No idea what the flying blue fuck some people are making connections between Claviceps spp. and psilocybes.
About the ONLY correlation between the two is both produce indole compounds, and both have links to psychedelic indolic compounds, either completely natural, or synthetic psychedelic lysergamides that require extensive chemical manipulation before one gets the goods.
As far as C.fusiformis goes, don't even bother, unless you want to do some serious work cloning and transfecting some of the genes involved in the lysergic acid pathways, DMAT-synthase, the gene responsible for formation of dimethylallyltryptophan, the first step in formation of the lysergic acid ring structure is functional.
But, the pathway stops at one of the lower to middle stage clavines, elymoclavine if I remember rightly, I would have to look it up in my project research collection, if I can find the C.fusiformis stuff, although I completely abandoned any attempts to culture or obtain C.fusiformis after learning that although almost all of the genes in the biosynthetic pathways to the lysergide ring productivity were *present* there are point mutations in certain of those key genes that render the enzymes thus produced inactive, and therefore useless for those who may intend producing lysergic acid itself, or its derivatives.
C.Purpurea has potential, but is toxic as is, one will need the skills to clean up the extraction of the finished product.
As far as culture of the fungus goes, for C.purpurea, one needs a very high concentration of sugars, mannitol is good for most strains is known to work well, in quantities of 100g/liter even, or slightly more, C.purpurea is REALLY fucking sugar hunger!!! although inclusion of sorbitol may really boost yields of ergotamine and related peptidic alkaloids.
sugar alcohols, I.E slowly absorbing sugars mainly, are desirable glucose MUST be avoided, as it leads to formation of polysaccharide gloop that interferes with oxygen transport, which is vital, and indeed problematic in submerged culture, as increasing stirring rate, or agitation of the culture vessels is one way to increase oxygen uptake, as of course, there are oxidase/oxidoreductase enzymatic steps, which require of course, oxygen, to form alkaloids of greater oxidation states than the lower oxidaton state clavine steps, until one has the ergopeptam/ergopeptine alkaloids sought after.
But, however, ergot HATES being bashed around, and rough treatment, however slight, will take a big stomp on ones yields, as will spray atomization of the ascospores or coaxial air-jet breakup for immobilization in alginate polymer using CaCl to exchange Ca2+ for Na alginate salts, and crosslink it. Just plop some gaviscon (UK formula at least has a lot of Na alginate in it, into some CaCl solution, and watch it polymerize into something hard and rubbery, neat looking experiment to do. Unsuitable mind you, for ergot culture, as Gaviscon anti heartburn medicine contains parabens, which are preservatives, antibacterials and presumably, obnoxious to fungi.
Production media needs low phosphate levels, phosphate level seems to be strongly correlated with alkaloid production, high levels being nescessary for growth, yet phosphate depleted media is a requirement for efficient alkaloid yield. Addition of arsenite salts (caution, pretty nasty, toxic stuff) I am pretty tired right now, and am not quite sure where my big collection of printed journal articles on ergot culture, maintainence, and strain selection via mutation studies is, I have been pretty sick of late, so I CBA looking those up, but the arsenite references including ratio of phosphate to arsenic, as it isn't an absolute thing with the quantity of arsenite, but the important factor is the RATIO between phosphate and arsenite.
Arsenite references can be dug up easily though online by searching 'Claviceps purpurea and arsenite' there can be dug up as can references on ideal medium electrolyte/salt and sugar blends for optimized medium, mind you, different strains can be vastly differing in requirements. Wild type ergot strains are generally crappy yielding, and extensive mutation studies are usually required to isolate a high productive strain, its something like one two three in a few hundred end up yielding 450-500mg of ergopeptide/ergopeptam alkaloids, and one in maybe 900-1000 isolates will end up yielding some real decent strain providing 900-1000mg/liter of medium.
Other tips are -adding tweens to the medium, this decreases surface tension and allows for increased efficiency of nutrient uptake into the fungus and rapid growth.
Alkaloid production is strictly dependent on a heterokaryotic condition of the fungal isolate, homokarotic strains will give you fuck all, on the order of 15-20mg/liter!
Addition of fluoroalkanes VASTLY improves oxygen transport into the fungus, different ones will have different success rates, it simply depends on the oxygen solubility of the different ones, perfluorooctyl bromide has been known to used with success, but I am sure benefit could be gained from looking up various data on oxygen solubility of different fluorinated alkanes, or fluoro-haloalkanes, the more oxygen carrying capacity, the better, sonication should do the trick to form an emulsion fit to be added to the medium, the finer the emulsion the better, to avoid sinking to the bottom, as I assume they will do, , as agitation of course, will diminish yield considerably.
Also, one thing about Claviceps spp. is that in particular, the case of C.purpurea, the fungi after a certain number of medium transfers, after draining off for extraction and recovery of alkaloid yield, after 5-6 transfers at most, the yield starts to decline rapidly, until there is at most a hundred mg or so, or even less, it becomes senescent and the strain needs rejuvenating via inducing the parasitic lifestyle on grain, leading to formation of sclerotia and re-culture, and isolation via ascospores.
The best technique seems to be electrostatic spraying of Na-alginate mixed with the finely divided mycelium, it will have to be blended, unless one can isolate a solution of ascospores, but in the case of grown myc, then blending is a must, but maybe a MAXIMUM of ten seconds in a homogenizer, or in a pinch, a blender, into CaCl solution to polymerize into solidified pellets, through charged needles, approximately 3-4ml/hour per needle, pushed through the needles via a syringe driver under moderate air pressure.
Narrower gauge needles result in decreased size of the microspheres, a size of at most 250 micrometers is desirable, above 150 without perfluorohaloalkane/perfluoroalkane emulsion (to be included in the mixture for alginate encapsulation) one ends up with an anoxic environment. Both addition of perfluorocarbon emulsion to the media for growth, are useful.
Immobilization in such a manner seems most practical, fungal senescence is held off considerably, thus one can crank out more lysergic acid goodies for longer. If one covers the formed alginate beads in a layer of polymerized chitosan, cell leackage into the medium is minimized.
As for morning glory/HBWR seed, I am absolutely certain, 100% so, that it is NOT the plants themselves that produce the alkaloids, but an obligate endophytic fungus species, ergot alkaloid seems totally restricted to fungi, or bacteria, where plants have been observed to form ergot type alkaloids, such as Stipa grasses 'sleepy grass', or those Lolium species that produce lolines and some quantity, although quantity wise vastly overshadowed by loline content, it again is an endophytic fungus, as far as I know in the morning glory/HBWR etc families, strictly obligated to form a symbiotic relationship with the host plant.
Some
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
