p'cooker

Use it :)

**preferably the type of seed without birdcoat, and preferably predominantly a millet and milo mix.

Note-For pint jars 3/4 cup birdseed to 3/8 cup of water is near perfection.  Carefull measurement increases consistancy of results...the cheap plastic multisize kitchen measuring devices work great.
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Another Birdseed Recipe :

Being that I have finally got my birdseed recipe working to my liking I thought I would let you guys know how I was doing it. It took me 4-5 tries to get the water ratio etc. right, but I think it was worth it. It's probably worth saying that this isn't the only way to do birdseed and everyone has their own little "tricks" etc. they use, this is merely what has worked for me.
#1) Get some wide-mouth 1 pint jars. I would advise against using 1/2 pints with birdseed because they hold very little. Poke at least 1 hole in the lid before using, for inoculation purposes.
#2) Get your birdseed, I have used Audubon Park birdseed and Peningtons (w/ "Bird Kote" supplement on the seed). It helped to wash and rinse the "bird Kote" off of the Peningtons or it would collect at the bottom of the jar and glue all the seed together, making it impossible for the mycelium to colonize fully. For this reason, I would use birdseed with no chemicals, supplements etc. added.
#3) Measure out 2/3 cup birdseed into each jar you plan on doing and add enough water to cover the birdseed totally + ~1" over the seed. Let the seed soak overnight, shaking every once in a while. Drain the water in the morning and wipe the top 1" or so of the jar clean with a paper towel or similar.
#4) Just before putting in the pressure cooker add another 5-10 cc's of water (I'm not sure exactly how much I use, but with the seed in the jar it goes about 1/2"-3/4" deep in the jar). The seed should have enough water in it from the soaking to grow mycelium, the extra water is to steam the seed for sterilization. Cover lids with foil.
#5) Pressure cook @ 15 psi for ~1 hr. Maybe a little more to be safe.
#6) Let jars cool w/ foil still on lids, I usually do it in the freezer with no problems, but letting them cool by themselves is probably safer. I always put tape over the holes in the lid after they cool, if you do it when they are hot, it will create a vaccuum and when you open the tape to inoculate the jar will suck in a bunch of possibly contaminated air. Note: the birdseed will not fill the jar totally, this is good because the jars can be shook to mix the mycelium throughout the whole jar.
#7) Inoculate when jars are cool to the touch(1 cc. solution is all I use). You can use the oven tek if yer extra paranoid about contams. After inoculating I usually shake the seed to disperse the spores/mycelium throughout the seed.
#8) I usually see growth in ~3 days. When you see the jars are growing well, you shake them gently again, don't worry, the mycelium will recover.
#9) Shake jars every 5-7 days until colonized. Depending on strain this should take from 2-4 weeks.
#10) When colonized break birdseed up and cover with yer fave casing.

Author unknown
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 The Shroomery Bulletin Board
 Mushroom Cultivation
 How do I grow with Birdseed
   
Author  Topic:   How do I grow with Birdseed  
Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted August 17, 1998 08:04 AM                                  
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I keep reading and seeing pictures of the sucess of birdseed. I don't know why I never heard of this until about a week ago, but now I'm very curious. So can I please get some feedback from sucessfull growers.
1) What kind of birdseed is used. I seen like 6 different kinds at Home Depot.
2) How is it used in the substrate using the PF jar technique. Does the seed substitute the vermiculite, or the brown rice, or both.

3) Is it better to make the birdseed with rye grain rather then rice powder

4) what is the mix ration of birdseed rice/rye and water.

5) does the birdseed need to be sterilized in the microwave first, and if so how long.

6) Anyone tried using birdseed and rye or grass seed? I heard of someone using the grass and birdseed to grow semi's.

7) Does the birdseed have to be sterilzed in a pressure cooker such as rye grain or can a boiling pot of water be used like with rice.

Please, give some detailed instruction on this. I haven't found anything on this other then mentions of using it here and there.

Thanks in advance my fellow shroomers.

Chancellor
Senior Member
(Total posts: 64)
 posted August 18, 1998 05:22 AM                              
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These are good questions. Workman probably knows the answers, he uses this method. Workman?

Workman
Senior Member
(Total posts: 486)
 posted August 19, 1998 11:53 AM                              
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Wow, lots of questions. Instead of answering them one by one, I will just tell you what I do. Hopefully that will cover most of them.
When I use birdseed, I am just following normal spawn making techniques used for rye (except the proportions of grain to water is different).

I add 250 ml of birdseed and 130 ml of water to a quart jar. I use a 250ml baby bottle as a graduated cylinder for measuring the seed. I cover with a lid that has a small hole in it stuffed tightly with polyester fiber pillow stuffing material and finally capped with a piece of foil. Sterilize in a pressure cooker for 1 hour at 15 PSI. Let cool overnight in the cooker. I then generally transfer agar wedges into the jar, but spore syringes can easily be used by injecting through the polyester fiber. Shake periodically to distribute the mycelium and faciltate air exchange. If you are more comfortable with fruiting PF style cakes then after the quarts are fully colonized, repack the colonized seed into halfpints. Add a lid and wait for about 4 days or until the mycelium has recovered and the new cake is solid. Remove cake and fruit normally. Actually, any container can be used to make a cake, but I've found that overly large cakes tend to dry and not fruit in the middle. More smaller cakes may be better than one monster cake.

As far as the type of seed, I use whatever is cheapest at the time. Its always mostly millet with a few sunflower seeds and some larger reddish seeds that I believe are milo. Its all good.

I have a report of someone who used this technique but couldn't get their pressure cooker to work at the last minute. They boiled the jars for 1 hr 15 minutes and had good success. Seems risky to me, and water absorbtion may not be as good.

Ok, one more tip. If your are attempting to inject through the polyester fiber mentioned above and you stuffed it in correctly, you won't be able to puncture it through the middle. What you need to do is slide the needle down the side of the drilled hole between the fiber and the side of the hole. It will make sense when you have one in front of you.

Alright, this is the last one. After the seed has come out of the pressure cooker, it may not look like you expected. The top will look rather dry and the bottom will have burst grains and look gummy. You need to shake the grains apart and mix them. This can be hard at first, but keep working at it. If even after slamming it into your leg or an old tire it still won't break apart, use a little less water next time. Otherwise don't worry about it.

apost
unregistered   posted August 19, 1998 03:10 PM                    
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I also have one little hint which works also for rye and "normal" PF cakes:
Use boiling water for your jar and also fill the pressure cooker with it, then you can wait until the pressure is high and need only 25 minutes for autoclaving!!
It has always worked for me, no contamination...
Later,
Art.

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted August 19, 1998 04:28 PM                                  
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Thanks for taking the time to post that info. Unfortunatly, I never bought a pressure cooker and haven't experimented with rye yet. So I think I'm going to experiment with a birdseed/rice/water and birdseed/rice/vermiculite/water using the PF method.
After reading your post
Workman, the part about birdseed I'm confused about is weather its suppose to act as a nutriant or water retainer such as vermiculite. Your using rye and birdseed, both being nutriants then. I guess the birdseed must retain a lot of water.
I let everyone know how my experiments go.

Ambrose
Senior Member
(Total posts: 67)
 posted August 21, 1998 07:18 PM                              
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Hello,
If you are going to try birdseed in PF style cakes, some changes will need to be made. As Workman mentioned, moisture absorbtion and contamination might be a problem. The first thing I would do is bring the moisture content up before sterilization. You can accomplish this in one of two ways:
1.measure out the seed and place into a medium-large pot. Add enough water so the grain is covered by 1 inch. Slowly bring the water to a boil and steep the grain for 30-45 minutes or until it has achieved the correct moisture content.
2. This method was suggested by Heiki. Steam the birdseed in an electric rice steamer. He reported excellent results with this method, so if you have one of these gadgets, it is worth a try.
Once the moisture content is correct, you can load the birdseed into jars and sterilize. But, I think you would have better results if you added a little bit of pre-moistened vermiculite to the seed. This will help keep the substrate loose so the steam can penetrate better.

Finally, and maybe the best, is to simply grind the birdseed into a course powder and follow the pf recipe except substitute the seed for the rice. Or, if you want to experiment try a mixture of different flours. If you use this method, you will have better results with steam sterilization.
Good Luck!
-ambrose-

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted August 22, 1998 03:26 AM                                  
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I really liked the idea of grinding the birdseed like rice for the PF method, great idea. So from what I'm gathering, the birdseed is not mixed with rice. Sounds to me like everyone is growing with the birdseed by itself, not mixed with rice. Is the steaming and/or boiling to loosen the hard shells of the birdseed so water can penetrate it?
I would sure appreciate some info from anyone that has growin using birdseed and what methods they use. Is the yields really higher with BS then with rice?
Ambrose, you also mentioned the BS is more open to contaminants?
Thanks for the input

MoJoNiXoN
unregistered   posted August 22, 1998 08:41 PM                          
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Is it wise to use birdseed with Panaeolus Cyanescens?

Ambrose
Senior Member
(Total posts: 67)
 posted August 22, 1998 11:57 PM                              
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Hello,
Ryche: For birdseed, I use the method workman posted--add the birdseed plus water to quart jars and sterilize in a pressure cooker. When you do this, the steam is under pressure so the grains absorb all the water. If you were to do the same and simply steam it in a big pot, the water would not be effectively absorbed (plus I am not sure if the unground seed would be sterilized enough). Basically what you'd end up with is alot of waterlogged seeds on the bottom and dry as a bone on top. Sooo..., my suggest of first steeping the b/seed in near boiling water (drain it very well when the proper moisture has been reached) OR steaming it in a rice cooker was to make sure the seeds had the proper moisture content. Then, by mixing in a little premoistend vermiculite (allows the steam to pentrate better) and finally loading the mix into 1/2 pint jars I think you might have success with steaming it in a pot. Sorry about the lack of clarity in my first post.

But.....
I really think you would have the best results if you first ground the seed into a flour and then followed the PF tek recipe. You could also experiment a little with the recipe. I once did an experiment using ground rice/ground millet/ vermiculite. I was very pleased with the results. I was also thinking that maybe a good substrate for Pan cyan would be: ground birdseed/finely shredded straw (you may have to soak this first overnight and then drain really well in order to get good moisture)/vermiculite. This might yeild a good fruiting formula once it has been cased.

MOJO: Yes, birdseed is an excellent spawn medium for pan, but I am not sure if they will fruit on it. Maybe if you case it.

-ambrose-

Mulch
Senior Member
(Total posts: 55)
 posted August 23, 1998 01:54 PM                          
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Observation: Using ground birdseed and vermiculite in pint jars allows you to shake it as if it were whole seed, whereas BR flour/vermiculite mix just clumps.
So far... may be a different story when it really starts colonizing tho.

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted August 24, 1998 05:51 AM                                  
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Well I tried about 4 different variations with BS. I tried steaming the sead, then just adding with water to jars. Steamed seed with brown rice flour, ground BS with verm, ground BS with rice flour and verm. I'll post my results in a few weeks and let you all know how it goes.

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 06, 1998 11:40 AM                                  
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UPdate on using Birdseed.
My first go around was a failure, but that was probally because instead of injecting through the holes that had rust on them, I pulled the lids aside and injected down the side of the jar. Nothing grew, not even with my friends PF syringes I was doing for him.
Very disappointing after all that hard work.
Second attempt, so far looks good. I now have a pressure cooker as well. I made several different mixtures. 2:1 vermiculite/BS 1:1 verm/BS and 1:1:2 BS/rice flour/verm . I seeped the BS in at a low low boil for about an hour. Them made my substrates, then pressure cooked for about 45 minutes. The only problem here is most of the birdseed has exploded inside. I read in TMC that you don't want your rye grain to do this because of higher risk of contams, I wonder if this applies to BS as well. As far as mixing my substrate, I do everything to the point of saturation, I never use measuring cups, I mix my substrate to where it looks like all the water has been absorbed except maybe a small amount on the bottom of bowl. If it looks over saturated I just hold it over sink and squeeze some out until it looks good. I also presoaked the vermiculite this time. I also pressure cooked most of my jars with tape off the holes then put the tape on after they came out to cool. After cooling I injected with the B+ strain, so far after only 2 days most of the jars are showing sign of mycelium growth. Especially the ones with a 2:1 mixture. Also the ones with a 2:1 verm/rice mixture look great. Well, thats the latest update, I'll let everyone know how this turns out, and hopefully be trading some B+ prints later down the road to those seeking this beauty.
-peace-

psth
Senior Member
(Total posts: 34)
 posted September 07, 1998 09:42 AM                          
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I've been wondering while reading this with interest if it might be possible to autoclave the birdseed 2x. The 1st would get the seed saturated with water (sterilized in any suitable container). This saturated birdseed could be put in the 1/2 pint jars. The jars could be autoclaved again.
Thank you.

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 07, 1998 10:58 AM                                  
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I think they might just explode with that much pressure on them. Not sure though cause I haven't tried it. I will say this. I tried using the birdseed after being seeped for 1/2 hour, then pressure cooked for an hour. Used the BS with water just like the rye grain recipe, and it came out a big clumpy mess. I didn't even bother to inject it it was so bad. Although I may have used to much water. But, when mixed 2:1 BS to Verm, it came out very nice and looking good. I did not add any water, just presoaked the verm and seeped the BS as above.I think this is the best looking way to go so far. Still to early to tell.

psth
Senior Member
(Total posts: 34)
 posted September 07, 1998 05:51 PM                          
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Thanks again Ryche Hawk. Is the 2:1 mixture with pulverized (powdered birdseed)? Would you say that using pulverized or powdered birdseed is the way to go? If you use this powdered birdseed in the PF method, would you say that the brown-rice is out in that the birdseed would give the best yield?
Thanks much!

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 08, 1998 02:45 AM                                  
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To early to tell if the BS is better then rice. I'm only trying BS after seeing those pictures of the B+ that workman posted, and I'm using the B+. I did not flour the BS, just seeped it for 1/2 hour and left it whole.

DEMONIK
unregistered   posted September 09, 1998 06:48 PM                          
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The other day I was in a local grocery store & I noticed something interesting.
I saw some bags on the cereal isle that cotained the following:
* All of these where organically grown with no additives or perservatives... i.e. no fungusides.

Puffed Millet; the very small seeds in bird seed.

Puffed Kamut; a type of wheat popular in the Medaterainean region.This looked like sugar smacks with out the sugar.

Puffed Rice; Rice that has been Puffed.

Puffed Rye; Rye that has been Puffed.

I think that the Puffed Millet would make an excellent substrate as it was very soft & light. Like the way perlite is only lighter.I believe it would absorb water & Mycelium could penetrate it very easily. plus this stuff was cheap like Ū a Bag. Just a thought. I plan to try some of these out next time around, but first I have be sucesfull with this batch !!!!

Spore Monkey
Senior Member
(Total posts: 189)
 posted September 10, 1998 06:29 AM                              
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My friend is still waiting to fruit his first try with bird seed but here's the report so far:
He used finch food because it 1) lacks whole sunflower seeds (just has sunflower chips in it) and 2) has a greater variety of small seeds than any of the wild bird foods, it is however more expensive (if you count 7lbs for Ŭ as expensive). He also used rye berries, oyster shell, and malt extract powder. The basic ratio was taken from Herben's post on birdseed & rye, the rest is from his previous experimentation.

The recipe was 2 cups bird seed, 1 cup rye, 1/4 cup oyster shell, and 1/4 cup malt extract powder. The mixture was steeped on a low boil for 45 minutes in an excess of water. It was then drained using a mesh collander and packed into wide mouth 1/2 pints, topping with vermiculite as usual. The seed cakes were autoclaved for 45 minutes at 15 psi, cooled, and innoculuted with a spore syringe.

The results: the best looking of anything he's tried so far (he's tried LGB rice/rye (2:1) flour & vermiculite in the MMGG proportions both with and without malt enrichment and straight rye berries). The spores generated as quickly as they do with cakes vs. the longer time he got when using straight rye - his theory is that the variety of micro-environments present due to all the seed types facilitate greater germination. Colonisation is as fast or faster as seen with the f/v cakes - he expects they will be at or near 100% by 14 days, there have been straight rye cakes that took in excess of 28 days to complete under his conditions.

We'll have to wait for the fruiting report for final conclusions, but everything so far indicates that it is as idiot proof and fast as the f/v cakes. The millet and other small seeds act as the flour did, the rye becomes like the vermiculite, but it's ALL nutrient! Hope he shares the wealth :^)

splatterpuss
unregistered   posted September 27, 1998 03:51 PM                    
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Ryche, I have a homestead kit that instructs to use BS. The correct moisture is very important. I had a pietry. full of inoc. seed that was inactive, so I sprayed it directy while lifting the lid slightly. Soon after, it collonised. Lucky I guess. My biggest problems have been temp. Homestead instructs not over 80*.And my BS has yellowed at 80* and regrown white at 75* or less. I have read other posts that insist 80*-85* is best. Have you or anyone else incountered this? Is it the bird seed, just me or contam.? any input. Thanks!

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 27, 1998 08:04 PM                                  
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Well I did notice a lot of contams when using wild bird seed. I've since switched to Finch seed at Spore Monekeys suggestion and am very happy with the results. I've also added flax seed meal to this for extra nutriants at 9ers suggestion, very happy with this also. The jars I'm seeing this yellow mycelium are in the ones where I used wheat grain, although I did not colonized with mycelium agar, just inject spores solution. I did notice this yellow mycelium with the wild bird seed, but lost most of those to contams anyway. Everything growing from the finch seed is looking fanfuckingtastic, I'm also using a differetn strain, trying an austrailian cubensis for this.
Overall, i've found the finch seed much easier to work with and haven't lost one jar to contams and its been 5 days and the jars are 50-60% colonized already. I steep the finch seed at a low boil for 45-60 minutes first also. Then they need almost no water added after this.

mac
unregistered   posted September 27, 1998 08:30 PM                          
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I like the finch seed too, and I found one that included flax seed. I also added some cold pressed flax seed oil as well as some light dry malt extract to the seeds, and the colonization on those is amazing as well. I also steeped them at a low boil with excess water until all of the (mineral) water was absorbed (40 or so min.) prior to putting them in verm. sealed jars to be pressure cooked for 30 min. I am also trying out brown rice (ala 9er) and brown rice/bird seed mixes (70% BS 30% BR), brown rice/flax seed oil and brown rice/malt extract combinations.
Has anyone else used malt extract in their mixes? if so.. what are the results?

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 28, 1998 01:41 AM                                  
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I haven't tried the malt extract yet. I have tried all the above experiment you mentioned, most of which I did not use vermiculite, they didn't need it. And there doing great. I'm very impressed with the finch seed and flax seed meal at this point.
I too used mineral water this time.

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited 09-28-98).]

Spore Monkey
Senior Member
(Total posts: 189)
 posted September 28, 1998 10:06 PM                              
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My friend uses malt extract all the time. He adds about 1/4 cup to the water that he boils the birdseed in. Not actually positive that it makes a big difference but it doesn't hurt.
When he started growing he was trying to get the liquid mycelial culture thing to work and wound up with bacterial soup along with the mycelia which destroyed several jars of whole grain rye before he figured out what was going on. He gave up on that little venture since spores work very reliably without the risks but he had a good supply of malt left so the supplementation began.

The only time he gathered data to compare he saw about a 60% increase in yield comparing LGB Rice/Rye (2:1) flour/vermiculite cakes vs. the same cake recipe plus malt enrichment. That was enough to convince him to add it to everything. Keep in mind though that the only time he didn't use malt was in the very beginning of his growing days so a good deal of that increase may be simply because of better technique. Also, when doing the f/v cakes vs. whole grain the benefits are probably more dramatic since there's so much less nutrient in a PF recipe cake.

One of these days he intends to repeat the experiment with his much perfected growing skills to see if there's still a big difference. Of course he'll have to wrap up all of his other ten thousand experiments first  

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 29, 1998 07:44 AM                                  
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Yah, I know the feeling, my neighbors dog friend of a friend, has about 10 to 12 different experiments going on to..
He hardly even eats the mushrooms anymore, just loves growing them....
such an addicting hobby  

splatterpuss
unregistered   posted September 29, 1998 07:35 PM                          
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Thanks for the reply about yellowing micili. on the seed. I also had a strange incidence of birbseed sprouting. I boiled it in jars for 45min., mass injection, its still colonising. Some spouts come through the inoc. hole through the verm. even. Can it still be used if they fully colin.? What does bird seed grow into any way?

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted September 30, 1998 11:36 AM                                  
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i don't know, I seen rice sprouting once, but this was from letting it sit in the tupperware for few days. Let them grow, I'm curious what they'll sprout into as well.

Spore Monkey
Senior Member
(Total posts: 189)
 posted October 03, 1998 04:25 PM                              
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Ryche Hawk:
I just saw a post from you over in a.d.m. where you posted a birdseed formula of 60% finch seed, 20% rice flour, and 20% flax meal. How are you working with the grain and the flour? I would assume that you're pre-cooking the grain portion and then mixing with the flour before loading the jars?

I'm just curious why you're going with ground rice. My friend's next experiment with bird seed is to compare the results he's getting right this minute with the birdseed/rye recipe mentioned in an earlier post with birdseed/brown rice and also just birdseed. The rye, even in the birdseed mixture still leads to some minor stalls sometimes so he is going on the theory that whole grain brown rice probably will work just as well and avoid the stalling tendency of rye. By the end of the year I'd like to be able to post his results with the various grain substrates he's tried vs. his original results with flour/vermiculite cakes.

And one more question: you're using 9er's suggestion of flax seed meal which I assume you got from a health food store. What kind of supplementation is this supposed to provide over the finch seed and rice? My friend's addition of malt extract crams a bunch of sugars and other carbs into the same physical volume of substrate, what advantages do you think the flax seed meal has, and was whole flax seed available as well?

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted October 03, 1998 07:43 PM                                  
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Heya Spore Monkey.
I went back and read over all my notes from both times I used the above mixes.
I did a lot of experiments, including finch seed/rice/wheat grain and FS/wheat grain flax etc....
That post on the NG was probably off. I was drinking quite a few corona's that night and didn't take the time to read my notes, I"ll go back and edit it.
Here is what I use. I take a tablespoon, and scoop out big scoops of all the ingrediants. Any of you math wizzes want to put this into percentage for me, just don't feel like twisting my brain that much right now. thanks.
20 tbl spoons Finch Seed
7 tbl spoons rice powder
4 tbl spoons flax seed meal
10 tbl vermiculite
Mineral water
also the same as above, but doubled the flax seed meal. Also the same as above but substituted the rice for wheat grain.
All are showing tremeandous results. All jars have been fully colonized now, and its only been 10 days. even the pint jars are 95% colonized. I'll be casing them probally around day 14. They all look so healthy, not one jar lost to contams. I'm very excited about these batches.
As for grain prep, I steeped the Finch seed in mineral water for 45 minutes, same with the wheat grain. Then in a bowl, mixed in my dry rice powder and flax seed meal, verm, mixed real well, then added just a little mineral water at a time till I found the right moisture I was looking for. Sorry, no exact measurement. As for nutriants, the label shows it being packed with all sort of nutriants, sorry I"m not in the kithchen right now. I got the flax seed meal at a health food store. Its only Ū for a bag. I'm sure the agar is good as well, but I would rather save that for agar plates. Maybe I"ll try it sometime. Give this mix a try spore monkey, I"m sure you will be very pleased as well.

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited 10-03-98).]

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited 10-04-98).]

Mulch
Senior Member
(Total posts: 55)
 posted October 04, 1998 12:23 AM                          
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I'm thinking that would look pretty good with soy flour instead of rice flour, and malt instead of flax seed meal. Of course, that's just because it's what i have lying around right now. Thanks fr the ideas Ryche!

Spore Monkey
Senior Member
(Total posts: 189)
 posted October 04, 1998 10:16 PM                              
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NOTE: The following post was intended to incorporate some really nice HTML tables which would have made the presentation rather slick. However, it turns out that this board doesn't support tables  So, I apologise for the awkwardness that the info is presented in, but for those interested in this kind of stuff (and particularly for those without a copy of Stamets' The Mushroom Cultivator) it's rather useful, so bear with me.
I could have answered my own questions regarding flax seed just by going to the bible of spore monkey's everywhere, the mighty TMC. Having entirely too much time on my hands this weekend, I cracked my books, put on my thinking cap, got together with my friend, and came up with the following:

Millet: Prot 11.9, Fat 3.4, Fiber 8.1, Carbs 63.7, Minerals 3.3, Ca 0.05, P 0.30, N 1.90, K 0.43
Rice, Brown: Prot 9.1, Fat 2.0, Fiber 1.1, Carbs 74.5, Minerals 1.1, Ca 0.04, P 0.25, N 1.46, K ----
Rye: Prot 12.6, Fat 1.7, Fiber 2.4, Carbs 70.9, Minerals 1.9, Ca 0.10, P 0.33, N 2.02, K 0.47
Wheat, mean: Prot 13.2, Fat 1.9, Fiber 2.6, Carbs 69.9, Minerals 1.9, Ca 0.04, P 0.39, N 2.11, K 0.42

Flax seed: Prot 24.0, Fat 35.9, Fiber 6.3, Carbs 24.0, Minerals 3.6, Ca 0.26, P 0.55, N 3.84, K 0.59
Malt: Prot 14.3, Fat 1.6, Fiber 1.8, Carbs 70.6, Minerals 2.3, Ca 0.08, P 0.47, N 2.29, K ----
Soy flour: Prot 47.9, Fat 6.7, Fiber 2.4, Carbs 29.9, Minerals 6.0, Ca ----, P ----, N 7.66, K ----
Sunflower, shelled: Prot 27.7, Fat 41.4, Fiber 6.3, Carbs 16.3, Minerals 3.8, Ca 0.20, P 0.96, N 4.43, K 0.92

This shows the nutritional content (by percent) of the most commonly used ingredients by cubensis cultivators here on the Shroomery (ignoring straw based cultivation, I'm concentrating on PF style jar methods), as well as some of the supplements being tossed around as suggestions.

What immediately was obvious was that three grains that we've been talking about as a substrate base: rye, millet, and wheat are nearly equivalent nutritionally speaking. Given that, it comes down to what the mushroom prefers, and my friend's results are definitely in favor of millet vs. rye or wheat (he hasn't actually tried wheat, but, in light of what we learned today, there seems little reason to do so since wheat and rye grains are so similar in size, shape, and texture). My theory is that the higher fibre and fat content combined with the smaller grain size of millet is what gives it its advantage in growth characteristics.

The second thing is that brown rice, while obviously adequate, is not nearly as good as any of the other three substrate bases; it is lower in every category of nutrition except plain carbohydrates; thanks PF.

These findings show that his current experiments are almost certainly pointless since there isn't going to be any significant difference between rye and millet based cakes in terms of yield, and that his next planned experiment of birdseed/rice vs. plain birdseed would not have proven useful either. A little book research has saved significant time in the lab.

The next thing that jumped out at me was the similarity between the flax seed (which 9er advocates and Ryche Hawk has been singing the praises of in the last few days) and sunflower seeds w/out shells which are an ingredient of the Pennington finch seed my friend has been getting such good results with. Both are high protein, high fat, high fiber, high calcium, high phosporous, high nitrogen, and high potassium, in other words, fantastic supplements to the grain substrate base.

Malt, which my friend has been using in all of his mixes, is a good source of protein, carbohydrate, phosphorous and nitrogen. Because it is used in solution form in place of plain water and therefore takes up no physical volume, it also would appear to be a worthy supplement.

Soy flour, which Mulch was considering using, does not appear to have anything to add qualitatively: it's very high in protein and nitrogen which can promote growth but has no measurable phosphorous, this is bad. Psilocybin is a phosphate containing molecule which is also very costly to synthesise (using lots of ATP in the process), you don't want phosphorous to ever be a limiting factor or you could wind up with lots of weak mushrooms - if phosphorous is a limiting factor what you get is a shift in the psilocin/psilocybin ratio to more psilocin and less psilocybin, which is not what we're after here.

*****

Which brings me to the hypothesising part of this post.

Working with a base of finch seed (Pennington Brand Premium Finch Food) and making the following two assumptions: that canary grass seed is roughly equivalent to millet in nutritional content, and that the thistle seed is an insignificant ingredient, we begin with the following nutritional content (straight millet is also given which would work fine as an alternative):

Finch seed: Prot 12.7, Fat 6.7, Fiber 7.5, Carbs 55.8, Minerals 3.2, Ca 0.06, P 0.34, N 2.03, K 0.45
Millet: Prot 11.9, Fat 3.4, Fiber 8.1, Carbs 63.7, Minerals 3.3, Ca 0.05, P 0.30, N 1.90, K 0.43

Then, going with Paul Stamets' idea that rye can do anything (and often does) as a reference substrate, I inferred that what millet/finch seed is lacking is calcium, and I figured it never hurts to up the phosphorous content a little when you're trying to make psilocybin. What I believe we want to do is up the calcium content to rye's 0.1% as a target and, while we're at it, push the phosphorous content up to about 0.37% or so.

A trip to the health food store yielded both whole flax seed and raw sunflower seed which was weighed per volume, plugged into some equations, futzed about with for some time, and yielded the following recipe and nutritional spread:

This makes 8 1/2 pint cakes or 4 1 pint cakes with some left over depending on how you pack them.

2.25 cups finch seed* or millet
0.50 cups flax seed
0.25 cups raw sunflower seeds

FS + supps: Prot 15.5, Fat 14.5, Fiber 7.1, Carbs 52.2, Minerals 3.2, Ca 0.10, P 0.41, N 2.48, K 0.50
Millet + supps: Prot 14.9, Fat 09.2, Fiber 7.6, Carbs 52.9, Minerals 3.3, Ca 0.10, P 0.38, N 2.38, K 0.49

* Use a finch seed which lists millet as the number one ingredient and contains no whole sunflower seeds. Pennington Premium Finch Food available at Wal-Mart comes highly recommended.

*****

And, if this isn't enough nutrients and minerals crammed into a cake for you, you can use mineral water and/or a 4% malt extract solution in the recipe. This works out to approximately 1/4 cup malt extract powder in your water for each unit recipe above. My guess is that for the above recipe, cooked on a low boil for 30 minutes under most conditions, you would need about 5 cups of water which should result in minimal liquid needing to be drained (and, hence, minimal nutrient loss). That particular might need some adjustment after I hear from my friend when he tries it because he's never worked with flax seed before and we don't know how much water exactly will be absorbed.

My thanks to 9er and Ryche Hawk for the idea of flax seed, and to Paul Stamets for the Mushroom Cultivator which has more idea fuel in it than most of us could ever hope to put to use.

[This message has been edited by Spore Monkey (edited 10-06-98).]

Spore Monkey
Senior Member
(Total posts: 189)
 posted October 04, 1998 10:19 PM                              
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DOH! This board's HTML doesn't support tables!!! I'll post a fixed version of the above as soon as I get a chance.
*****

Data is fixed and an error in soy flour nutrients is corrected (I had the wrong Ca, P, N, & K amounts listed, plugged in the data from another row from my table when I was "fixing" it).

[This message has been edited by Spore Monkey (edited 10-06-98).]

Ryche Hawk
Senior Member
(Total posts: 1193)
 posted October 05, 1998 04:33 AM                                  
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####, Spore Monkey, you really did have a lot of time on your hands ..... I seen the raw sunflower seed about a month ago and was thinkging about giveing it a try in the mix somewhere, just have'nt been back to get it.
Let me know how yours turns out. Thanks for the nutrition lesson....  

Mulch
Senior Member
(Total posts: 55)
 posted October 05, 1998 05:03 AM                          
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Very informative. I noticed that some brands of finch seed will have additives such as calcium carbonate, that might add to it's desirability. Seeing that finch seed (at least the brand i have, Kay-Tee) has flax and unshelled sunflower seeds in it already, it might be for simplicity's sake good as the sole ingredient. It might even be by itself, as good as it gets. Not that adding malt would hurt.
One thing i have noticed however, is that birdseed is much wetter than the rice, making it hard to estimate the amount of water to put into it. I've had a lot of miscalculations and would like some advice on keeping the moisture level somewhere decent.
Plus, when is there too much phosphorous? if added as an additive to the mix could it hurt development?

Spore Monkey
Senior Member
(Total posts: 189)
 posted October 05, 1998 08:14 AM                              
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Mulch,
Moisture in birdseed:
The best method in my opinion for working with grain of any sort if you're using it in a PF style cake cultivation method is to pre-cook in an excess of liquid followed by draining with a wire collander before loading it into jars, capping with vermiculite, and autoclaving. Straight birdseed (millet) should only take about 30 minutes cooking on a low boil to completely cook it and saturate it with water. My friend was cooking his grain for 45 minutes because of the rye, which takes longer to completely cook. The removal of rye from the recipe should also hopefully eliminate the evils of bacillus endospores.

The catch, of course, is that whatever excess liquid you drain off is nutrient soup so you want to minimise the amount of liquid you have to drain. Birdseed tends to absorb a little more than an equal volume of liquid in my friend's experience. That's where the 5 cups water comes in --> 3 cups grain will absorb about 3.5 cups water, you will also lose a good deal of water to evaporation in the cooking time, so I threw out 5 cups as a starting point. There will be variation depending on how high your low boil is, relative humidity, size saucepan used, elevation, etc., so adjust the starting volume of liquid according to your particular experience. If you drain the birdseed, its "wetter" nature has never been a problem and is also probably a positive factor in its much quicker colonisation than rye in a grain cake.

Phosphorous:
There is definitely a point beyond which additional phosphorous will have no beneficial effect, and there is probably a point that it becomes harmful (although, I don't have a clue as to where that point is). I looked to nature as my guide: Hay and straw, depending on variety, has P contents between 0.2 to 0.3, grain substrates tend to run between 0.3 to 0.4 (one barley listed at 0.42 as the maximum I saw). There are no recommended substrate bases that have higher than this 0.4 level of phosphorous, so that is what I looked to up the birdseed to with supplementation. The sunflower and flax are great in that both have high phosphorous contents and are also supercharged in terms of available energy - this is why I think they're perfect for nutritional supplementation of what is already a great base: millet.

I would not get into supplementing with artificial sources of phosphorous - it would have to be in a form that the mushrooms can utilise which would require digging up some journal articles at the local university library, certainly not straight phosphorous which would kill the little buggers. If you use malt and/or mineral water you would probably have already pushed the amount of available phosphorous containing compounds beyond what the mushrooms can use without getting into the nebulous realm of artificial supplements. Also, not that it necessarily applies here, but with plants, upping some nutrients beyond a threshold level can inhibit the uptake of other required nutrients, this would obviously be bad so I figure it's good to stay within safe realms of concentrations.

Kay-tee and other finch seeds:
In and of themselves, these are probably ass kicking substrates, but, in case you haven't noticed from my posts, I'm trying to discover the "ultimate" substrate. I'm a scientific researcher by trade so this stuff fascinates me. My friend grows and I do the thinking, together we both benefit.

[This message has been edited by Spore Monkey (edited 10-05-98).]

Mulch
Senior Member
(Total posts: 55)
 posted October 05, 1998 05:14 PM                          
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I noticed your goal was more perfection than convenience, I was just adjusting it more toward my liking, which is a little of both.
I'm considering using a rice steamer to moisturize the substrate. Only around ฤ or so where i've been. no wasted nutrients, sure fire moisturization too. Add in the malt later...

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