Can I go out to a nature preserve and get rotting wood and stuff?

GrassBurner said:

Lol they don't eat live plants, but that would be a funny cartoon gif I'd be worried about them little shits eating my house

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Oh shit. Forget the house man. That's the main course after the trees. They hit the trees and said ' well that was denk ' and then they get the munchies and the house is gone

I volunteer for a nature preserve, you are not allowed to take anything from it even invasive species

rmax said:

I live in city but there are some open creeks. Last Spring I thought about making a bunch of clones, getting a kayak then dropping into the creek and planting the clones along the creek bank. Meander down the creeks like Johnny Appleseed planting a couple clones every 1,000 feet.

The open nature area with rotted wood and everything you describe could make for a great psybicilin mushroom farm. Get a couple of syringes and juice all the logs.

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Smokey Bears hang out in deer blinds on the popular creeks/rivers where I live these days I haven't had the pleasure of meeting them, but a couple of my buddies paid big money over a couple doobs on the river.

mistergrafik said:

Oh shit. Forget the house man. That's the main course after the trees. They hit the trees and said ' well that was denk ' and then they get the munchies and the house is gone

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Wake up on a dirt floor surrounded by the metal hardware that was holding your wooden bed together

natureboygrower said:

I recently started doing this in my own woods but it goes directly in my compost pile to simmer.

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What do you do? What do you grab from there?

Kind Sir said:

What do you do? What do you grab from there?

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I agree with @mistergrafik , @Northwood knows his stuff, and got me out into my own woods. I hunt for as many different rotted, broke down , cobweb looking soil/humus/wood/stumps/moss/bark as I can find to add to my compost pile. But with the barks and wood, I only grabbed the really rotted soft stuff i could tear and pulverize into soil type material with my hands.

I realize this can damage the woods. But not in the small scale I'm doing it. I probably went to a dozen different old growth pines and gathered a couple gallons from each. It was all very time consuming.

Kind Sir said:

So I live in the Midwest, there is a nature preserve that is full of dead trees, a long stream, prairies, a swamp type area... tons of different stuff that is probably awesome for an organic grow.

I was thinking about going out there and grabbing rotting wood,maby even some mud that’s in the stream,I really don’t know. Would that be beneficial?

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*Deep breath*
I know what I'm about to say is controversial so be warned.
I'm an avid hunter and fisherman and in my local area there are programs I participate in that basically I trade my time in the woods clearing out a specific area, cleaning up trails, ECT for special hunting tag permissions. In this particular case since permission is given and actually a benefit providing a service, I could see keeping some for personal use.
I'm sure you could look into it in your personal area and find a volunteer group to a similar thing. But I would agree with people in general I would never ever do this. Removing things from the woods carries lots of complications. You could be seen as moving/disturbing protected flora or fauna and that could get you a ticket.
Maybe just find a green waste bin in your area and take someone else yard waste.
Good luck!

Okay @natureboygrower & @mistergrafik, my opinion is that we shouldn't be going into protected areas and gathering shit up. Luckily here we have a lot of suburban nature trails/parks and further out lots of public lands that people only use in the fall to hunt in.

Keep in mind that this is for inoculation purposes and just an attempt to ultimately increase the diversity of life in our grow medium, so a lot isn't needed. If there is food (and there better be!) then at least some of the new bacteria and fungi introductions will prosper. All healthy forests in my region are fungal dominated, and in rotten wood you'll likely be inoculating mainly fungi rather than bacteria. That's not a bad thing, because fungi is critical to biological recycling of high carbon biomass in your grow - especially the lignin component of it. The bacteria move in later to clean up the mess left behind.

I should mention that you will not be introducing mycorrhizal fungi by introducing rotten wood, because these fungi live in soil associated with living roots. Plus in the forest, even if you do get the nice black stuff filled with root hairs instead of wood, it will probably be ectomycorrhiza (not really useful to us) rather than the endomycorrhiza fungi we want. Luckily you can find at least dozens of species of endomycorrhiza in any fertile garden soil that has been growing healthy plants for a few years. This is what makes outdoor garden or even field soil a great inoculant, plus it balances forest inputs because it will be highly bacterial dominant. Being the cautious person I am, I'm scared of introducing nasties into my grow so that kind of soil is always cycled through my worm bins first before introducing it into my tent. Keep in mind that if you didn't have springtails, predatory and detritus eating mites, and even isopods in your worm bin before, you'll probably have them after the introduction. And that's okay, they're beneficial. Natural organic growing isn't for the squeamish. lol

So yeah, I see nothing wrong with introducing rotten wood as long as you don't introduce ants into your house. I know for sure my wife would complain.

Killaki said:

*Deep breath*
I know what I'm about to say is controversial so be warned.
I'm an avid hunter and fisherman and in my local area there are programs I participate in that basically I trade my time in the woods clearing out a specific area, cleaning up trails, ECT for special hunting tag permissions. In this particular case since permission is given and actually a benefit providing a service, I could see keeping some for personal use.
I'm sure you could look into it in your personal area and find a volunteer group to a similar thing. But I would agree with people in general I would never ever do this. Removing things from the woods carries lots of complications. You could be seen as moving/disturbing protected flora or fauna and that could get you a ticket.
Maybe just find a green waste bin in your area and take someone else yard waste.
Good luck!

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Not to be controversial but, cleaning up the animals home so you can later get extended permission to kill them sounds counter productive

mistergrafik said:

Not to be controversial but, cleaning up the animals home so you can later get extended permission to kill them sounds counter productive

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Lmao. No I don't clean up where I hunt but think of all the public trails that have amenities or campgrounds, or areas designated for similar activities. Mostly it's trash clean up but sometimes it's overgrown brush, or storm damage. As far as old growth forest, which is indeed animal homes, this is not what I'm cleaning up. It's community service because not everything can but put off on to our Forest service.

It's been done before...

DCcan said:

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HAHAH!!!

You can't take anything from a nature preserve. Go to some other wooded area to gather. Most potting soils contain aged forest products that are kept out in the open in big piles so I don't know why some are worried about bugs. They're everywhere. It's not as if bagged soil is made with ingredients kept in a sterile environment. If anything you'll benefit from native IMO's.

Here's a FOX Farms facility. Piles of ingredients out in the open.

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xtsho said:

You can't take anything from a nature preserve. Go to some other wooded area to gather. Most potting soils contain aged forest products that are kept out in the open in big piles so I don't know why some are worried about bugs. They're everywhere. It's not as if bagged soil is made with ingredients kept in a sterile environment. If anything you'll benefit from native IMO's.

Here's a FOX Farms facility. Piles of ingredients out in the open.

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Huge piles. Ya I’m just going to go in the woods and find some stuff. I’m pretty sure the place I initially was talking about it called a preserve, but they cut stuff down and leave logs for people to take so didn’t see an issue dicking around with the stumps but I get it.
I don’t want anyone to think I’m an ass, truly not like that. Thanks man

DCcan said:

It's been done before...

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Its been a lifetime since ive saw that,the table saw part at the end was cool.Thanks for the laugh.