so here we go with pics

man thats really coming along!!! keep posting your progress

looking good man Keep up the good work.

Sorry to hear bout your plants too

you contaminated some if you see brown. need o be more sterile

ps im really happy you started to finnally start the evolution of growing your own its a great experiance i would recomend you place tin foil over your holes instead of tape fyi and keep in the darkest hole you can find around 86 degrees. ten next thing you know 1-2 weeks later there ready

yeah i have heard of people digging holes in the ground and placing jars in like tupper ware or a rubber enclosure, and just let the jars sitin in the ground when its like 80 - 86 degrees Farenheit out. They will turn white in less then a week when stuck in a dark spot in the ground for a week.

obvoiusly the answer to my slow growth issue is light and temp.
i have them back in a relatively dark space and temps are closer to 85.

but, i now think i have found 4 jars with contamination, so i have to remove them. probably gonna let them go for a little while just to see what happens and get the first hand exp.


i was pretty clean and sterile and i think i needed to run longer on the steam sterilization step. (1hr 10min)
i used a lobster pot with a rack on bottom, with its matching lid and placed a wet towel on top for weight and to help seal it alittle.

next time ill go atleast 1.5hrs

theres a few more spots i can improve on for sure,BUT if you have watched that pf tek video on youtube you can see that guy doesn't seem to be too concerned with contam as hes handling them alot with his bare hands and what not.

anyhow, i think next saturday i will be ready for a birthing. 3 of the jars have less than a dime size circle on the bottom. by tomorrow they should be complete.

then we'll see how they look in a week.

thanks for all the support, kinda need it in my life right now.

yeah its all good in the hood. hah you should get a pressure cooker though

wow man, they are looking nice keep em clean!!

looks good, i think you misunderstood some stuff.

if you're seeing pinning at this stage, you're in trouble. pinning is the mycellium making hyphal knots, which grow into mushrooms, and yours isn't.

the long strands growth you're seeing is rhizomorphic growth, which is good.

absolute darkness and ~80F is ideal. a little light will start the fruiting process but not until the jar is fully colonized. cold temperatures can bring everything to a halt.

anyhow, i've got two pictures.

1 is of nine jars. 4 to 5 of them are pretty much full of RYZOMORPHIC GROWTH (thanks nash). dont think i have seen pinning yet, and i have moved them to a warmer location with complete darkness.
i expect to birth atleast 4 jars into my terrarium friday or saturday and let the other continue. sort of stagger them, although not intentionally.


the other jars are trying. you can see my inability during inoculation at keeping the syringe shaken and spores distributed evenly.

picture 2 is of the brown "staining" that i have in a couple of jars. this one is the worst by far.

hope you all can see it. it has been there for 2 out of the 4 weeks i have been at it.(last 2 weeks)


if it turns out to be bacteria, then i will trash what ever jars ore bad, re-start them with vermiculite and BRF after 90minute sterilization.

then, i'll inoculate them with some of the good mycelum i have on the other cakes.

got a guy at work that has grown before years ago, so i pick his brain too.

anyhow thanks for the support and input. ask me anything although i may lie as my sig implies....

some of those jars don't look so good. let them grow for a while, you'll know if they go bad. are you boiling or using a pressure cooker?

i pressure cook mine, ~45 min and rarely get contaminations.

if you don't have one, spend $50 on a pressure cooker.

growing shrooms is pretty easy .. i was "sterile" as i wanted/could be and got 0 contams my first try lol

i let the guy at work check them out and he thinks it is not contam.

he told me when he grew in colorado, if he got contamination it quickly overtook the mycelium and was extremely apparent.

the picture i posted has looked like this for 2 weeks now. it is still growing white mycelium but the stain has not gotten darker indicating a definitive bacteria nor has it stopped the growth or overtaken the mycelium and changed it all.

i did use a steamer for 75 minutes or so.

i did not flame my needle between jars is my only true concern. either way, i still have some good jars which i just moved to a pinning area. the others that arent ready will stay in a warmer and darker area.

i can always create a spore print form the good stuff and actually start new jars with portions of mycelium off the good cakes.

thanks for input

anyhow, the update i have for today for all the great peeps giving out advice is this.

i have the 6 jars that are slow in the attic, under a towel folded in half, with 4layers of black plastic on top of that. thermometer in area shows 85+.

gonna check back in a week.

the other 4 are birthed and in basement.each one is showing aborts as well as pinning. temps on the terrarium went from ~84 to ~72 once i get them into the basement.

easy setup. old aquarium small to medium size. placed wet perlite in bottom and used small stryofoam "salad" bowls for the cakes.

cling wrap the top and fan out every so often. low to limited light.

seems to be working so atleast i have those four. things are too small for my cell to take pictures but will update soon.

thanks,

awesomee
ive got glass bowl colonizing with golden teacher
ill post something once i get to the fruiting stage where i take it out of the casing
so far its about 40%-50% colonized

aborts are usually caused by a) water on pins or b) not enough air exchange. kinda the same problem, to much moisture, not enough oxygen.

nashbar said:

aborts are usually caused by a) water on pins or b) not enough air exchange. kinda the same problem, to much moisture, not enough oxygen.

Click to expand...

at this point as long as they doing something. i am fanning the Co2 every 12 hours or so.

i am not so concerned about these as i am about the other i would like to see start again.

the terrarium is like 1 foot wide buy 2ft long by 16 deep? something like that

may be a little bigger but its working,.

i should remove the aborts before they rot correct?

you can pull them off now, or you can wait until you pick everything else.

aborts get grown over by mycellium eventually, but it takes a while and you don't want to disturb the cakes now.

where did you order your spores from?