First Mushroom Grow!

canndo said:

One of the reasons many have a hard time finding mushrooms is that the mushroom commands many to refrain from selling them. Lots of people are only allowed, at best to barter their crops. they do that for a very important reason - they don't want to visit hell.


When we go into the domain of the mushroom that mushroom has all the power. If we were told not to sell them then we may violate that command but we are best never ever taking a dose of them again. Lots of people don't want to bar the door to that sort of power, and so they don't talk about selling them.

But that is just a guess.

Click to expand...

my issue is i didnt even say i was going to sell them, i said people who knew were already waving money in front of my face but i didnt want to sell them..i said maybe i will trade them for totes, popcorn, jars...things like that so i dont have to technically sell them but can get more supplies for my hobby...

then some dude PM me being a d bag about talking about selling them...i explained my case..he cont to be a d bag so then the D bag came out of me and i told him to piss off. then he contacted a mod and had my post deleted and had the mod say something...

screw that shit...i like RIU no one gets butt hurt over stupid shit..

plus on mycotopia you cant upload anything over 2mb and i have a canon rebel XS camera that takes min 3mb pics and thats rare and your probabally taking a pic of a white piece of paper to get that low of a file size from my camera.

so...i said screw them and took my journaling to strictly RIU, if anyone is that interested they can come visit me here.

sorry to jack your thread MJG420 im done with my rant..

I quit all of the mushroom growing threads. it seems that some of us who have "mastered" the art and science tend to believe that we know everything. It is an undesireable side effect of mastery or success. People tend to believe that if they are really really good at one thing they must by their very nature be very very good at everything (lawyers, in my opinion are the most commonly afflicted). One would suppose that the mushroom itself would keep some of these people in line but for some reason it doesn't as often as I would have thought.

I got into the "cased vs non-cased" debate. I had previously experimented with both and kept track. One of the reasons you see pictures I post of massive canopies is because I used them to "prove" my point about casing but it didn't matter. I am by virtue of the number of years I have been involved in this sort of work, one of the most experienced mushroom growers in those sites, I grew my first mushroom (literally, one single mushroom as big as a dinner plate) when I was 18, and I turned 60 last year but there was no respect for that either. don't sweat it, they enjoy their environment and their friends and their knowlege and you are here likely because you are good at growing marijuana.

I suck at that, in my opinion growing good pot is far harder than growing your average p. Cube. If you grow mushrooms and eat them and the mushroom does not demand that you refrain from selling them, then go forth and sell them, I was never instructed to advise others on what to do with those things. I WOULD advise however that if you intend to make any sort of money from growing the active mushrooms that you opt not to indulge yourself. If the mushroom doesn't take kindly to it's being sold then it is best that you stay out of their universe. I suspect as well that this formerly rare fruit managed to propagate througout the world by insinuating itself into teenager's bedrooms and young adult's basements. If that is it's strategy then the selling of them is antithetical to that strategy.

And I WILL sell you all the shaggy manes I can manage to grow beyond my use of them, or oysters should you desire. Nor have the cacti forbidden me to help propagate itself in any way possible.

i recommend the Ecuador's and Hawaiian's for everyone to try. easy to grow and always a great trip. man this is making me wanna get the gear back out! if you could post some pics that would be awesome!

Moving right along things are going great! I am now up to 18(maybe 19?) jars out of the initial 24 that I inoculated and am seeing some nice growth and nothing but a nice pure white! I have started to shake my jars and will do so every 3-4 days untill full colonization occours. I can definatly see a slow down in growth for a day or so after shaking but the first couple I shook are spreading quite nicely!!!! I managed to get a picture of one of my jars still can't see all that well but it's better than nothing, trust that the rest are all just alike just much more difficult to get a picture of. Hopefully by this weekend I will have some nice big white spots rather than a few kernels here and there.

Here are the pics I attempted to upload the other day! Had just wiped windows off my computer and installed Ubuntu when I tried to upload them the other night and my dropbox hadn't synced yet LOL. Things have are moving along very well, I am almost positive that I have growth in all of my 24 jars!!! Not only is this amazing due to this being my first attempt at mushrooms, but also at the fact that the house I have done so in is FAR from a clean environment. Moving along I have been checking my jars once if not twice a day for new growth, yesterday I found some quite large "balls of growth" in the past couple days and have done my best to break them up gently and distribute them around the rest of the jar. Was hoping that things would be ready to dump into pans to begin casing this weekend but it looks like I am going to have to give them at least another week of time to colonize. Hopefully sometime this week I will have some much better pictures to share!

Well, I am late to this thread, but I did skim over it, and I wanted to
add a plug for Roger Rabbit Let's Grow Mushroom videos.

They are a very good way to learn the basics. You can watch samples
free online, and there is now a cheap download-only version.

Full disclosure, I am a TC and Mod at the Shroomery, with RR, but have
no other relationship, financial or otherwise, with Mark.

There are many less-recommended approaches being used here, but
having watched a fellow amateur get fruits from pumpkin guts, I know
that anything is possible, and that with care many ways can work.
(i.e. Popcorn is pretty much reviled as a spawn grain....but some love it)

I do strongly suggest that the SGFC (it is in one of RRs videos) be used
a fruiting chamber. Go ahead and set up a greenhouse with ducted
humidification, and a monotub with polyfil stuffed holes, but do also make
a SGFC when you get an extra tub and bag of perlite.

This thread is in my threads list, and I will happily sling my crud if
anyone has questions.

Happy Cultivation!

JD

Well now been awhile since I have updated here for those of you checking in on things from time to time. In my last post I said that I now had some growth in all of my 24 jars which is no longer the case.....I am almost positive I allowed them to get to warm which in turn killed off the meycellium....I boiled more corn and PC 4 more jars and inoculated them Thursday night with what I had left out of the two syringes I used to inoculate the 24 I lost.

Today I plan on taking all the other jars and burying the contents on the side of the house around some rose bushes(in hopes that it was the heat that killed my growth and not contam) and see if maybe they wont bounce back and grow outside, then reuse my jars after a well planned cleaning!
Here is my plan of attack
-Take the jars and wash them out well
-Fill with water and add a few drops of bleach and let sit for awhile to kill off ANYTHING that could possibly be in there.
-Finally I am going to take the now empty and clean jars and PC them to ensure that anything that lived through the bleach is gone!

After this I will take the 2Lb corn I am now boiling(after letting it sit overnight to dry out) and fill as many of the jars as I can, PC, and inoculate them with my remaining syringe tomorrow sometime.

And now let the criticism start LOL! j/k any thoughts are appreciated I know reusing my jars is not a good idea but right now I am REALLY strapped for cash and if I can make it work then why not? The area I will be dumping the corn in is not a frequently crossed path(actually NOBODY goes around that side of the house?) so I am not worried about any potential contams getting back in, and with be doing all the dumping, washing, bleaching, and loading of the PC outside so that anything that is in there remains out there. Will also throw in a change of clothes for myself and a bleach bath for the PC before it comes inside. Hoping for good things soon!

sound slike your taking every possible step...so should be good.

how hot did you let them get?

This is really why incubating colonizing jars is often warned against.

The reality is that is you have egg incubator quality temp control,
then it is a fine idea.

...but too many people set the upper limit too high without taking
the heat generated by metabolism into consideration, or have
an aquarium thermo-controller that proves unreliable.

Room temps are really fine for most mushroom species, and expecially
for P. cubensis. The old adage is "if it is comfortable for you, then it
is comfortable for the fungi".

I like your outdoor experiment. (only beware attracting undesired animals).

Good luck, and keep trying!

JD

RetiredMatthebrute said:

sound slike your taking every possible step...so should be good.

how hot did you let them get?

Click to expand...

I hope so ready to see some of the good stuff!

Well I initally had the jars in the flats they came in with the seedling mat underneath and a layer or two between the mat and the flat(if that make sense) and they were doing fine that way. Where I think I messed up was in taking the jars out of the flats and getting them closer to the mat as I thought they were getting too cool....which does not seem to be the case

Javadog said:

This is really why incubating colonizing jars is often warned against.

The reality is that is you have egg incubator quality temp control,
then it is a fine idea.

...but too many people set the upper limit too high without taking
the heat generated by metabolism into consideration, or have
an aquarium thermo-controller that proves unreliable.

Room temps are really fine for most mushroom species, and expecially
for P. cubensis. The old adage is "if it is comfortable for you, then it
is comfortable for the fungi".

I like your outdoor experiment. (only beware attracting undesired animals).

Good luck, and keep trying!

JD

Click to expand...

I agree I did not take into consideration the heat generated by the spores growing. This time around I am going to incubate the jars(with enough insulation between to keep temps low) until I start to to growth then I am going to remove them from my incubator tote and leave them at room temp. I am still worried that my 2nd batch of corn has too much moisture but only time will tell. My 3rd batch(which is drying now and will go in the PC sometime today) I boiled for a little less time than what I have been and hopefully this will curb my issue with too much moisture after I PC.

And I am hoping that I will get some results out of my outdoor experiment, figure if nothing else the corn will be good fertilized for the roses(my grandmother even agrees! LMAO). As for the animals the only thing I will really have to worry about is racoons as I am in the middle of the city.

Well just got done inoculating 7 more jars! Hopefully within the next week I see some positive signs of life!

Try not to fiddle with them. Allow the mycelium to at least colonize the
upper portion before tilting the jars too much.

Good luck!

JD

Javadog said:

Try not to fiddle with them. Allow the mycelium to at least colonize the
upper portion before tilting the jars too much.

Good luck!
JD

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! That is one of the biggest things I took from my first round of jars, that and make sure my temps stay in a reasonable range. Also used a bit more spore solution on both the jars I inoculated Thursday and the ones I did last night, using about 1cc/jar opposed to the .5 I used on the first batch so hopefully some quicker results this time around?

Well, this is a fine point....but the idea is that you never need to use
too much spore solution. The idea is that you want two spores to
germinate into moncultures, and then meet and mate to form a
reproductive culture. The theory is that too many spores leads to
more competing cultures than one really requires.

Now, if we were talking about LCs, then more can be better. For kicks,
I have gone so far as to prepare a sub or spawn grain very dry, and
then hit it with 60 ccs of live culture. 100% colonization in days. :0)

Another aspect of spores is that you do not want to mix the material
(be it spawn or sub) after it is inoculated with spores....but with an
LC an even mixing will lead to full growth explosion. With spores, you
want to leave them in the same general area, again so that the monocultures
will be able to hook up.

I am happy that you will not risk your efforts by heating them. On a shelf! ;0)

Take care,

JD

Javadog said:

Well, this is a fine point....but the idea is that you never need to use
too much spore solution. The idea is that you want two spores to
germinate into moncultures, and then meet and mate to form a
reproductive culture. The theory is that too many spores leads to
more competing cultures than one really requires.

Now, if we were talking about LCs, then more can be better. For kicks,
I have gone so far as to prepare a sub or spawn grain very dry, and
then hit it with 60 ccs of live culture. 100% colonization in days. :0)

Another aspect of spores is that you do not want to mix the material
(be it spawn or sub) after it is inoculated with spores....but with an
LC an even mixing will lead to full growth explosion. With spores, you
want to leave them in the same general area, again so that the monocultures
will be able to hook up.

I am happy that you will not risk your efforts by heating them. On a shelf! ;0)

Take care,

JD

Click to expand...

Wish I would have thought about that last night....I was under the impression that mixing would be better as it would cause colonization to occour quicker, but I guess thats not totally true. It does make sense that you would want to leave the solution in a concentrated spot to hasten the "mating process of the spores." Either way I guess it is too late now they are inoculated and now in waiting, on the bright side I have a VERY SMALL amount of growth going on in one of the jars I innoculated Thursday night!!!!! It was really hard to make out but imagine by this time tomorrow it will be much bigger.

I am also interested in doing a LC/Monoculture with some of my remaning spore solution. Need to start doing some research on the subject.

Mixing rocks....once 20% colonization has occurred.

LC....I have a love/hate relationship with them.

Their cleanliness is practically an uncertainty principle:

You must touch the LC to test it and know that it is clean.
Having touched the LC you are again unsure as to it's cleanliness.

I have a set of Whatman filters, regular mouth jars with gasketed
plastic lids, a magnetic stirrer, and teflon coated stir-bars....I am
not going to give up LCs as an option.

They just require care.

JD

Javadog said:

Mixing rocks....once 20% colonization has occurred.

LC....I have a love/hate relationship with them.

Their cleanliness is practically an uncertainty principle:

You must touch the LC to test it and know that it is clean.
Having touched the LC you are again unsure as to it's cleanliness.

I have a set of Whatman filters, regular mouth jars with gasketed
plastic lids, a magnetic stirrer, and teflon coated stir-bars....I am
not going to give up LCs as an option.

They just require care.

JD

Click to expand...

Something I will look into more down the road as I gain a bit more experience and learn the ways of the mushroom

Well things are looking great so far, just since this morning I note have growth in all 4 jars I inoculated Thursday. That's only 72 hours after inoculation! The last batch took a full week before I saw anything. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I can get some pictures to share with everyone! Should be a hell of a lot easier to do this time as I didn't use vermiculite mixed with my corn.

Here are pictures of just SOME of the growth going on in the four jars I inoculated Thursday night, only have pics of three due to me being a clutz and accidentally dropping the fourth one on its side(on something soft thank god!) and mixed it all up! LOL All the growth has happened in the past 24 hours so I figure I will shake the jars(minus the one I dropped today)on Wednesday and by then my other 7 jars should be starting to show growth as well. Hopefully by the end of the week these babies are fully or close to being fully colonized by the weekend so I can start casing. Which brings up a question, Would it be a good idea to start getting my casing mixture ready and start pasteurizing it now or should I wait until it gets closer to time? I intend to use a 70/30 coco/vermiculite mixture to do my casing and will probably be using disposable baking pans(with a couple holes in the bottom) for my spawn/casing.

yay.....nice n white...thats a good sign...

as far as shaking them i would wait till you have a nice sized patch maybe 2" around before you shake...this will allow the mycelium to be nice and strong before damaging it. (shaking does damage it, but not to the point of no return)

as far as the casing goes you may want to wait till the day before you case to get your casing ready. pasturizing only gives you a certain window of time and its not sterilizing so your not really killing off any contams in the casing just "stunting" them for XYZ days. preparing it at the last possible minute will alow you to utilize the amount of days the contams are held at bay by the pasturization prozess and give your mycelium time to colonize the casing layer and get a solid foothold.

at least this is what i have gathered...feel free to wait for a more experienced grower to chime in with thier 2¢