Easiest Pan Cyan Grow TEK: No humidifier, no fan, no tent, no timers. Unmodified tote grow! (Patreon)

I am really pleased with this TEK and I hope you love it, this is the easiest way to grow Pan Cyans and I recommend it to all. I may put out a longer vid showing the making of the substrate and all other steps but I wanted to put out a short version right away (click or tap the play button on the vid above, this is my first time using the new feature allowing me to directly upload a video to Patreon).

NEW: A top quality vendor (MidwestFreshMushrooms) has created both a complete kit matching my TEK they call it the Gordo Special and it includes the recommended totes, heater, screen, enough substrate for a full size grow (8lbs!), casing, and grains. They also have a GordoTEK Special REFILL Kit that has enough substrate for a full sized grow (8 lbs!) plus the casing, AND sterile grains with injection port. And finally they have just the recommened substrate too, which is based on my quantities and ingredients mentioned below (for a full size grow, get 8lbs, for a half size grow which is probably plenty for most people, you can get the 4lbs size). I whole heartedly recommend this vendor! I have received their products personally and tested them with absolute perfect results and zero contams! Using the above links also supports the channel, so double win.

Below is a written version with more details but watch the video first. This is the easiest way to grow Pan Cyans and I highly recommend it to all. I should also point out that the same exact TEK works pretty well for natalensis but you might want to use a deeper tote for that species because it tends to grow taller. This TEK works in difficult conditions such as a cold dry room in Winter but is flexible enough to accommodate almost any conditions, and it also requires the least investment, you may laugh at how simple it is.

[Note: If you use any of my Amazon links it supports the work, even if what you buy has nothing to do with the link!  “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.” Also note that as with all of my videos, this work was done in a location where it is decriminalized and I suggest you do likewise, be safe!]

As usual, it starts with great genetics, if you haven't gotten a spore print from me yet and want one, I give them out for free to any patron, just private message me on here at patreon. Currently, the best pan cyan genetics that I know of are TTBVI (the story of where this cultivar came from is here for anyone that is interested). These genetics are now the six time winner (1st place) of the Cultivar Cup, the Denver Psychedelic Cup, the Island Cup, and the Entheon Cup and the cultivar holds the record for most potent mushroom in the known world based on HPLC potency testing. But beyond potency, it is also super aggressive which means rapid colonization, less contamination, and record fast times from spores to mature fruit bodies (it can be done in as little as 22 days!).

If you are a patron, you can get spores directly from me for free, just private message me. My spores are the top genetics in the known world, germinate fast, and have won numerous mycology competitions. They are also super clean, minimizing contam risk.

Once you have your spores, either make a spore syringe or put the spores to agar (I made videos showing both so I'm not going to go into detail about that here, follow the links if you need more info). I recommend the agar method for several reasons, there is benefit in isolating one set of genetics instead of growing lots of different genetics in a single grow which is what happens when you use a spore syringe, but both will work and the spore syringe method is actually faster and may be easier for a beginner. If using agar, I strongly recommend you make a laminar flow box (it's a pretty easy project and I've gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback from those that have built them, it works exceptionally well). I also want to mention that you only need to put a tiny, barely visible speck of spores at the center of each agar plate, and making 2 to 5 plates is enough. This means you can save the rest of your spores for backup purposes or future use -- a single small spore print can make dozens if not hundreds of agar plates!

For the grain spawn you can either use one large mason jar of the 1/2 gallon size (=64oz = 6 cups = 1500ml)

Or you can use the smaller 16oz widemouth jars, as long as the grand total of fully colonized grain spawn is somewhere around 64oz or 1500ml for the full size recipe (you can cut the recipe in half if you want to do a smaller grow).  [The weight of the colonized grain spawn will be between 600g to 800g (1.3 to 1.7 lbs). Most will use volume and not weight, and a wide range can actually work, but 64oz is a decent target, you could use double that, or half that, and still potentially have good results either way.]

After you have your fully colonized grain spawn, its time to make the substrate. My preferred recipe is below, again you can cut all ingredients in half if you want to do a smaller grow (and again I want to point out that you can now BUY this if you don't feel like making it yourself see more info and links at the top of this post):

• 300g coco coir Just hydrate the coir first with 3000ml hot water (for doing a half recipe use 150g coir hydrated with 1500ml hot water). Put the coir in a bucket, pour the hot water over it, and let it sit for 45 minutes, cover the bucket during that time, its OK if it's soupy at the end). I generally start with hot tap water then microwave it for 10 minutes to get it very hot. [If you don't have a scale you can get a cheap one with great reviews so you probably should, but the volume of dry coir is approximately 8 cups if shredded/loosely packed.]

• Vermiculite: approximately 1650ml (this is 7 cups, if using a 9x13 Pan to measure ingredients you can fill a cake pan half full)

• Aged manure: approximately 3300ml (this is 14 cups, if using a 9x13 Pan to measure ingredients you can fill the pan full) Go to google maps and type "horse stable" into the search box). You don't want the fresh stuff, older is better. If you can't find a horse owner/stable within a reasonable drive, you can buy it online, some have successfully used the big box store cow manure or even chicken manure). Here's another option that may work. Amazon also has Black Kow which some say works fine. You can use the manure of any plant eating animal (besides horse and cow, some patrons have used tortoise, elephant, and even water buffalo manure).

• 1/4 cup gypsum (optional) (this is approximately 60ml)

• Hot Tap Water: 1000 to 2000ml (poured over the top after all ingredients have been added, mix everything by hand slowly adding hot water until you reach field capacity, field capacity means if you grab a handful of substrate and gently squeeze barely any water drips out, if you squeeze hard water will stream out but it shouldn't be as wet as a saturated sponge).

To simplify, the above can be translated more generally to: 4 parts hydrated coir, 2 parts manure, 1 part vermiculite, plus a handful of gypsum.

[Note, another vendor also has a compatible kit (includes substrate and casing) but it will only be enough substrate for a smaller tote unless you buy two OR you could put the substrate into the trays included with the kit and then put those trays inside of the top tote instead of putting the substrate directly into the tote. The new vendor's kit matches my TEK exactly]

After the substrate is thoroughly mixed (you may use a 5 gallon bucket or a tote to mix it all together), load it into mycobags or jars and pressure cook for 70 minutes (time starts after pressure hits at least 15 PSI). I compared and found that I have lower contam rates when using coir (vs. straw) and sterilization so I don't pasteurize anymore. Optionally add a pair of foil wrapped tongs to the pressure cooker which will be used later for mixing the grain spawn into the substrate.

After allowing the substrate to cool (you can leave it in the pressure cooker overnight) you are ready to spawn. For this TEK you can use almost any size tote but you will need two of the same exact size. Shallow totes are highly recommended for optimal airflow and fresh air exchange. The tote I like is the Sterilite 41 Quart (39 L) Storage Box ($9.98 from Walmart or a lot more expensive on Amazon)

These are the long totes designed to fit under a bed. They also make a slightly less long version that still has 66% of the surface area you might want for space savings or less substrate (and they sell them 2 for $11 which is a good deal). Before using the tote I like to wipe it down with a disinfectant wipe, then lightly mist it with a dilute bleach solution, then let it dry inverted in front of a laminar flow box. But if you want to skip these precautions that's up to you.

After the tote and grain spawn are ready, shake up your grain spawn.

Then pour the sterilized substrate into your tote. Sprinkle the grain spawn evenly over the substrate. You can use the sterile tongs to mix the grain spawn into the substrate and spread everything out evenly across the tote. Use the tongs also to gently pat down the top surface until it is nice and smooth and level. I don't ever touch anything with hands (even gloved) anymore, the tongs only cost a couple dollars and its one simple way to reduce contamination risk:

You can optionally do all of this in front of a laminar flow box or simply work in the smallest room you have available and leave the laminar flow box running for an hour in that room before you begin the work (and during the work) - these are just additional precautions one can take to reduce the chances of contamination problems however you can also do the spawning in open air without taking precautions, its up to you. When you are finished mixing and smoothing, place the lid on the tote.

Now, with the understanding that Pan Cyans really like warmer temperatures and high humidity, take your other identically sized tote and add warm water to it until about half full. Then add an aquarium heater to the bottom set to 82F (28C):

Next place the tote containing the inoculated substrate (with lid still on) into the warm water tote with the aquarium heater:

Just leave it for the next 6 to 8 days and wait for full colonization, don't open the lid. You can occasionally check the water temp to make sure its in the low 80's, I like to use a laser temperature gun for this but any thermometer should work.

After full colonization (usually takes 6-8 days) it will look something like this:

Now you will want to make some casing mix (or buy it).

Pans Cyans Casing Layer Recipe:

• 2 quarts peat moss (or 2000ml)

• 2 quarts vermiculte (or 2000ml)

• 15g (or 2 TBSP) calcium hydroxide (pickling lime) (or 40g (or 5 TBSP) calcium carbonate) mixed into

• 1 quart water (or 1000ml)

[Note: You can use liter instead of quart without otherwise changing the recipe, and you really only need less than half this amount for one grow, I just make this amount so I always have some casing around when I need it but you can scale it down if you want. Also note that you may be able to get away with using nothing but vermiculite as the casing layer, I have not tried this myself but have read that it can work. If you bought an ingredient kit you will have enough casing mix for several grows.]

Combine ingredients and pressure cook at 15PSI or higher for 30 minutes. After it cools add it to the top of the colonized tote in a very thin (~1/4 inch or half cm) smooth even layer. I no longer touch it with my hands at all, I just carefully sprinkle it on as shown in the video:

Spray the casing layer down heavily with tap water after it is in place. From this point on we will be in fruiting conditions.

Now, you want plenty of fresh air exchange but you don't want the substrate to dry out, and you don't want to have to be spraying it with water constantly either. After some trial and error, what I discovered to work very well was to put a window screen over top of the tote (you can literally take one off of a window from your house if you want to, or you can buy some window screen mesh material and attach it to your tote with some binder clips.

By spraying both the casing layer AND both sides of the window screen, the relative humidity stays very high at all times and the casing layer will not dry out as long as you water it three times a day (when you wake up in the morning, when you get home from work or in the late afternoon, and when you go to bed at night). I also spray the underside of the tote lid with water and place it over the screen but at an angle, so two corners are exposed to the air (see the video):

Each time I water, I rotate the lid so the opposite corners are open. The wet lid and screen material combined never dry out completely between waterings and together maintain the very high humidity levels that pan cyans like while the shallow tote with open corners and warm water bath heating from below help provide the fresh air exchange that the species needs.

(this first flush was nearly 2 lbs or over 800 grams fresh weight)

Any time a gap is forming between the substrate and the tote you can pour a bit of water right into the gap. Also after a flush is harvested, pour about a 1/2 cup of water slowly and evenly across the substrate surface. It is hard to overwater, but if you do, it is also possible to just pick the tote up and gently tilt it over a toilet and let all excess water run out of the tote.

After the harvest I recommend you use tweezers to clean up the substrate surface, removing any damaged or aborted pins, stumps, or debris leftover after the harvest:

There is 8cm (or 3.2 inches) of headspace available between the substrate and the screen. Most of the fruit bodies did not get tall enough to touch the screen but the interesting thing is that it doesn't seem to really matter if they grow right up to the screen, they will basically just have no where to go from there but otherwise develop normally. I also grew natalensis in this same sized tote and that species grows even taller but still I got good results despite the caps pushing up against the top. I used no artificial lighting but the tote was near a window and indirect sunlight was enough. Also note that it is probably not important that there is a gap between the tote lid and screen since the lid is concave anyway and doesn't touch the screen.

Here is a picture of the second flush, not quite as dense but still very much a significant yield:

The third flush is significantly diminished and you can see the pins for the 4th flush in this pic as well which may produce a similar yield:

As for when to harvest, my rule of thumb is to wait until at least some of the caps are dropping spores, you can easily see this because there will be black spore dust on the caps below them, as soon as you see at least a couple dropping spores, I usually harvest the entire block at once using scissors, but if you want you can save some of the less mature ones to grow one more day. The big caps that are just starting to drop spores are perfect for making spore prints. There is no harm though in harvesting early even before any visible spores have dropped. They generally reach peak alkaloid levels early in the fruit body formation stage and less mature fruit bodies typically test slightly higher in potency as a percentage of dry weight than fully mature fruit bodies (but fully mature fruit bodies will contain more total alkaloids on an absolute basis).

I believe this TEK will prove to be easily reproducible and it is now my favorite way to grow this species (it supersedes the prior written TEK). Please leave a comment about your results if you try it. Note: One downside to using one big tote means if it contaminates you lose the whole grow, when using smaller trays if one contaminates you can throw it out and still have the others. But if you wanted to, you could still use smaller trays with the above TEK, the foil cake pans with clear lids for example, you can use the clear lid as a boat (put under the foil) and float the trays in the warm water bath, other smaller totes can likewise go into the larger warm water bath tote, so there is flexibility there if you want to have multiple smaller grows.

UPDATE: Numerous people have now confirmed that they were able to reproduce my results and have reported that the TEK worked great.

QUESTIONS:  

Q: WILL this TEK work for other species besides pan cyan?

A: Yes, the TEK will work for most species, including cubes, natalensis, and pan cyan.  Cubes and Nats don't need as much heat or as much fresh air, so you can keep the lid mostly covering the tote but still on top of the screen and that will allow enough fresh air. If your room temp is above 70F you don't need to plug in the aquarium heater (but may want to use it during the initial substrate colonization period to speed things up).  A casing layer is also optional for cubes and nats, but it won't hurt and indeed is likely to increase yields in many cases (especially for nats). The same goes for including manure in the substrate (optional for cubes and nats but it won't hurt and may improve yields).

Q: Can I use substrate without manure for pan cyans?

A: Yields will be lower with a coir/verm/gypsum (CVG) substrate but you can at least get some output that way. I recommend using manure though. For cubes and natalensis manure is optional but won't hurt.

Q: What is the best spawn to substrate ratio?

A: In general the more spawn you use, the faster it will fully colonize, reducing contamination risk, and the more flushes you will get.  You can use anywhere from a 1:1 ratio all the way up to 1:10 with success. For pan cyan, 1:2 to 1:3 is highly effective. At 1:1.5 the pans can produce as many as 7 flushes with no contamination.

With any species that uses shallow substrates I generally don't measure the spawn ratio. My standard method is to sprinkle grain spawn over the top of the substrate until there is a thin layer of grain spawn covering the entire top surface, then I mix it all up and pat it down with sterile tongs (pressure cooked in advance). If you made a boatload of grain spawn and don't care about maximizing output or don't even have the space or equipment to maximize output, then use more spawn per tote rather than more substrate and additional totes.

Q: My pins are aborting, what am I doing wrong?

A: The key is both high fresh air exchange (rotate that tote lid to have some sides open) AND heavy misting, especially when you see pins, just water all around them 2 or 3 times per day. When you come to check on them or mist them, the tote lid should always have at least a little moisture showing on it's underside when you pick it up, if it doesn't you need to water more heavily. A normal everyday spray bottle is fine (dollar stores have them). The pins WILL withstand heavy misting, even total soaking. If you are having issues with things drying out between waterings, it would be a good idea to run a humidifier in the room but I haven't seen too many cases where that was required, maybe only in a very arid type environment.

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Links to all of my TEKs, Videos, Trip music, and frequently asked questions with answers can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/22774475 (everything is made available for FREE, I do not use pay walls, support the work only if you feel like you've benefited from it and you are able to do so). People have told me my work has helped them overcome depression, addictions, PTSD, relationship issues, direction in life, and to have important, meaningful, sometimes life changing mystical experiences. I feel honored and blessed to play a small role in this. That is my reward.