EP113 Wood Loving Psilocybin Mushrooms

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
- We humans have been enjoyingpsychedelic mushrooms for
so long that it may have even been before.
We are homo sapiens,
and even though most of us getour mushrooms from our weed
dealer, they really arenature and occur outside
and grow nearby in the forest for free.
You just have to be reallyclear in your identification
so you don't end up dying.

(00:28):
We may be taking mushrooms to talk to God,
but that doesn't mean wewanna see God in person
after accidentally eatinga truly poisonous mushroom.
Today's episode is about a special group
of psilocybin mushrooms wholove growing on hardwood,
and how you can wildcraft them
and also grow a patch in youryard or your neighbor's yard,
or your local park.

(00:49):
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and technique efficiently
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(01:10):
make sure you don't miss an episode.
You are listening to Shaping Fire.
And I am your host, ShangLos. Welcome to episode 113.
My guest today is Christian Kalin.
Christian is primarily self-talk,
but he has been verysuccessful teaching himself.
In the early twothousands, Christian worked
for Paul Stamets at FungiPerfecti, managing the farm team,

(01:32):
performing mass sterilizationand inoculation.
While there, he created the first SOPs
for medicinal mushroom powderand tincture manufacturing.
Since that time, he has workedon a series of consulting
and manufacturing projects covered
by NDAs for himself and others.
He is presently adjunctfaculty at Basier University,

(01:53):
where he develops
and teaches ology coursesfor graduate students.
Christian also is founder
and owner of ProvisionsMushroom Farm in Olympia.
Washington Provisions is thefirst CSA supported agriculture
mushroom farm in the United States.
He sells over a thousandpounds of culinary
mushrooms per week throughlocal farmer's markets,

(02:13):
grocery stores, and restaurants.
He also produces tincturesand various mycelium
and mushroom productsfor wholesale and retail.
Finally, Christian maintainsa coveted in-House Master
tissue cultural library forfood and medicinal production.
His company is so respected
that his internshipopportunities are accredited
by the Evergreen State College.

(02:34):
During the first set today,
we will learn about the woodloving mushrooms, who they are
and how they function.
In the second set, we willdiscuss wildcrafting wood lovers,
their ecology and responsible harvesting.
And during the thirdset, we go step-by-step
through creating andsustaining a wood loving
psilocybin mushroom plot at home.
Welcome to Shaping FireChristian. It's great to be here.

(02:56):
Thank you. Excellent. Solet's get right into it.
So, you know, for folks whose familiarity
with mushrooms stops at, um,
like are they hallucinogenic or not?
Le let's create a little bit of context
to bring everybody on the same page.
You know, people talkabout these mushrooms as,
as psilocybin mushrooms kind of generally,
but the genus is philosophy.

(03:17):
And so let's start with that context.
Would you give us a quicksummary of the philosophy genus
of fungi and,
and maybe a little bitof their characteristics?
- Yeah, definitely. I like to kind
of categorize the differentspecies in the philosophy genus
in three different categories.
Basically wood lovers thatwe wanna talk about today.

(03:41):
Uh, copper tropic
or copper fillic, mushroomsthat like manure, feces
and also grass loving varieties.
And some can be intermixed like the,
they're all basically sapertrs that like, uh, dead
or decaying materials, substrates,
but some will also integratein manure and grass

(04:05):
and some just in wood.
So I, I think, um, thoseare distinguishing factors
that are, uh, kind
of delineate all the philosophy. Mushrooms
- Is, is the fact thatthey have psilocybin a
key attribute of them?
I would think that sincephilosophy is the name, you know,
is in the name of thegenus, that would be true,

(04:26):
but I don't know that to be true.
- Yeah, they, they vary in potency,
but generally all philosophymushrooms have psilocybin.
- Okay. So you've given us likethese three general baskets
in philosophy, the, the woodlovers, the manure lovers,
and the grass lovers.
So, so we're gonna focuson the wood lovers today.

(04:48):
So I think our next stepwould be to identify
that next smaller basket.
If, if, if those three are allpart of the philosophy genus,
what would you say are theattributes specifically
of the wood lovers?
- They all have very similar phenotypes.
Uh, there's different varying potencies.

(05:10):
The more research that we doon analyzing the constituents,
the psychoactive propertiesin these species, we'll find
that they each havediffering compounds, uh,
differing potencies.
But generally the woodlovers all have very
similar characteristics.
Stem, uh, morphology

(05:31):
and their, their caps all have kind
of a similar resemblance to spores.
So they, they all are distinguished.
That's why they're in thatdistinguishable category,
basically, because they're so similar.
- It sounds like not onlyare there morphological
similarities between them,meaning they look the same,

(05:52):
but the more sciencewe're able to do on them,
we're probably also going to find a lot
of similarities in thechemistry of them as that, as
that research gets done. I'm guessing
- Definitely that, you know,their, their caps may vary.
You know, some are more rounded,some are pointed on top,
some are a little more brown,

(06:12):
some are more caramelcaps, some are even white.
So there are some very macroscopic
big differences within the wood lovers,
but they are very, youknow, similar, they, the,
we we're discovering a lot still today.
And so, you know, out of
around 2, 250, 300 different species in

(06:36):
the philosophy genus, youknow, I think we're dealing
with close to a dozen
or so in the wood lovers that we know of.
So there's still a lot to learn.
- And that's exactly whereI'm going next, you know,
is this, how many ofthese, you know, how many
of the wood lovers exist?
I, I, I know I, I mean,Lisa, I don't think
that's a scientific definition.

(06:57):
I think that's more like a, uh, um,
a convenience definition.
But when I was doing myhomework for the program, um,
some people were suggestinglike, oh, there are, you know,
there, there are only reallythree main wood lovers,
and then there's a couple rare ones,
and then somebody else like,oh, there's really five
major wood lovers, and thenthere's the rest of them.
But you know, I, you know,in my research I came up

(07:20):
with like 11, and so I don't know whether
or not, you know, thereare 11 or like a hundred,
and I only found 11, but,
but you're, you're suggestingthat there's really 12
that really like fit the definition, eh?
- Yeah, I am, you know,taxonomy isn't my strong suit.
Mm-Hmm. , so I'll just put
that out there right off the bat.

(07:41):
I, I'm specialized in cultivation, so, um,
I leave a lot of thesebigger taxonomy questions
to the taxonomist out there.
But yes, the on average,you know, we're finding more
and more every year.
And so that number is changing.
And as well as the taxonomywork that's being done,

(08:04):
we're finding that thosescientific names are changing too.
So what we thought wasphilosophy Behem is now being
correlated to cica,
and so the names change aswell as the discoveries.
- And that really is an confusing
thing in science too, you know?
Um, uh, I have a longhistory of keeping, uh,

(08:24):
freshwater fish aquariums,
and it was always weird whenwe'd, I'd go to like, you know,
the, the, the SeattleAquarium Club meetings
and they'd announced that, you know,
some fish had changedfrom one name to another,
and we're all like, what the hell, man.
Yeah. And, and I can imaginethat, that, you know,
that happens in every branch of science.
I actually have got behe in my notes
and also cervical in my notes

(08:46):
and didn't realize thatthey were the same thing.
I have a feeling that's probablygonna happen for a while.
- Yeah. Just ever increasingmore people out there hunting,
looking for new species.
There's more collaborationonline on all the different
websites that are documenting the
data, so it's really exciting.
- So, so if we're, you know,

(09:07):
we're not gonna necessarilygo into every one of the,
the 12 wood lovers, uh, specifically,
but just for like name recognition, um,
would you just tell us the names of some
of the real cornerstone woodlovers that, that people tend
to have access to and like?
- Yeah, there's, you know,starting from the top,

(09:28):
some of the most potentmushrooms are the wood
lovers philosophy.
Azure essence in the PacificNorthwest, known as one
of the most potent, also inthe Southern hemisphere in
New Zealand, Australia,you have philosophy sub,
which is also, they sayprobably equally as potent

(09:51):
as the Azure essence, just ona different part of the world.
So it, it all comes downto, like we talked about
before, the analysis of, um,
the compounds are gonna come out more
and more of, of
what variety is gonnabe more potent over time
as we include all the differentprecursors to psilocybin.

(10:13):
Um, you know, like we talkedabout, bohemus is kind
of next the cica the, uh,
senescence also here inthe Pacific Northwest.
The thing about wood lovers is now
that we have moreinterest around the world,
both in cultivation
and in identification, that these,

(10:36):
these mushrooms are beingdistributed worldwide,
and so their habitats are changing.
Mm-Hmm. , whatused to be found just in the
Pacific Northwest is nowfound in Central Park,
in downtown New York City
because people have takensamples of the culture
or the spores and transferredthem as they travel,

(10:57):
or maybe mistakenly
or directly, um, consciously.
So we're starting to see allthese different varieties
be distributed all over the world.
So, um, yeah, uh, I think, like
I would say to name a fewothers, uh, the spring

(11:17):
philosophy known as Ovoid,
or the OID ada found in Ohio,
Pennsylvania area was recently discovered.
Uh, well, it was discovered a while back,
but the taxonomy workwas just recently done.
And, uh, the Alinea also wassomething that was discovered

(11:38):
by John Allen back in the eighties,
and then kind of got back into circulation
around 2004, 2005.
And now Alan Rockefeller
and his crew have donethe taxonomy work on that
and renamed it Tobi Alinea to

(12:00):
kind of celebrate John Allen'swork over the years. That's
- Cool.
That's cool. You know, the,with, with many species, one
of the things thatcontrols their geographic
location is the fact
that they work in anyparticular bio region,
but the wood lovers, the thingthat they have in common is,
um, the habitat.

(12:21):
And I would think that,um, any ti anywhere
that you're gonna findone of these species, um,
bringing in another woodlover species is likely
to catch on there as well,
because what the, the habitatthey need is so similar.
Is that a, is that a realisticassumption I'm making?
- Definitely. I've seen multiplespecies in one location.

(12:44):
So there's, they,
they love the samehabitat for the most part.
Some might like grassier areas, you know,
the Azure essence istypically found on the coast
near wood and s grass.
So there's different kind of symbiotic,
or not symbiotic,
but just synergistic kind of

(13:07):
symbiosis of, uh, growing mediums.
And so as long as you have wood, though,
generally these varietiesare going to thrive right
- On to, to anthropomorphize it.
They, um, they, they, they,
they may all be scientificallylove wood lovers,
but they do have their ownpersonalities, .
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.

(13:27):
Right on both, both,both in, in, you know,
what you get internallyas well as macroscopically
or microscopically. Yeah.
- So let, for, for most people,
the reason why these wood levers matter
and come up on their, on their radar is
because they have psilocybin in them,
and they are, um, you know,they're hallucinogenic.

(13:49):
And so whether or notsomebody is looking to have a,
you know, a hallucinogenicexperience or whether
or not they're looking tomicrodose, it's that attribute
that they are most interested in.
And for me, you know, Ihave come across, you know,
all the other philosophy genus,
mushrooms way more than I have come across

(14:09):
the wood lovers in my own life, which is,
you know, very variable.
Like for example, where Ilive on Vashon Island, if, if,
if you were one of the kidswho grow, grew up here on vash,
on the mushroom thatyou've been most in contact
with is senescence
because they grow abundantlyhere on the island.
But like, I didn't livesomewhere where I knew, you know,

(14:29):
that there were naturallyoccurring mushrooms.
So, so the mushrooms thatthat I came across were all,
uh, cultivated indoors.
And so where I'm going withthis is that, um, I'm curious
to know, you know, when you compare them,
do the wood levers producepsilocybin in, in comparison
to the amounts of psilocybin
that we find in other philosophycultivated varieties like,

(14:53):
you know, golden teacher and penis envy?
Like, like can they competewith these very popular,
uh, mushrooms on potency?
- Oh, yeah. They're morethan likely more potent, uh,
depending on the, thespecies of the wood lovers.
Mm. Azure essence sub is up
to 1% more potent.

(15:15):
Uh, when, you know, you're looking at, uh,
super active species isgoing to have about 1%,
uh, psilocybin content in, uh, dried form.
So if, um, you have almost a 1% degree
increase in psilocybin contentfrom that initial potency

(15:37):
of 1%, that's a, a significant amount.
The thing that changes theexperience internally is all the
precursors to psilocybin.
So what's actually happening is, uh, soin
is being phospho related in our body

(15:57):
and, um, created into psilocybin.
So this is, um, it depends.
So es a lot of times haveequal parts psilocybin
and equal parts osi.
So this is why you're getting kind
of an extreme experiencein ES a lot of times,
which is different than some of the more

(16:20):
potent wood lovers,
because you have morepsilocybin than OSI in
some of these wood lovers.
So as we learn more
and have more research in dialingin, what, what's happening
with these precursors in ourexperience, uh, beo cysteine,
neurobio cysteine are basically

(16:43):
identical twins to serotonin.
And these are all acting on our,
the same serotonin receptor.
We, we will find the,you know, the potencies
are different as we ofcourse, um, take them person
to person, but also mushroom to mushroom
and species to species,
depending on those differentprecursors and constituents.

(17:06):
- Right On. If I understand you correctly,
what I think you're, whatyou're saying is that, um,
you know, even though some
of the wood lovers are morepotent in psilocybin, QEs
have the experience of beingmore potent for some people
because the wood loversare very psilocybin rich,

(17:27):
and psilocybin is a, what do they call it?
A, a, a, a pro drug, whichmeans that it's, it's a drug
that we take in our body,
and then our body turns it into something
that is actually the hallucinogen,in this case, oc, right?
So, so psilocybin is in themushroom and it's the pro drug,
and then, and then we eat it,
and our body turns itinto oc, which is really

(17:49):
what gives the experience.
And so ensis, insteadof it being, you know,
80 20 psilocybin de soin, for example,
it's more like 50 50, sothat when you take a ensis,
you are having the experiencemore intensely and faster
because it's alreadygot OSI on board ready

(18:10):
to give you an experience.
- Exactly. I think Isaid that backwards, uh,
initially I said, uh, OSIturns into psilocybin,
but I, I meant, like you were saying,
psilocybin being DFOsrelated into psilocin. Right
- On.
Yeah. Um, honestly,it's very helpful for me
to hear the word soin, uh, stated
by an actual mycologist too,

(18:32):
because so many of us, we,we learn from books, right?
And so, um, uh, you know,whe I've discussed this
before on this show, whetheror not it was, uh, psin or soin
or whatever, but I wasn'ttalking with Mycologist
and we're like, I don't know, and
we're not the right people to ask,
- You know, when it comes tothe Latin versions, I, no,

(18:52):
no one's really anexpert on pronunciation.
It, it kind of just goeswith , what it,
whatever feels comfortablethese days, soin or Sloan
or, you know, however we say our tomato
or tomato kind of thing. Right
- On.
Very good . Yes.
So, um, so if, if, if we callwood lovers, wood lovers, um,

(19:12):
are mushrooms that are not wood lovers,
would we just call those like regular,
or would we call them manurelovers or grass lovers?
It's just a simple way of howto talk about this casually.
Is it like wood lovers andlike regular mushrooms, or,
or is wood lovers, so notactually scientific that,
that it wouldn't actually beused in a conversation anyway.

(19:33):
- I've kind of seen it aswood lovers are categorized as
that, and everything else iskind of in its own category.
You know, we talked aboutbeing copper trophic
or copper fillic, the, that'skind of a technical term
for manure lovers.
So, you know, you could saythat those es in particular are

(19:56):
copper trophic, but,
but, um, I,
I have never really diffdifferentiated it like regular
mushrooms or wood lovers.
Um, they, they kind ofjust are what they are.
And I think as we progressinto research and,
and knowing more aboutthese different species,
that maybe different nameswill come about. Right

(20:18):
- On.
So, um, I wanna, I wannasave, um, more, most
of our time from thisfirst set for the second
and third set, which aregonna be much longer due
to the nature of the questions.
But the, the last thing I wanna ask you
before we go to our firstcommercial break, and I,
and I wanna readily admit
that we may not have agood answer for this.
So if, so, if that's trueMm-Hmm, ,
feel, feel free to say it.

(20:39):
But, you know, like I want totalk about like the secondary,
uh, alkaloids in wood lovers.
Um, you know, there's a lot ofexcitement about, um, about,
uh, the, the rest of thephilosophy genus in that, uh,
you know, they, they'vegot the, these aromatics
and terpenes that we knoware so important in cannabis,

(21:00):
and we're just now beginningto study them in, in mushrooms.
And then also there's allthese like secondary alkaloids
that are, are rich and we can,we can test for them in labs,
but we don't really know what they do.
And so my my question for youis, um, are, is that same,
does that same excitementapply to wood lovers as well,

(21:21):
that they've got this same, uh, aromatic
and secondary, you know,biochemical, um, story to tell
where they too are, aregoing to be receiving a lot
of aromatic research to find out
what on earth they're doingother than just delivering us,
uh, psilocybin?
- I agree. I think allmushrooms are in this category.

(21:45):
You know, even if they'reculinary mushrooms
or the functional mushroomsas they call 'em today,
lion's mane, uh, shiitakes
and others very aromatic terpene rich.
I think too, the, uh, the amino acids,
um, deriving from Trytophan, uh,

(22:05):
for these tryptamine alkaloidsare extremely exciting.
There's all kinds of newresearch that's happening.
This is research that was doneclear back in the sixties by
a friend of mine, Albert LungLong, um, discovered Beton
with another colleague
and, uh, a Paul, I believe his name is.

(22:27):
And the research stopped.
You know, it, we, we could have been
so far along 40 years later,practically, you know, 46, 50,
almost 50 years.
Uh, it's really sad.
But now we're here andI'm hopeful that yeah,
we we're gonna findmore, uh, research, uh,

(22:48):
we're gonna find more datathat's telling us, you know,
exactly what all thesedifferent amino acids are doing,
maybe why they're there,what the function is of it,
and how can we use this in mental health
and other things for ourphysiological wellbeing.
Wellbeing as well as like gettingto know ourselves and, um,

(23:09):
and understanding who we really are
and what we're doing on this planet.
- Right on. So, alright,so let's go ahead and,
and take our first commercial break.
So, so our first set was allabout like, you know, uh,
getting to know what we're talking about
today in the wood lovers.
But during the second set,we're gonna be starting
to talk about, um, uh,wildcraft cultivation.

(23:31):
And in the third setwe're talking about, uh,
at home cultivation.
So, so we're gonna go aheadand take this short break
and we're gonna be right back.
You're listening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today isMycologist Christian Kalin.
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(29:54):
So before the break we weretalking about wood lovers,
who they are, what they are,
and where we tend tofind them in literature,
but now we're gonnatalk about where we tend
to find them in the wild.
So we're gonna talk moreabout wildcrafting here.
So, you know, Christian, I've,
I personally have only ever heard
of wood lovers being grown outside.

(30:17):
Whenever I hear about wood lovers, uh,
people are talking abouteither wild crafting them,
literally, you know, walking in the forest
and looking for them or doinga version of, I don't know,
wild cultivation wherepeople are, you know,
intentionally inoculating their yard.
So, so, you know, they'reoutside, they're not inside,
but maybe they're one step less wild

(30:37):
because they're, you know,
because they're intentionallyinoculated or not.
But, um, they always seemto be more, you know,
these wood lovers always seem to be more
of a wild type mushroom versusthe ones growing indoors.
Is there any likescientific reality to that
or is that just me and howI've come to know wood lovers?

(30:58):
- No, you're right. They, theyare generally found outdoors.
There is, however, alot of experimentation
that's been going on over the last decade
or so, even maybe longer,with trying to grow some
of these varieties indoorwith decent success.
It takes longer. You're, you have to go
through like a multi-seasonalkind of situation.

(31:21):
So, uh,
but for the most part, yes,you're right, uh, found outside,
uh, in the wild or inlandscape habitats as well
as people intentionallymaking patches outside. Right
- On.
So, so this habitat thatgenerally happens outdoors
because it's, it, it it is,it needs to have seasons

(31:45):
and it needs to have a big span of time.
What are these habitats thatare most conducive to the gross
to the growth of wild woodloving psilocybin mushrooms,
- Hardwoods, deciduoustrees, the, those, uh,
substrates are generallyany kind of wood substrate

(32:07):
leaves that fall off trees
and create more substrate.
These are are placeswhere you'll find, um,
the Azure essence actually,like we talked about
before, found on the beachesout on the coast, connected
to wood drift that's in thesand more than likely on top
of such grassroots.

(32:31):
So yeah, but technically the,
the habitats are generallyvery similar grassy woody,
and you wanna stay away fromthe conifer evergreen wood
that is too acidic.
They, they, they don't do well.
They're, you could combine ifyou didn't have enough wood.
Sometimes you can get awaywith combining a little bit
of hardwood with some coniferchips to make patches work.

(32:54):
I generally just foundaround the deciduous trees.
- Yeah, I have definitelynot found any success using,
you know, pine chips
before, you know, when I was a younger man
and I did not realize the importance
of the hardwood, I would get frustrated.
I'm like, why, why isn'tthere these, this, you know,
pine tree working
and it's like, yeah, wrong,wrong game Shang, go .
Yeah. Um, so, so, alright.

(33:15):
So it sounds like, you know,we're looking for edges
of things like kind oflike where, where the,
the coastal grasses meet thecoastal sand with wood and,
and where the forest with theforest duff meets the grass.
And it, it sounds likea lot of these are, are,
are found in areas wherethere's a transition

(33:37):
and so there are differentvarieties of nutrition
and habitat involved. Yeah,
- Definitely.
They're secondary metabolizerstoo, so they're used
to being kind of second on the scene.
They, they love to be thefirst on the scene if you're
intentionally trying to make patches
and they'll do even better that way.
But where you find them istaking the last bits of the,

(34:00):
of the substrate and digestingit and then producing fungus
or mushrooms from that.
- So when you say not thefirst one on the scene, um,
you're talking about that thereare other mushroom varieties
that are the first oneon the scene, right?
- Yeah. Either microrisal thatare in the roots of the trees
and plants or otherTROs that are competing

(34:21):
for the top layer of lignin and cellulose.
- Right on. I I've alwaysliked the idea of mushrooms
that there's so many varieties
that really excel when they're playing
well with others, you know?
- Yeah. I think you can havesome symbiotic relationships
there that are synergistic
and then you can have others
that are definitely outcompeting each other. Mm-Hmm.

(34:43):
- . So let'stalk about, uh, the climate
and seasonal, um, effects
because, you know, that's one
of the reasons why indoorcultivation of wood lovers is
so challenging and whypeople work so meticulously
to try to, um, you know,make a synthetic environment
that replicates these seasons indoors.

(35:04):
So, so, you know, what is their, what
what is the mushroomslifecycle, uh, generally
and when do they fruit and,
and what kind of environmentalconditions do they like?
Other than just purely the location
that we've already discussed?
- They, yeah, they canbe very finicky, uh,
when you're trying to cultivate them.

(35:27):
Mushrooms in general, a lot
of times I've noticed whenpeople stress out trying
to grow them, they want'em to grow so bad.
Sometimes I feel like this is too much
of a stressful environmenton the organism.
It sounds crazy, but yeah.
Uh, um, just letting, like trying to see
what happens in nature andmimicking that same thing.

(35:48):
Basically just settingup, you know, knowing
what the species is.
So basically breaking it back down into
three different categories.
You need a, a good culture, something
that you've either found in the wild,
you can do stem butt transfers.
Uh, you take the, the rootsoff the bottom of the stem,
put it into wet cardboardor other substrates
and let that culture kind of grow through

(36:11):
and, um, transplant thatinto other new substrates.
Um, you know, there's,uh, places out there
where you can start with spores.
You know, spores generallyare legal, so you can,
if you know what you'redoing, um, you can, you know,
start from spore
and then have thatbroadcast out into a patch.

(36:33):
But generally, um, most
of these wood lovers fruit in the fall.
So you want to time iteither six months to a year
before that harvest date.
- So before we go toofar into the cultivation,
'cause all of third set isgonna be about cultivation.
Okay. I wanna, I want to, I want to, uh,
narrow our scope a little bitspecifically about the seasons

(36:56):
and, um, you know, we have,we have mentioned, you know,
that there's a whole bunch inthe Pacific Northwest, right?
Which, which tells me theylike moisture a lot, right?
And then there, then thereare varieties like the ovoids,
which are coastal east coast, right?
Which also tells me thatthey really like wet.
Um, but then you were talking about, um,

(37:18):
some variety earlier in the show
where they're actually in the Midwest.
And so, um, uh,
what is going on climate wisein all three of these places,
which, which, um, you know,
creates this greatenvironment for wood lovers.
- The, the wood lovers lovea cold snap, a winter kind

(37:40):
of situation with, likeyou're saying, a humid,
nice, wet environment.
So if you don't have thiscold snap seasonally,
this can change your harvestyear to year in your wild, uh,
you know, your wild harvesting foraging.

(38:00):
Or also when you're intentionallytrying to make patches,
um, that timing of
how your mycelium is digesting your patch,
how much food source youknow, you've given it.
There's a lot that goes into the timing
of both your myceliumgrowing in the substrate
and the seasonality of your season.

(38:21):
It's, it's not alwayscertain that you're going
to get mushrooms, you're playing outside,
is playing with nature.
You're playing withnature both in the culture
and in your temperatureand humidity outside.
So basically setting up a patch,
like we'll probably talk abouthere in a little bit, will,

(38:42):
um, the, the location, your culture
and the substrate are the threemain issues with setting up,
uh, a, uh,
- A - Patch a a patch that is,um, going to be successful.
- Do we know why the cold snapis so relevant to the fungus?
I mean, I'm, there's, I'm guessing

(39:03):
that there's some mechanisminternal to the mushroom
that without the cold snap, itdoesn't have the gumption to,
um, fruit as much, um, when it's time.
- Yeah, there's a lot of,
even culinary mushrooms are similar.
Shiitakes rely on a cold kind of, uh,
primordial stage where the mycelium needs

(39:26):
to get almost shocked.
Uh, it needs to come outof its normal character,
and then that stresses themycelium out to induce fruiting.
So these are,
and this can be oxygenrelated, CO2 related,
temperature related or humidity related.
So a lot goes into it
- Similarly, you know, there,

(39:46):
there these mushrooms like the moisture,
but then there's a certainpoint when there's so much rain
that, um, that the mushroomsare done for the season.
Right. So do we have any understanding of,
of why the mushroomslike, you know, X amount
of moisture versus x plus moisture?
Uh, like do we understandit all what the biology is

(40:07):
where the, the, the mushroomfinally says, all right,
there's just too much rain, we're done.
- You know, it's a lot oftimes temperature instead of
moisture that terminatesthe end of the season.
I've found the yes, if you have kind of,
if you have an intentional patch outside
that isn't deep in like, you know, a foot

(40:30):
or more of substrate, thenyou're more susceptible
to either drying out with lack of water
or being too swamped with too much water.
But the wild varieties are just in nature.
They're, they're more permeableto these fluctuations.
And as long as it doesn't freeze, freeze,

(40:52):
like a heart freeze generallyis what terminates the season.
- You know? That makesa lot of sense to me.
I, I actually saw the biggest, um,
sene essence patch I have ever personally
seen, um, this year.
And I was really surprisedto find it in, um,
in January, right?
Because that's awfully late here
for the Pacific Northwestfor Senes essence.

(41:14):
And my friend called me over
and said, here, you gottacome over and check this out.
And, and it ended up being this, like,
this very large outcropping,
maybe like 10 feet by eight feet.
And it was just like, just like, you know,
I probably shouldn't say thousands,
but like a whole bunch were,
were there like the most I've ever seen.
And, and I said, what, youknow, I was, you know, as a,
as a citizen scientist,I'm like, what, what, what,

(41:35):
what's different here?
Right? Um, yeah.
And, and, and then my friendtold me, oh, you know,
I had this tarp on here
and, uh, uh, uh, uh,over all these wood chips
to keep the wood dry.
And then they pulled offthe tarp and there it was.
And so nice. The tarp wasproviding this extension
of warmth, and then the groundwas all soaked with water,

(41:58):
but the, the mushroom fruitingbodies were not soaked,
which can, you know,often lead to rotting.
And so, uh, it was amazing
how a tarp unintentionally put on
a woodchip pile, actuallycreated this perfect environment
for the extension of theirfruiting phase, which,
which was just exceptional to see.

(42:20):
- Yeah. That, or cardboard,some people layer with straw.
Anything to kind give a littlebit of a insulative barrier
to the extreme temperatures
or fluctuations inmoisture will help a lot.
If you don't have a treatarea that is a natural canopy
to kind of protect yourpatch from the sunlight

(42:41):
in the summertime or therains in the wintertime,
then tarping
or cardboard can greatly increasethe success of your patch.
- So, you know, the, these,these mushrooms, you know,
we call 'em wood lovers, right?
But, but do we know why they like wood?
Is there some, I mean,
clearly there is some attributein wood that, for example,

(43:02):
a appears in hardwoods thatdoesn't appear in soft softwoods
that they, that, that these mushrooms, um,
you know, appreciate.
Do we know what this attribute is,
which creates this likesymbiosis between, um,
these philosophy mushroomsand um, and hardwood trees?

(43:22):
- You know, I've noticedhardwoods seem to be a little, um,
conduced, you know, they, you see a lot
of different organisms growing on
hardwoods compared to conifers.
Look at all the lichens, you know,
I was just noticing the otherday how many lichen you see
all over deciduous trees in the northwest

(43:43):
compared to conifers.
Um, I, like I was saying, Ithink there's some kind of a pH
acid kind of thing happening.
Maybe there's more toit with the, the resins
and the different protectivelayers that conifer trees have,
uh, compared to the deciduous trees.
But that's a great question.I, I'm uncertain. Right

(44:03):
- On.
So there's another aspectof it, um, where people
so often find, um, youknow, these mushrooms
and others, including forwhere I live, morels, um, when,
when humans get involvedwith nature, right?
Like, like my first time ever having
a mushroom outcropping on my own property,
fruiting bodies was when wegot a whole bunch of wood chips

(44:26):
for our garden.
And, and then in, inthe spring it was like,
boom, all these morels.
And I, you know, I felt like, like wealthy
and abundant, you know,being able to have a,
a five gallon bucket fullof, full of more morales.
I'm all like, man, this is great.
Um, but I, I think that isalso one of the attributes
of wood lovers, isn't it?
Where, where if, if, ifhumans are, are messing

(44:50):
with the wood that, that the
wood lovers are in a symbioticrelationship with it,
they're more likely to fruit.
- Yeah. Like we're, Idefinitely, there's this crazy
thing with senescence where,you know, in the wild,
there's some kind of sporeload in the alder trees,

(45:13):
but you'll never findsenescence in an alder grove.
It, it takes humansinteraction, taking the alder,
chopping it down, chippingit, taking those chips,
using it in landscape,
and then there's this sporeload is what a lot of us think
that is in the bark or ina dead area of the bark.

(45:34):
And then as we chip, we'respreading these spores,
and then the mycelium starts.
And this is how we're finding these
senescence in landscaping.
- So like, I know I'm about toask you to make a, you know,
like a little conjecture here,
and I'm, I'm comfortable with that.
Like, you've got a deepscience background,
but I'm asking for alittle bit opinion here.
Like, like what do you thinkthis tells us about the

(45:54):
ecological role of wood lovers?
Like, it, it, what youdescribe them, it, it,
it sounds like a job they're doing, right?
It's like, it's like, it'slike, it was like, oh, you know,
wood lovers have got ajob to do in nature when,
when trees are damaged or something.
Like, like you have a lotof experience with these,
these particular types of mushrooms.
What is it vibe like to you?

(46:17):
- I, I have a strong feelingthat the genus philosophy,
we have this relationship,it's this, it's,
it predates our relationshipwith the bovine with the cows.
You know, that's the longestrelationship we've had
with any other organism.
And there's something therethat we still are missing.

(46:40):
I, you know, I'm uncertain.
I am excited by thesewonders and mysteries
and, you know,
just understanding all thedifferent species on the earth is
a multi-generational taskon top of the constituents
and all the differentcool things about each

(47:01):
of those mushrooms andwhat we're gonna find.
It's just, it's amazing to me. Yeah.
- One of the things that Ifind interesting about, um,
studying wood lovers is,um, you really need to have
patience, um, in a way that like kind
of old school scienceISTs used to have patience
because since, um,
wood lovers have not verysuccessfully been brought into

(47:23):
indoor cultivation, youactually ha, you know, you have
to set up your experiment,whatever it might be,
and then you have to letthe whole season go through
and then you see what the mushrooms do.
It reminds me a lot of how,um, I mean, we still do,
but how people primarily usedto breed cannabis, right?
Where, um, you know, you were,you were doing your cannabis

(47:44):
through your full cycle and,
and then when you got yournew seeds, then you, you know,
would do that again thefollowing year outdoors, right?
And so you were really onlydoing, um, you know, one,
one experiment or onebreeding project a summer
because you, you weredoing this in cooperation
with, with cycles.
And then eventuallylighting, um, got improved

(48:06):
and we brought, we brought the,the cannabis plants indoors.
And so we started beingable to do, you know, three
or four cycles in a yearinstead of just one.
And then now we're breedingwith, you know, spreadsheets
and laboratory, and I'm nottalking about genetic modified
particularly just, justlike, you know, analytically
supported cannabis where,where you can, you know,

(48:27):
and you can take these plants and, and
and, uh, breed them a lotfaster, taking that example
and cross applying it to mushrooms.
It's interesting because somany mushrooms can be, can be
isolated and bred soquickly in a home lab,
but the, the, the wood loversare going like, no, we're,

(48:48):
we're gonna do this outside our way only.
And, um, uh, you know, I'msure that frustrates a lot
of wood loving scientists.
Um, but I, I find thatinteresting stubborn nature
of the wood lovers to be like,kind of a charming trait.
- Yeah, definitely. I, I likethat analogy with cannabis.

(49:09):
It was, you took me
to the dark ages therefor a second, .
That was the, but you'reright, you're right.
As interest
and ambition kind ofpushes technology, uh,
I think for sure the woodlovers are saprotrophic.
So they, we know that, youknow, we can grow them,
we can cultivate them,but they're like the op

(49:32):
opportunistic morale,like you were saying,
that it takes just the right combination
of different seasonality
and substrates to make that all happen.
And I'm sure as peopleexperiment with different things,
just like cords, you know,we weren't cultivating cords,
uh, not too long ago.
And as people experimentwith all the different things
that we kind of break theselittle codes of cultivation,

(49:55):
which is fun and exciting.
- So in the wild, which is,you know, my main interest
with these, um, wood loverssince, um, since, you know,
it's fun to find them.
They're free when you find them out there.
And, uh, and uh, it alwaysfeels like I'm getting away
with something when I findsomething out in nature
that we typically pay for, right?

(50:16):
Like I, it doesn't matter ifit's a culinary mushroom or,
or, you know, bringing in nettle outside
to make ravioli or something.
Right. I totally feel like I'mgetting like something from
nature for free, which is pretty dope.
Um, are there any companion plants
or other fungi that we will often find
with the wood loving psilocybin mushrooms?

(50:38):
Other than, um, you know,just generally hardwood trees?
- Yeah, I, you know, just the grasses
and some of the vegetation helps
because it opens up the airways
and the substrate, you know,so if you have some plant life
that have root systemsthat can help in that,

(50:59):
I think those can help.
Um, yeah,
- But it's not, but itisn't as kind of, it's not,
it sounds like it's notas specific as like, oh,
this variety of grass is necessary
for the fruiting cycle of the mushroom.
Like we find that inother types of species,
but there really isn't anykind of companion plant that's,

(51:20):
that's necessary to thosecycle. I'm, I'm hearing.
- Yeah, not necessarily.
I mean, I've, I've had Azureessence grow in normal grass,
not sedge grass, you know, so they,
I don't think they'reparticular to sedge grass.
They just were opportunistic with
what was there in theirhabitat. Mm-Hmm. .
- So we certainly won't beable to teach identification

(51:43):
of wood lovers on this, you know,
in an audio only program today.
Right. Mm-Hmm. Yeah.
Um, so for, for folks whoare very interested in,
in the wood, uh, for the, excuseme, the wild crafting, um,
you know, just for thejoy of mushroom hunting
and perhaps for the actual taking of,
of the natural bounty, um, uh,

(52:06):
what are the, the signsthat we would look for
to know when a, a wild wood lover is,
is ready to be harvested?
Um, is it, is it as soonas you can identify it
or is there a certain point
where like if you come across a patch
and you identify it as,for example, sin essence,
where you're like, like,that's what these are,

(52:28):
but I need to come back in like five days?
- Yeah, I think, you know,it's, it's, for the newcomer,
it's easy
to just harvest everythingyou see 'cause you're excited.
But if you, you know, if you'rein a place where you're safe
and you wanna check it out
and learn more, I, I would recommend kind
of letting things grow out.

(52:49):
You know, your lastquestion, you said, uh, kind
of a companion kind of thing happening.
I noticed that thereare a lot of gallerinas,
the deadly gallerinas thatpop up pretty close to a lot
of the wood lovers herein the Pacific Northwest.
So you, you do want to payparticular attention to
the patch might not be all one

(53:12):
species of mushroom.
So there are easy ways macroscopically
to identify these mushroomsso that you can be safe.
And if nothing else, take a spore print
where you take the stemoff the bottom of the cap
and lay your cap skillside down on a piece
of paper overnight
and see, analyze what the color
of the spores are the nextday as a telltale sign,

(53:35):
whether they're poisonous or not.
So the, um, do you want me
to go further on identifying or Well,
- I'm actually gonnatake one more step down
that same pathway.
Okay. Okay. Which is, youknow, there's lots of ways
to get educated about, um,
you know, mushroom identification.
You can, you can join a mushroom group.
There are videos online.
There are certainly some like really

(53:56):
great cornerstone books.
You know, you are not only self-taught,
but you, you know, youteach this at, you know,
the university level.
You are, you know, I don'tknow if you are, you know,
technically a professor,
but you teach coursework atthe college level, right?
So you are a professor firstas far as I could care.
Um, so, so, so what, forpeople who are new to

(54:20):
identifying mushrooms, um,what would you recommend
as the best way
to go about learning aboutwood lovers identification?
- Yeah. Even though I'mself-taught, I have had a lot of
friends that have givenme firsthand knowledge
by going out and harvesting.
I'd recommend joininga psychological group

(54:41):
or even just being online,
the different social mediaplatforms where there's groups
that can help identify things.
Taking pictures helps out a lot.
Having guidebooks, like you're saying,
helps out just whatever you cando to educate yourself, both
in the library sense in books,
but also firsthand knowledge of going out
and foraging actuallytouching these mushrooms.

(55:03):
'cause it's important, um, the,the way the stem feels, the,
the smell of the mushroom even.
So there's all kinds ofdifferent characteristics
that we can identify before consuming
and taking the wrong choice.
- Right on. Yeah.
So, so in set three,
we're gonna set three isgonna be the biggest set
and we're gonna focus on, you know,

(55:25):
cultivating these outdoorson your own property.
But, but before we goto the commercial break,
I think it's really important to, um,
to talk a little bit about,um, mushroom harvesting
and the ecology, right?
So, so, you know,
anybody who's interested in mushrooms
wants mushrooms, right?

(55:46):
But, but wanting mushroomsnow you have to remember
that there is also awanting mushrooms later
and then other people wanting
to participate with the mushroom as well.
You know, what are theways that we should harvest
mushrooms when we find them in the wild?
Which sets up a situation

(56:06):
where it'll encouragefood further growth so
that you can wildcraft themthe next season as well.
- There are differentculinary mushrooms, uh, more
so than the wood lovers, um, to
be discretionary in theway the methods to harvest.
A lot of people that harvestchant trails will cut them

(56:29):
because there's littleprimordial mushrooms
behind in the stem area that will
come back in weeks to come.
So you could have more to harvestin the future that season.
A lot of these mushrooms aremicrorisal, so you're not going
to damage them necessarily bypulling them out of the ground
because they're in the rootsof the trees and the plants.

(56:49):
But there are other types
of mushrooms like the pine mushroom,
it's also a microrisal with the pine.
Uh, it's a matsutake, thepine mushroom, the pine tree,
and people rake around those trees
and damage a lot of theecology around the trees
by really raking up
because the mushroomsare found underground,
generally in the, the death.

(57:10):
So it's generally with, um,
philosophy mushrooms,you're not going to have
like a damaging effect
unless people are damagingthe ecosystem around
where the mushrooms are, youknow, so tr tread lightly,
don't leave your da your garbage,your um, your stuff around

(57:30):
and um, maybe leave a few mushrooms
for others to see .
- Right on. It's nice to know, though,
that if we're leaving mushrooms, um, it is
because you wanna be kind tosomebody that comes behind you
and it isn't like culinary, which is
where I got the idea from the question
where they're alwayslike, you know, only, um,
only harvest a half to two thirds

(57:51):
because you don't want to impactthe sustainable life force
of the patch as a whole.
And it sounds like that's just not,
that's just not the way the,
the biology works whenit comes to wood lovers.
- No, not at all. In fact, alot of times patches are just
that season that are outside.
Uh, very rarely do I goyear after year after year

(58:13):
and find wood lovers in the same area,
unless there is d wood debris
or plant debris that's fallingevery season to help feed
that area every year.
- Interesting. Yeah, I, uh,I didn't realize why, I know
that I don't see them year toyear, but I wasn't sure why,
but it's because they consume all

(58:34):
of the nutrition in that area.
I'm get, I'm starting to hear.
And so if you have an areathat you like to wildcraft,
you know, be a, be a steward
and um, you know, put, putcardboard and or forest duff
and or local leaves there and, and,
and help out its process.
- Yeah. Um, sometimes patchesjust don't work even like

(58:57):
you've done everything you can
and no matter what happens,the chips just kind of degrade
and, and they move away.
Or you'll have a successfulpatch for one or two seasons
and you try to give them morefood and something happens
and they just die off.
So there is a bit ofdie off here and there,
but there's also a lot ofsuccess season to season. So. Oh,

(59:19):
- Oh, that sounds so sad.
So sad. .
Alright, so, so, um,
this has all been a setup for set three though.
Set three is probably whyyou're here. Dear listener.
And set three, now that we know,uh, who the wood lovers are
and where they are in the wild set three
probably gonna be thelongest set is all about
setting up a patch at home.

(59:40):
So stick with us until after the break.
You are listening to Shaping Fire
and my guest today isMycologist Christian Kalin.
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(01:01:28):
Sometimes the topics I want to share
with you are far too brief
for an entire shaping fire episode.
In those instances, Ipost them to Instagram.
I invite you to followmy two Instagram profiles
and participate online The Shaping Fire.
Instagram has follow-up poststo shaping fire episodes,
growing and processing bestpractices, product trials,
and of course, gorgeous flower photos.

(01:01:51):
The Shang los Instagramfollows my travels on cannabis
garden tours, my successes
and failures in my own garden, insights
and best practices frompersonal grows everywhere
and always gorgeous flowerphotos on both profiles.
The emphasis on sharingwhat I've learned in a way
that you can replicateit in your own garden,
your own hash lab, or foryour own canna Apathic health.

(01:02:12):
So I encourage you tofollow at Shaping Fire
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One of the reasons why no-tillcannabis growing is so valued
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(01:02:34):
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(01:02:54):
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(01:03:15):
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(01:03:35):
You can see side-by-side showingthe comparative growth on
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(01:03:58):
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(01:04:19):
Dyna Myco Endo Michalinoculate. Welcome back.
I am your host, she Los,
and my guest today is mycollege Christian Kalin.
So here we are in the big finish
and probably for what youare here for dear listener,
because we're gonna talkabout how to set up one
of these wood lover cultivationpatches at your house.

(01:04:42):
And I gotta tell you,they are a lot of fun
to put together inpreparation for this episode.
Um, uh, I produced a a few of my own,
which you'll be hearing about in a moment,
and, uh, it's, it is sure a lot of fun
and I'm looking forwardto seeing, um, what kind
of fruit they show here in the winter, uh,
or in this coming fall.
So, so Christian, you know,I think right at the top,

(01:05:04):
we should probably hit thelegal aspect right here, uh,
to get us off the hook and,
and that that is that,um, you know, be aware of
what the laws are whereveryou're looking to grow these.
It is true that theseare naturally occurring,
but based on where you live,you could get in trouble

(01:05:24):
for intentionally cultivatingthem or possessing them,
or God help is selling them.
And, um, be reallyaware of what's going on
because the rules are changingfast in different, you know,
state county municipality all the way down
and, you know, shaping fire.
We're an international show, right?
And so, even though, you know, cultivation
of these mushrooms may be illegal in much

(01:05:45):
of the United States becauseit's a schedule one drug, um,
that is not the case everywhere where,
where the shaping fire audience is.
So, um, you know, be smart
and, uh, you know, eitherstay legal or stay quiet.
, don't get yourself in trouble.
Mm-Hmm, and, youknow, uh, be, be respectful.
We don't want anybody, you know, you know,
taking your property from you or anything.

(01:06:05):
So, uh, and we're alsonot making any claims to
what is legal where you happen to live.
So, uh, so, you know, be an adult about it
and make sure that,uh, you are clear about
what is legal in your area.
Alright, there we go. Moving on.
So, so Christian, you know,what are the key factors
for successfully cultivating wood loving
psilocybin mushrooms?
We're gonna, we're gonna talkabout details in a moment,

(01:06:28):
but as somebody who is, youknow, intimately familiar
with it, I'm sure that thereare the major pillars that any,
uh, you know, outdoorcultivation has to include.
And what are those?
- The culture is primary, you know, where,
where you get your base culture from.
What species is it, what does it need,

(01:06:49):
and do you have the location,the habitat, the substrate
to give it the best opportunity?
- So what are, what is that habitat?
So let's say that that, um,a you know, a listener is,
is looking at their yard
and they've got, you know, some variety.
Um, uh, what, what are the questions

(01:07:10):
that I would be asking myselfwhen deciding what part
of the yard to, um,to, to make my planting
- Where, where you livedetermines how much
going out of your way you have to,
to make your patch successfulhere in the Pacific Northwest
or places where it's humid,it doesn't get super hot.

(01:07:32):
These are where they like to thrive.
Naturally, we are in the best place
and we don't have as manyfirewalls that we have to put up,
so to speak, to give them thebest opportunity possible.
So other places, maybe in the Midwest, uh,
southwest arid places, notvery humid, you're going

(01:07:53):
to have to make a lot of different layers
and put it in a nice location
where it might not get direct sunlight
and go out of your way to giveit the best possible chance.
So yeah, that's kind of it in a nutshell.
- Alright. So, so, so you'vedescribed, um, shade and,
and also, you know,some amount of moisture.

(01:08:15):
So, you know, where we live,the moisture is everywhere.
It's in the air, it's onthe ground, that's easy.
Um, but if somebody islooking at their property,
their first choice would be shade
because they don't want the area to cook.
But then second, maybe theyare looking at the more damp
part of their property, right?
Maybe, maybe the part of their property
that's maybe more wetlands ormaybe has a stream near it or,

(01:08:39):
or maybe has got a, uh, youknow, during the winter that's
where water pools, these arethe kinds of things, right?
- Yeah, definitely. Youdon't want it to get soaked,
so you don't want it in a flood zone
and you don't want itnecessarily to be facing, uh,
the sun all summer.
So you want it, you know, to be in a,

(01:09:02):
a south sloping area, you know,
all these things can make ahuge difference ultimately. How
- About what kind of trees they're under?
I mean, we know they love the hardwoods.
Did should we be planting themunderneath a hardwood tree?
Um, it definitely sounds likewe should be avoiding furs
because their,
their root structuredefinitely doesn't provide

(01:09:25):
the environment we're looking for. Right?
- You know, it's actually opposite
because you think the deciduoustrees don't offer much
protection in the wintertime,
and this can be just as kind of harmful,
depending on the extreme, theextremists of your winter.
So it, you would thinkthat having it in, I mean,

(01:09:49):
it's not gonna hurt to haveit in a deciduous treat area,
it's just depending on what kind
of winter you're going to have.
So it is kind of nice.I, I have seen success
around conifers just
because they are a shadetree, basically year round.
And so this can be avery nice place for them.
They're, you're, you'rebuilding your patch on top

(01:10:10):
of the roots, so it's notlike they're going to impede
with the success of the patch
because you're topically ontop of the conifer roots.
So I don't see any problem with that.
Um, you know, bamboo is another one
that people have used a lot
because bamboo losesits leaves every year,
but it's also an evergreen.

(01:10:32):
So you have shade year round,
plus you have a foodsource for your patch.
There's, uh, cardboard
and tarps like we talked about before too.
If you just don't havea location with trees
or any kinda shade, maybeeven a building on the side
of the house can work, uh,then using topical methods,

(01:10:54):
tarps and cardboard andstraw will greatly benefit.
- So it sounds like we'retalking about, we want,
we want moisture, we want shade
so we don't get too much direct sunlight
and then we want food.
And so putting it somewhere where, uh,
there's gonna be forest duffor leaves falling from above

(01:11:14):
or, um, you know, uh, plantsthat just drop lots of like,
you know, sticks or flowers or petals
or we're, we're lookingfor anything that is going
to drop on your pile anddegrade, that's a win.
- Yes, definitely. Alright.
It doesn't have to be that way,
but that's definitely a plus.
- Right on. Um, good. Alright.
So, um, a lot of folks, uh,me included, um, you know,

(01:11:38):
we start this, we'll be, you know,
we'll be de I'll be asking you
to describe this lasagnatechnique in a moment, but,
but one of the main, the mostimportant, uh, input for the,
the, the lasagna style is the wood chips.
Um, you know, what, whatbest practices are there
for choosing your wood chips?

(01:11:59):
Other than it soundslike them being hardwood?
The only one that I for surecame up with was, um, uh,
being careful, uh, grabbing the, uh,
the, the wood chips thatcome from like the city parks
and things like that becausemany cities used pesticides

(01:12:19):
and perhaps there will bechemicals in those wood chips,
but, but other than those,I'm not sure what other, um,
best practices there mightbe for choosing wood chips.
What might you have for us?
- That's true if you wereto source from arborists,
you know, depending on wherethey got their trees from,
there could be risk ofherbicides or other things.

(01:12:40):
Generally when you deal with,here in the Pacific Northwest,
we we're a tree state, so there's lots
of wood, which is nice.
Uh, other places might not have that.
But I would say on the whole, you know,
if you're getting wood chipsfrom an actual chip company,
then generally they can becertified organic actually.

(01:13:00):
So there's in the wild, you know,
they're just the alder herein the Pacific Northwest is
what you'll usually find.
And they're a weed tree for the most part.
They're everywhere and they're,
they're free of contamination.
So, um, definitely want to know
where the, the chips came from.

(01:13:21):
But I think on the whole, you know,
even if they're in someone's yard,
people generally aren't spraying their,
their hardwood trees.
It's more like plantsand things down below.
Um, and then also like, just making sure
that the chips haven't been somewhere
where they've soaked up or they've aged
or they were from trees thatwere already dead and decaying

(01:13:44):
and had all kinds ofcontamination in them.
That would be somethingyou want to start with.
Nice, fresh chips that werefrom healthy trees. Mm-Hmm.
- . Um,
this may seem like a laughablequestion considering we're
doing this interview inthe Pacific Northwest,
but, um, you know,
not everybody has gottrees like we've got.
And, um, somebody onInstagram asked me, uh,

(01:14:05):
during a discussion whether
or not they could use baggedhardwood chips that they use
for smoking meat.
Yeah. So like, just likebagged hardwood chips.
Is there any reason whythat would be excluded?
- No, just the lack ofinformation maybe of not knowing
where they came from
or how they were handledwould be the only uncertainty.

(01:14:26):
But I would say anykind of chip, basically,
if you're willing to justrehydrate it, that's all
that needs to happen is just take dry wood
and soak it in a bucket of water
and get it as hydrated aspossible before you inoculate it.
- Right on. So, so let'stalk about, um, uh, uh, where
to get our, our startingspores or mycelium now.

(01:14:50):
Um, my favorite way, um, my favorite way,
I sound like I've beendoing this for a long time.
I have been doing this forone month, right? .
So, so in my, in that onemonth though, I've made a,
I've made a few of these installations.
And so, um, but all of themcame from that one patch
that I mentioned earlier,that eight by 10 patch
because, uh, my friend was,uh, uh, selling their house

(01:15:13):
and they're all like, Hey, youknow, um, this is, this is,
this patch is probablygonna get ruined anyway, so,
you know, feel free tocome and collect mycelium.
And so, um, you know, we wentand we, we scraped the surface
and we grabbed a bunch of mycelium.
So we had like, really nicerich myceliated wood chips
and de degrading.

(01:15:33):
And, and that's what, youknow, we used for these patches
that, that we've installedin the last month.
And so that's, that's a great source.
So if you can, if you cangrab mycelium from the wild,
respectfully there, there,there's a great option.
But, but you know, I, you
and I talking casually you'vementioned many times, um,
you know, getting spores anddoing the inoculation yourself.

(01:15:56):
So, so maybe talk a little bitabout of where to get spores
because, um, even thoughthe possession of, uh,
these mushrooms are illegalmany places, oddly selling
of the spores is not
- Yeah.
You, you can get spores online.
I, you know, it, I, I don't necessarily

(01:16:18):
plug any one in particular.
I, I've had spore syringes where, um,
there weren't any spores in it.
So there's, it's kind of funny, it's hit
and miss, it's kind of thewild west still as far as
what you can get out there.
Um, definitely wouldrather find a wild specimen

(01:16:39):
and use fresh a, a fresh culture.
Fresh mycelium is the easiest, basically
to get started sporesyou're dealing with a lot
of different DNA, uh, characteristics
and you're, you know, if youstart spores on cardboard,

(01:16:59):
even just as a low tech way
or, um, broadcasting the spores into,
uh, wet wood debris can alsohelp, but it's, it's variable.
You will get a couple spores to germinate,
and then that mycelium is verykind of primitive in ways.

(01:17:20):
It's not necessarily the most aggressive
lines to start from.
Generally when you startfrom a spore, you have
to put it on a Petridish in the laboratory,
get really aggressivelines to sequence out,
and it might take three or four
or five months of transferringfrom plate to plate
to actually get an aggressive line
that will fruit mushrooms.
So spores can be, uh, a legal way,

(01:17:45):
um, to get to acquire the culture.
But then you also, youknow, once you spore,
once you germinate the spores
and start mycelium, that is considered,
you know, illegal.
So it, it's one of those things where, um,
if you can find it in the wild
or you have somebody thathas a little bit of a culture

(01:18:08):
or patch that you can borrow from,
you can literally take apiece of someone's patch
and transfer it to your patchand have a successful patch.
- So you caught me off guarddescribing purchased spores,
uh, taking them into the lab,
into the Petri dishesjust to grow them out.
Mm-Hmm. , um,uh, does that have to be done
or can you just buy woodloving spores online and,

(01:18:32):
and literally go over to your wood chips
and squirt it out, youknow, in drops all over?
Mm-Hmm, yourwood chips, like, can you do it
that directly or do youhave to grow it out first?
- You can do it that directly.
It, it's just variableas far as your success.
You're, you generally,when people buy spores,

(01:18:54):
they just are hoping to get one
or two mushrooms thatthen they can culture
and have a fresh mushroom to culture.
Oh. And then from there theycan have a more direct clone
that's more aggressive,
that will fruit moremushrooms in the future.
So starting from spores,you're generally not going
to get a very successfulharvest right off the bat.
It takes time to get thatmycelium to the point

(01:19:17):
of like a kind of acommercial fruiting strain.
- So when wild harvesting yourstart as I did, you're kind
of, excuse me, you're kindof stuck with whatever, um,
you have nearby or thatyou can borrow from.
Um, Mm-Hmm. ,if you are looking
to have success right off the bat,
is there a particularvariety of wood lover

(01:19:40):
that you would recommendsomeone buy the spores of just
to increase their likelihood
of success if they'regonna do it the janky
way I described Mm-Hmm.
where you're justgonna like squirt the spores
out of the syringe onto the pile.
Because I know there's a lotof people out there like me,
who, who as soon as you said Petri dishes,
their eyes rolled, you know?

(01:20:01):
Yep. And they're like, oh God, I'm just,
I'm just not that kind of person.
I'm gonna buy this thing andI'm gonna go squirt it on my
pile, and then I'm gonna let it rot
and I hope for good stuff in the fall.
And so, right. So for all of those people,
which include me like, like, mm-Hmm.
, like, is, isthere one particular variety
that we, that we mightwanna focus on that is more,

(01:20:21):
I don't know, aggressive, perhaps?
- Yeah, that's a good question.
I think Azure essence aredefinitely more technical as far
as, uh, cultivating, they'rea little more finicky.
The senescent you'll findmore frequently out in public,
and they are, uh, more aggressive
and like different substrates.

(01:20:41):
So you'll probably that,
I would say my top three wouldprobably be Senes essence,
ovoids and Alinea.
As far as, uh, the, the ease of success.
Ovoids tend to fruit both in the fall
and the spring, which are really cool.
They technically fruit more inthe spring than in the fall,

(01:21:04):
which is kind of a cool thing
because most fruit in the fall,
and then also I've seen ovoidsthat really just aggressively
consume whatever substrates available.
Like they'll, they'll consume evergreen
and other plant life andall kinds of different wood.

(01:21:25):
So they're, they're a lot more aggressive
- Overall.
They're like, gi, gimme something to eat.
I don't care what it is. Let's go. Yeah.
- Yeah. So I, you know,
I would say maybe Ovoidswould be top, top on the list
as far as ease andflexibility in the seasons.
- I like, like that idea that you get two
flushes a year too.
Um, Mm-Hmm. , which leads me

(01:21:45):
to my next question, whichis gonna be, you know, most
of the wood lovers areknown for being fall, um,
fruits, um, mm-Hmm.
. Is therea reason why they don't
fruit in the spring as well?
Because, you know, with, withmany species of plants, you,
you, they, they will go
through the same experience in the spring
because there's this,this window when the,
when the temperature's right.

(01:22:06):
And the moisture's, right?
And, and, and then theydo their thing, and then,
and then in the fall they do it again
because the moisture's, right?
And the, the heat is right.
And so they're like,there's two windows a year,
but then there's also lots of fungi
and lots of plants where they'reall like, no, we are gonna,
we're gonna flower duringthis one time of year.
And that's it. So you better pay

(01:22:26):
attention so you can see the flowers.
And, and so now you've justdescribed the ovoids often have
a spring and a fall flush, whereas the
senescence I'm gathering,um, is really just fall
and there isn't a spring one.
Do we know about that, those mechanics?
- I wish I, that's a great question.
That would be an intriguingmystery to solve.

(01:22:49):
I, I'm not sure, um, you know,
- We run- Into, I can't even really think of it.
I can't think of anything really off the
top of my head of why.
- And that is one of thereasons why it would be so cool
to be back in collegeand be a mushroom nerd
and suddenly be coming into mushrooms.
Because, you know, when, when you
and I were, you know, in ourtwenties back in the day, um,

(01:23:11):
you know, if you had thisinterest, um, you had
to do it like totally on the down low
and you had to make surenobody knew about it.
And, you know, you'd have your spot
in the forest or whatever.
And, um, because it wasnot nearly as acceptable
as it is now, but now,you know, we've got,
we've got universities
with cannabis cultivationprograms and Right.
And, you know, everybody

(01:23:32):
and their neighbor is into, um, you know,
functional mushrooms for this or that.
What a great time to be,you know, in your twenties
or, you know, or, or at,at the start of a career
and being able to go into this
because there is so muchresearch to be done.
Just like the question I asked you
- On so many levels, it it is amazing.

(01:23:53):
I'm so glad that I was ableto see it in my lifetime.
I was getting a littleworried there. Yeah. .
- Well, hopefully it'llall continue then. Yeah.
Alright, so, so the nextthing I wanna do is, is, uh,
you know, I, you know,you, you taught me how
to make these installations, um, from,
from a wildcrafted myceliumsource, um, Mm-Hmm.

(01:24:15):
. But insteadof me talking about it,
I would love you just to walkus through the steps of making
a, what we've just startedcalling on the island,
a lasagna installation,which is a little wordy for
what it is, I guess, but,
but at least everybody knowswhat we're talking about.
So, so, so the assumptions Iwant you to start with is, um,
we, we, we have identifieda place on the part on the

(01:24:37):
property, um, that has gotsome, um, uh, tree cover and,
and yet it's on the edge of the, of trees.
And so it, it gets partialsunlight during the day
and that it's gonna be moistmost of the season, except
for maybe during thedrought part of the season
where you might have to water it.
So, so we've got a decent place

(01:24:58):
and we have identified somehardwood chips that we can use.
Mm-Hmm. . Sowe've got our hardwood chips,
and we've got a couple of shovel fulls
of inoculated myceliumthat we found in the wild.
Please walk us through how todo the install, uh, at home.
- Okay. There, there isa precursor to this patch

(01:25:18):
that can be very
positive in the successof your future patch.
A lot of people, you know,
with es grows mono tub iskind of a frequent word
that you might hear, butit's basically just a plastic
container that peoplestart their mushrooms in.
And growers that areexperimenting with wood loving

(01:25:42):
varieties are having good success with
starting their myceliumin a mono tub, basically.
And so you, you have your mycelium
that you've got from a friend's patch
or wherever out in the wild,you could layer a little piece
of cardboard down on thebottom of the plastic container
to kind of be an absorptionof excess moisture, as well

(01:26:04):
as like a platform for this.
The culture to reallyrun through the paper
and have a nice foundation,I find that as, uh,
mushrooms are used to being in the ground
or inside something andthen growing outwards.
So to have your mycelium atthe bottom of your container
and then growing outwardsat the top is seems

(01:26:26):
to be a little more successful.
And then, like you're saying,the lasagna layer is just, uh,
you know, a metaphor forcreating layers in your container
of different substrates.
So, um, with your mycelium at the base,
then you want another freshlayer of either sawdust
or, um, sawdust mixed withwood chips or just wood chips,

(01:26:49):
and then layer more woodchips, maybe a little bit
of sawdust if you have it.
You could even use strawif your straw doesn't have,
you know, if you canfind organic straws best,
it doesn't have herbicides,
but you can layer straw inwith your wood mixture as well
to kind of give it a littledifferent airspace so

(01:27:10):
that there's, you, youdon't want to create like a
anaerobic conditionwhere it can't breathe,
but creating enough food source that,
that my stone will just keep rising up
through your substrateuntil it reaches the top.
And then this is like your spawn
that you can take clumpsfrom this mono tub of spawn

(01:27:31):
of substrate and then use that as a seed
or a spawn for all thepatches that you wanna make.
So that's kind of a, a better way to,
to increase your culture
before you actually getstarted in your patch.
If you didn't want togo through that process
and you're just excited to start a patch,

(01:27:51):
you basically do the samething just without the plastic
container outside, like yousaid, you found your, your
location, you might want to, uh,
saturate some cardboard in water till
it's completely soaked.
Put your culture or your mycelium down on
that gives it a nice platformfoundation to leap off of

(01:28:12):
and then layer up your chipsand your sawdust and chips
or whatever you have available,
and maybe top it off with alittle bit of cardboard on top
to protect it if you don'thave a lot of tree cover
or a wet straw. Basically,
- When we were doing ourinstalls two weeks ago from, uh,
from that source I was tellingyou about, somebody asked me

(01:28:34):
how many layers they shouldput in their lasagna,
and I had no idea I wasjust doing three layers
because that's how much,um, mycelium, inoculate
and cardboard I had.
Right. Um, but does it, yeah.
Does it matter whether it's two layers,
three layers, five layers?
I mean, is there, is thereany analysis in that?
- That's a good question. The more food

(01:28:56):
that you give your mushroom
or your mycelium, the longer it might take
to actually fruit, becausewe have to remind the viewers
that mushrooms are likethe last reproductive cycle
of the mycelium and it thinks it's dying.
So it's creating a mushroomto create spores to reproduce.
So we're in essence tryingto give it just enough food

(01:29:19):
to really grow out, makethe mycelium strong,
and get it to the pointwhere it's ready to burst
and start creating these little mushrooms.
So it is a lot of timing
and experimentation in yourarea of like your culture,
how fast it's growingthrough your substrate.
It might take a year
or two seasons of likeexperimenting to see, oh, I,

(01:29:43):
I should have, you know,this season it, the spring,
it was really cold.
I got my patch in late. Itgot really hot in the summer.
I didn't water it, it dried out.
You know, there's, there's lotsof different variable season
to season, but I technicallythink the more, the better.
You might have to waitlonger for your harvest,

(01:30:05):
but the more substrate
and the more layers that youput in with, um, a lot of,
if you can create your myceliumfirst, like I was saying,
and the little plastic tub,then you, you can really
inoculate heavily withmycelium in a lot of
substrate that then willcreate a really aggressive,

(01:30:26):
robust patch that will potentially fruit
for a couple seasons for you.
So I'd start bigger thansmaller if you're really serious
about like, trying to geta successful patch going.
'cause it can be, it, it,there's so many variables, you
- Know?
Yeah, totally. Well, that'swhy, you know, kind of,
you're kind of giving uslike a loose recipe, right?
And then Mm-Hmm, .And then depending on

(01:30:47):
where we live and what materialswe have access to, we kind
of apply that recipe likehowever we can where we live.
You know, I had never heardthe idea of starting, um,
your mycelium in a mono tub outdoors.
That is a really interesting idea
because you're kind of, uh,creating an incubation, right?
You're kind, or like, you know,we talk about, um, uh, uh,

(01:31:13):
aerated compost teas a lot, right?
So you take your basic,uh, oxygen loving microbes
and you're putting it inyour, in your, uh, bubbler,
and then you're bubblingit so that you make a lot,
a lot, lot more microbes.
And then you, and then youput that on your plant.
This is the kind of the same thing
where we're talking about,okay, we've got, we've got this,
you know, shovel full of mycelium

(01:31:34):
and we, we wanna make a big patch,
so let's put it in the monotub with a whole bunch of, um,
hardwood sawdust and chips and cardboard,
and let it grow throughthe tub so that when we go
to make the outdoor installation,
we're not just using one shovel full.
We've got, you know, this,this quarter of a tub full.

(01:31:57):
And we're like, hell yeah, let's go.
That's a really great idea,
especially if you only havea little bit to work with.
Now, I wanna ask you, howmuch do you think, like when,
when we say a lot or a little,
how should people think about that?
Like, how, how do theyknow how much they have
to make their installation
and let, let's use, let'suse me as an example.

(01:32:19):
So from, so from thishuge eight by 10 area,
we didn't even take like half of it.
Um, but we got five, fivegallon buckets full, right?
So that's, those, that's like I,
and to me that sounds like aton of, you know, myceliated,
um, mushroom or wood chips for us to use.
And then we, we took those five

(01:32:40):
and then we split it upbetween five locations, right?
And so we used, you know, more
or less a five gallon bucketalong with the other cardboard
and, um, hardwood chips.
Now using that as the examplewas that like, you know, is,
is a five gallon bucket,like a whole ton where,
or where we only need a little bit, kind
of like think it through for us.

(01:33:03):
- Yeah. I, I would saya five gallon bucket
of my CD ships would be enough spawn
to inoculate.
I mean, you can stretchit out however you want,
but to make a nice successfulpatch, I think more is better.
So amplifying yourmycelium, like you said in,
in the Tupperware, and then using like,

(01:33:24):
or a five gallon bucket
and then maybe a four footby four foot squared space,
almost two feet in depth of substrate
would be like a five gallonbucket of an inoculum.
You could maybe do like a, youcould push that to five foot
by five feet, or, youknow, whatever you think.

(01:33:45):
But the depth of the substratetoo is something to consider
because, um, that mycelium needs
to get mixed into the bottomall nice and thoroughly,
and then you want it all to kind
of expand out together insteadof having a lot of patches
that aren't colonizing.
And so, yeah, I'd sayfive foot by five foot
for a five gallon bucket of my son. Okay.

(01:34:07):
- So, so if we have a five gallon bucket,
we know we have tons of,we, we know we have plenty
of myceliated wood chipsand, and we're clear, but,
but like, give us an idea ofwhat is the, the least amount
that we should, uh, try tostart a pile with without trying
to incubate and makemore in a mono tub first.

(01:34:27):
Like, if we only have a,uh, you know, a a, um,
sh one shovel full, um, is, is
that just like too precariouslylow amount to like, try
to make a three foot bythree foot bed width and,
and we should definitelygo with the mono tub first.
Like, like give it,gimme a threshold point.
How do we know when we havetoo little amount to go right

(01:34:50):
to nature and we should incubate first?
- Oh, that's a great question.
I, you know, I always tell my students
to push the boundaries.
If you don't have what you need,
maybe go a little bit smaller.
Uh, yeah, A shovel's worth
of really decent myceliumwould probably be able to do
a three foot by three foot,um, by two foot little patch.

(01:35:12):
You know? Um, I, it justdepends on the culture
and how aggressive it is andall the different variables.
I can't say for sure, Idon't wanna promise anybody,
but I would say you'd be onthe safe side to still be able
to have a significant patch just
with the shovel full. Okay,
- Good.
Well, that, that, that's a lot less
than I thought, so that's great.
That really opens up, uh,the door for a lot more folks
because god knows it's,you know, a lot easier

(01:35:34):
to find a small patch than it is like
that big one that I stumbled upon.
Right. Right. Which willbe, you know, given out
to people on the island for,for years to come now. Um,
- Yeah, A little, littleside point on the mono tubs,
people actually grow and fruitin the mono tubs as well.
So they're creating theselittle mini habitats within the
mono tub, actually having a,

(01:35:56):
maybe a little grass seed ontop producing a little carpet
so that they have likethis ground cover essence,
but it's still all ina mono tub basically.
And they're fruiting out of the mono tubs,
but it is a seasonality thing outside
where you're keeping thingsoutside, but they're cultivated.
- You'd have to drill drill holes

(01:36:17):
for drainage in the bottom right. Yep.
- Yep. - That actually soundslike a lot of fun. Yeah.
Like, I'm not, I'm not like abig proponent of like, like,
like let, let's addplastic tubs outdoors, but,
but it sure sounds like fun to like, to do it
with this more, uh, morecontrolled environment.
- Yeah. Not everyone has an abackyard or access to a yard,

(01:36:38):
or they live in an apartment. Yeah.
- That we could do it in a deck. Yeah,
- Yeah, yeah. Totally.
- That's a really good point.Yep. Thank you for that.
Um, a question about the two foot depth.
Um, so that got my attention
because none of the five wemade was two feet deep, right?
Um, um, each of them, theyall ended, only ended up like,
you know, 12 or 13 inches.

(01:37:00):
- Okay.- Do you know if, if they're, if,
if we're building thislasagna on bare ground,
does the ground countfor some of this two feet
- ?
If the ground is soft
and has the same kind ofsubstrate that the mushroom likes,
then yes, it's okay that yourpatches weren't too deep.

(01:37:21):
You're going to need more carein the long run to make sure
that they don't dry out.
So in the summer, definitely go out there
and water, uh,
you might wanna put a cardboardlayer over the top in the
extreme heat as you water, youare watering your cardboard.
That then helps create a humidenvironment for your patch.

(01:37:41):
So the, the less depth in your patch,
the more care is gonna takethroughout the year just
to make sure the extremetemperatures don't.
- That makes sense. Yeah.
That, that happens with aquariums too.
You know, if you have a littleaquarium, the environment
of the aquarium changes really quickly.
But if you've got a, you know,a big a hundred, 200 gallon,
it really takes a more push

(01:38:02):
to change the environmentthat the fish are in.
Kind of the same thingfor this patch as well.
Um, so lip,
- Straw, straw would be another Mm-Hmm.
good. Uh, allo ally,
- When we're, when we're watering,
we're not gonna be usingmunicipal water, right?
Because it might have chlorine
or chloramines in it,which I'm guessing messes
with our mycelium.

(01:38:23):
And so we want to, uh,
capture some rainwaterand use that. Right.
- It definitely helps.Uh, chlorine definitely
is problematic.
You, you, you're gonna get some growth,
but it just tends to inhibit.
- Yeah. So if we have,
if if we don't have, I've heard of it.

(01:38:44):
If we don't have access to rainwater
and our city is using, um,you know, you know, chloride,
chlorine, and maybe fluoride,is it reasonable for us
to just pick up some, uh, youknow, distilled or ro water
and just use that and we just know,
know it's kind of like neutral water.
- Yeah. People can leavetheir normal water out in five

(01:39:04):
gallon buckets too, and just let the,
the chlorine evaporate.
You know, if you leavebuckets of water out for,
I don't know, maybe a week or two mm-Hmm.
, um, then youcould use that as a watering
agent too, if you don'thave access to clean water,
that's not chlorinated.
- Um, we've already talkedabout, uh, you know,
several different issues ofthings that could go wrong.

(01:39:27):
Um, uh, are,
is there any other bigchallenge in growing these wood
lovers that we haven't, um,addressed for, you know, as far
as it goes for the patches?
Uh, something that I should have asked
you about that I haven't yet?
- Oh, good question. Um,
yeah, I mean, you werepretty thorough. Shang

(01:39:49):
- , well, it helpsthat you taught me this
just a few weeks ago, right?
. So, so it is a, itis kind of fresh, so, alright,
so let's, let's talk about thenext fun part, which is the,
the, the harvesting.
So, um, so, so they're,they're, they're growing up
and you've got your caps
and, um, you know, generallyspeaking, uh, do we want to,
we do, we wanna harvest whenthe, when the veils start

(01:40:11):
to break and the, and the,and the caps start to flatten.
- I like to harvestearlier than later. Mm-Hmm.
generally, and it's funny
with the wood lovers, a lotof times they cluster together
so tight that it's hard
to not just pull uphuge clusters together.
So you'll, you'll havesome kind of immature ones
and some mature ones,

(01:40:32):
but you generally willjust start harvesting
the patch all at once.
You know, if your patchis big enough, you might,
it might take you a couple days
or something, you can just kind of
start taking the more mature mushrooms
and as you're working throughit, they just keep maturing.
But I like more, uh, youngerspecimens so the caps
don't just, uh, break apart into nothing.

(01:40:54):
You can have thesenice, beautiful motions,
but I I, I'm into theaesthetic look of them as well.
So I don't know, that's
- Not necessary.
They look really cooltogether when there's lots
of different stages of growth together.
Um, it's, it's, I mean it's cute .
Yeah. Um, uh,
- But you can wait.
Um, mm-Hmm. wait for 'em to flatten out.
Some people think that, you know,

(01:41:15):
they might get a little moreweight from that or something,
but I, i, I feel like it, you know,
if anything you might bedegrading the content, the potency
of your fruit bodies by waiting longer.
- Um, I know that some mushroom varieties,
once the veil is ripped
and it starts to drop spores,
this sporulation gives asignal to the substrate

(01:41:38):
to stop fruiting are woodlovers one of those variety
of mushrooms where we, you know,
we really wanna keep it fromdropping too many of the spores
'cause it's working against us.
- No, not that I know of. Mm-Hmm.
, um, that patch just,
it'll just keep, keep going.
You'll, you'll have, um,
some contamination from sporessometimes where, you know,

(01:42:00):
it, it just creates kind of adirtiness that will, you know,
it, it degrades the mushroomcaps when they have large
spores from another mushroomcap on top of that cap Yeah.
Kind of thing. And then it can
degrade the mushrooms quicker.
- Yeah. I've gotten that in my mono tubs
and it's like, ah, .
Yeah. It makes 'em veryunattractive looking.
They still work, but it's justvery unattractive looking.

(01:42:22):
Yeah. Um, four wood lovers.
Do you recommend, um, harvesting,uh, for example with like,
you know, a, a razorblade around the bottom
where you're leaving the base in the soil?
Or are we good to just like pop them out
and take some of the soil with us
and then just clean 'em up in the house?
- That's what I generally do the ladder.

(01:42:43):
Uh, and then you can savethose little stem pieces,
the little roots and transplant those
and create more mycelium
or give them to friends or whatever.
So some people will wash theroots off, you know, the stems
and try to salvage as much as possible.
You know, Maria, Maria Sabina. Mm-Hmm.

(01:43:04):
, um, backin the day said, you know,
don't cut the feet off.
'cause the little saints, thosefeet are important too. So
- good.
So, so, so go, you know,if we're gonna pull 'em up,
go ahead and cut off the feet and,
and clean 'em up if you'regonna do that for yourself,
but then take the feed andreintroduce them to your pile.
Um, mm-Hmm. and,you know, giving, giving back

(01:43:26):
to your pile and, and being
as efficient about it as you can.
- Yeah. We're startingthose little mono tubs
and creating more mycelium.
- Right on. So now, so let'ssay now you've got, um,
you know, a a a, a couple of paper plates
or whatever, full of mushrooms.
How do you recommend goingabout, uh, drying them?
And obviously we're talkingabout in a non-commercial

(01:43:46):
application here, right?
We're just talking aboutsomebody's house. Yeah.
So how do you recommend theygo about drying 'em out?
- Just your typical dehydrator
that you can buy online or at stores?
Uh, they can just be a simple little
electrical heat element in the bottom.
And then they have the rack trays.
They can be round or square.

(01:44:08):
Sometimes people will just make a mini
at home de dehydrator by, you know,
creating a little box witha fan and room temperature.
If your house is around 68,70 degrees with a little fan,
that can be enough in a little container
to dry out mushrooms aslong as they're on a screen
or something that it allows breathability.

(01:44:32):
- Right on. I I I'vedone both of those. Yeah.
- Yeah. I I I don'tsuggest using the oven much
'cause ovens have too highof a low setting to really,
you know, it tends to kind of get too hot.
Heat, heat can be damaging to the potency
of psilocybin. So that's, yeah.
- We wanna evaporate them, not cook them.
- Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

(01:44:53):
- So, so now that they are dried, um,
how do you recommend thestorage of these mushrooms?
And you know, like I know thatstorage could be a, you know,
a third of a show in and of itself, but,
but considering we're to this part
and it's just for personal, you know,
use, how would you store these?
So they last long list
- The, there's differingresearch out there that says that

(01:45:14):
potency is maintained through
like 50 degrees
and, you know, limitedhumidity at room temperature.
You're not gonna have any kind
of degradation in the potency.
And then there's also kindof a side that says like,
freezing fruit bodies couldalso be long-term storage.

(01:45:37):
But then there's also a little bit
of information out there saying
that freezing actuallydegrades psilocybin.
So there's a lot of differing opinions
and information out thereright now as far as, um,
storing long-term androom temperature freezing.
But I think both I'vehad good results in both.
Uh, at room temperature, ifyou're not sealed up completely

(01:45:59):
and you were growingoutside, there is chance of
fly larvae, uh, germinating.
So freezing can technicallykeep that from happening.
And so your, your mushroomswould last longer in a dried
frozen environment ratherthan, um, taking a risk with
fly larvae Yeah.

(01:46:21):
Eggs in the future . So that
- I haven't run into that. I hope I don't.
- Yeah, I mean that'scommon in the culinary world
with morels and portini
where people will have abeautiful mason jar of morels
or portini and they comeback a couple months later
and it's just powder becauseeverything's germinated.
So, uh, freezer will not allow that.

(01:46:42):
- So one thing I will add thatI have, I have added to my,
uh, best practices that Ireally like is, um, they,
they sell these, um, vacuum seal devices
for large mouth mason jars.
And so you can, you can putwhatever, you know, cannabis
or mushrooms into your mason jar
and then you put the,the mason jar lid on,

(01:47:05):
but then you put this device over the top
and you push a button
and it sucks out all of the,the oxygen from the jar,
and then it seals the flatpart of the two piece lid
to the jar because, um, youknow, the, the, the things that
destroy these mushrooms are,um, you know, not only, uh,

(01:47:25):
heat and, and brightlight, but also oxidation.
And so if you, if youyeah, you know, jam your
mushrooms into a jar and, and then,
and then remove the oxygen.
So there's a, there's a smallratio within the jar, meaning
that your, your jar is packed,you don't have a small amount
of mushrooms to a big jar, and then,

(01:47:45):
and then you vacuumout all of the air, um,
and then, you know, just throw
it underneath your bed, you know?
Yeah. You, you're in a darkplace that's, you know, more
or less temperature stable
and now you're in a nonoxygenated environment.
You should be good untilyou're, you next round
of fruiting the next fall.
- I like that. That's great.
I, I didn't mention freeze drying either.

(01:48:06):
It's a little more expensive,
but they do make the desktops
that are a little moreaffordable for the homeowner.
And freeze drying is pretty amazing too.
I don't know what the researchis as far as potency levels,
but the texture and justwhat the mushroom looks like
after it's freeze dried is just amazing.
It looks like it's freshbasically. Yeah. It,
- It is actually reallyremarkable how,

(01:48:29):
how it doesn't, um, you know,
it doesn't do the shrivel thing, so.
Yeah. Um, alright Christian, so, so, um,
we're going into the wrap up here,
but I wanna give you a chanceto kind of wax philosophical
because, um, I have heardyou do do that before and I,
and I have liked it .
Um, and also you're,you know, you're pretty,
because you are still very muchin the mixed both, you know,

(01:48:50):
at the, you know, with the academic part
and the science part andalso the entrepreneur part.
You know, your your, yourthumb is definitely in the
mushroom pie as it were.
So, so wrapping up, what future
research directions do youfind most promising, um,
for understanding orutilizing these wood loving
psilocybin mushrooms?

(01:49:10):
I mean, right now we focuson their, their beauty
and their ability to heal.
But you know, like we're just,we're just at the beginning
of our relationship, um, withthis mushroom since we're,
we've started learning theactual science of it, so, Mm-Hmm.
. So what excitesyou looking into the future
of wood lovers and ourrelationship to them?

(01:49:33):
- Yeah, that's a deep question.
Um, we didn't touch much on wood lover
paralysis and I think
- Probably, 'cause I don'teven know what that is.
I didn't even know to ask you. Yeah.
So what, so go ahead andaddress that if you'd like.
- Well, that's kind of beenmy little mission of late
because Oregon is banning the use

(01:49:53):
of wood lovers for mental
and, you know, for whatever reason
and their new legislation for
legalizing basically everything,
but they're not going to allow wood lovers
because of a wood paralysisthat happens in people.
It's very, um, does, does it happen?

(01:50:15):
Yeah, I, I would say it does,
but it's, it's, I I'm alittle uncertain about
what it really is, and Ithink everyone else kind
of is there, there's no real
understanding as of yet.
There's just kind of,uh, people's opinions

(01:50:36):
and experiences, and somepeople just feel like within
an hour of eating, a lotof times they're fresh,
fresh mushrooms, and a lot
of times they've been in New Zealand
and Australia with the sub,uh, which I think is, uh,
you know, a super potent mushroom.
And that might be part ofwhy there is paralysis,

(01:50:57):
because, you know, anyonethat's taken a large amount
of mushrooms can feel paralyzedthroughout their experience,
, whether it'slike this physicalness
or this, um, in, in yourmind, in your consciousness.
So it, I'm, I I, I'm interested
to know more about ifthere is a physiological

(01:51:22):
paralytic response in people and,
but more so I, I just think
psilocybin and psilocin in general
and all these different precursors
and prodrugs, that's, that'smy interest in the future.
I've always been intriguedwith the different varieties of

(01:51:45):
philosophies and whyeach one has its own kind
of characteristics as you ingest them.
Um, ovoids they grow in the spring
and they have just this nice uplifting,
energetic lightheartedness tothem, playful almost as if,
you know, as a spring, likemushroom would give you, um,

(01:52:08):
the Azure essence is justknock your socks off,
melt, melt yourface off, go, uh, lose your,
your name and, and who you are and,
and come back to findout who you really are.
You know, there's so much, um,
within this genus to offer
and there's, we've delayedthe research for way too long

(01:52:33):
and there's so much thatwe're doing to our world
and to ourselves and so much unrest
that I just, I feel like this is kind
of the last hope in waysfor us to get together
and understand why we'rehere and who we are

(01:52:54):
and how to like group together
to be like mushrooms, towork symbiotically, to
get rid of the things that don't serve us
and, um, understand thetrue meanings of things.
So, um, yeah, that's right on you.

(01:53:16):
You got me going deep there. Yeah.
- . Well, it does. I, I,
you know, you and I havebeen friends for a while.
I know it doesn't take much.So Well, um, well, I,
- I mean this molecule doesthis like, um, this, this,
there's, this is a bigger thing,you know, this, it's huge.
It's not just a recreationalthing that makes you feel good.
Like there's, there's a lot more to it.

(01:53:38):
And I hope that more and morepeople that are scared of it
or that are tentative,that, um, they would come
to the forefront too.
Um, legislators
and people that need this,that can make a difference.
Um, there, there's nothing to fear.
- Right on. Yeah. Cool.Right on. Christian.

(01:53:59):
Well, thank you so much forjoining us today on Shaping Fire
and sharing your expertise
and, you know, heart,your good heart with us.
Um, it's really nice totalk to somebody who is, um,
you know, clearly a scientist,
but also is firmly grounded inthe, you know, the ecological
and, and heart relationshipwith the mushroom as well.

(01:54:20):
Um, uh, it, it really makes
for a different interviewthan somebody who is, uh,
coming at it direct onlyas a scientist and, and,
and your well-roundednature with mushrooms, um,
really came through today.
So, so thanks so much Christian, and,
and I appreciate havingyou on Shaping Fire.
- It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
- Alright, dear listener,if you would like to, uh,

(01:54:43):
learn more from Christian,there are two ways to do that.
Um, the best way to keepup with Christian Kalin is
to follow his Instagram, um,which is always interesting.
Um, you can go about that two ways.
You can either, um, uh, search Christian,
do Kalin on Instagram,
or you can go by hisactual, uh, uh, profile name

(01:55:05):
that I'm going to spell for youhere, which is Mike Gnostic,
which is
M-Y-C-O-N-O-S-T-I-C-K,
is how you can find him on Instagram.
And, um, and if you aremore of a linked in person
or you have some interestingscience to share with him,
or, uh, you know, a projectthat you're working on

(01:55:27):
that you'd like to involvewith him, uh, by all means go,
uh, go via his LinkedIn alsoat, uh, Christian Kalin.
You can find more episodesof the Shaping Fire Podcast
and subscribe to the show@shapingfire.com
and wherever you get your podcasts.
If you enjoyed the show, we'dreally appreciate it if you
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Wherever you download yourview will help others find the

(01:55:49):
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exclusive videos and giveawayson the Shaping Fire website.
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(01:56:09):
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Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

All Episodes

EP113 Wood Loving Psilocybin Mushrooms

24/7 News: The Latest