Wood Substrate

[JCK206]

Hey guys,

I am attempting to make my own wood substrate for Dynastes. The pictures are of what I have so far. This is Cherry wood (actually smoking chips) that I bought from the store. When I started they were totally white. I did 10 parts wood chips to 1 part bottled water and 1 part wheat flour. I have had them in this container (covered with lid ajar) since Sept 23rd. I pretty much stir them every day. Any thoughts on if this will work or not? Cherry is a hard wood and it was the only thing I could find in my area that was already sterile. My plan is to eventually mix it with some compost once it's very decayed. Not sure if I need to add any leaf material as the compost I end up mixing it with should have leaf material in it already. I have a 40lb bag of Oak chips in my closet, so if you all think that this will work, I will start the decomp of those.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Oak]

your good to go!

 

[Lucanus]

I wouldn't recommend using this. I don't think larvae will consume on this at all.

 

[Matt]

Unless your cherry chips start to soften up I don't think this will work - can you smell any ammonia or signs of fermentation in there. Are the chips getting softer? Most fermented mixtures are made from very small fragments or sawdust. I have a feeling these are too large to work, there is still a large amount of wood "hidden" inside these chips which the bacteria will not be able to reach.

Run you oak chips through a shredder to turn them into sawdust and give those a go.

 

[Ryan Minard]

your good to go!

Kind of... he just needs to chomp them up... it might work then... Depends really. If he wants 100% success then he will have to up it a lil...

Some of mine survive off of very little but I've noticed it is better to go CRAZY when making substrate

. Some will die, if you don't.

 

[JCK206]

I am cutting these up as I go. They are softening up, but they have only been in the container since 9/28. They fermented (alcohol smell) a couple Weeks ago and now that smell is gone. I do have an old iron hand meat grinder that may work to get them very small. I may try that.

 

[Rich]

You could add some yeast to aid in the fermentation process. I have seen this advised in publications regarding the rearing of

Dynastes hercules.

 

[Matt]

You could add some yeast to aid in the fermentation process. I have seen this advised in publications regarding the rearing of

Dynastes hercules.

Thats essentially what has been done at the start, though the fermentation was done via natural or "wild" yeasts. To "ferment" wood in this manner you need sawdust or very fine woodchip - these cherry chips are just too big for the bacteria and yeasts encouraged by the fermentation process to have any effect - the centre to the chip will remain a solid lump of wood.

 

[Ryan Minard]

Thats essentially what has been done at the start, though the fermentation was done via natural or "wild" yeasts. To "ferment" wood in this manner you need sawdust or very fine woodchip - these cherry chips are just too big for the bacteria and yeasts encouraged by the fermentation process to have any effect - the centre to the chip will remain a solid lump of wood.

Agreed. I have mixed chunks into fermenting flakes before and had success in moistening them (to make them weak) but just pure chunks does not go too well.