Mushrooms - DIY, spores, etc šŸ„ (Part 1)

yeah put it in a nice dark and warm place. an airing cupboard is great. With a syringe you should see growth after a couple weeks. make sure to shake the bag good when you inoculate, and donā€™t use the entire syringe! youā€™ll definitely want to save a bit for another attempt :wink:

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You can but there is no difference in dark or light colonizationā€¦ Key is to keep them cool thoughā€¦ Roundabout way of saying your choice, makes no real difference, like soak and paper towel vs direct sowing with beansā€¦

And donā€™t shake when you innoculate, reason being spores themselves are singular beings that need to reach out and grab a similar spore to be able to continue to grow, shaking after innoculation mixes them around from each other and makes it harder to find a compatible spore (again, you can do it, but it will take longer to search for compatible spores)

Spore your bag near the edges of the oats, wait til 25%ish of the visible grain is colonizedā€¦ Then breakup the colonized bits and mix them through the rest of the bag as evenly as it could be, after that you are on a 2 week homestretch to full colonizationā€¦ Then tray it and case it or monotub it and case itā€¦

But definitely on your way today! Iā€™m not trying to sound like Iā€™m barking orders lol

Iā€™m just waiting on fruiting pics lol

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Iā€™ve never used spawn bags before so this is probably better advice

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:eyes: OOPS

I have 2 other varieties as well. Wont be doin that again smh.

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This is my 1st attempt so all the helpful pointers are appreciated! I am also waitin for the fruiting pics :sunglasses::mushroom:

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Good luck! I only say that because I made the same mistake and dumped 2 whole syringes into jars only for them to all be contaminated. Its not really the end of the world, syringes are pretty cheap, but this was right at the start of lockdown and everywhere shut down :sweat:

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hereā€™s some from my tub this morning :wink:

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Oooooooooo!!!

Now thatā€™s what Iā€™m talking about!!!

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Are mushroom varieties called strains as well? I got golden teacher and a rusty whyte f9 with the cambodian

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The names are usually based on regions in where they were found or someone hype naming a spore print to overcharge or sell betterā€¦ But I think of them as just variety names as each individual spore is a completely different genetic make up from each other in itā€™s basest terms I guess, yet still similarā€¦

But you canā€™t cross mushrooms, you can only mix spore and in the end, one variety will win over the other

A cube is a cube is a cube, except when itā€™s PE

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I see. Very intriguing. Also another strange question, when it comes to fruiting does light have anything to do with yield like cannabis? If I put my fruiting chamber in my grow tent at 12/12 is that too much light?

On @7lpdwcaw 'a photo it looks like 90+% of his tub is producing fruit. Other grows I see have much less yield. Is that light or genetics? Or just 7 being a total badass :sunglasses:

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Just to verify my understanding of the processā€¦ with the brown rice flour cakes, you inoculate the brown rice flour substrate in jars, and wait for colonization and mycelium growth.

Hereā€™s what Iā€™m not clear on.
It seems like after the mycelium has formed, the cakes are dumped out onto moist perlite in a rubbermaid bin. Is this correct?

This is what it looks like in most guides, but they leave out a lot of information, skip steps, and use a lot of terms that donā€™t seem to relate to what Iā€™m seeing, like ā€œcasingā€.
It looks like after the jars colonize, growers just dump them out onto moist perlite in a plastic box.
Is this correct?

follow up question- does the perlite also have to be sterilized/ pressure cooked?
or is it just a moisture source which is slowly absorbed by the cakes, and it doesnā€™t need to be sterile because the mushrooms are growing out of sterile grain?

Sorry for the stupid questions, but a lot of this information is riddled with silly terminology.
It looks like an incredibly simple process, but people talk about it with odd terminology or slang instead of simple dry explanatory language.

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Perlite is used to create a humid environment for the cakes.

The casing is just a layer of vermiculite to keep a little extra moisture on the cake.

Perlite does not need to be sterilized just rinse and put in tote.

No stupid questions man!

Yes itā€™s really simple just the terminology can make it seem harder!

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Not really as they arenā€™t phototropicā€¦ They rely more on fresh air exchanges and proper humidity, I like using a 4700k CFL tube on a 12/12 cycle and itā€™s mostly just for a little warmth and evap for the moisture to raise humidity

Iā€™ve tried this and the air movement in the tent tends to dry them out pretty quickly

As you said, itā€™s mostly 7 being a bad ass with an even casing layer and a properly dialed in tub which usually does the job for you pretty well save a few air exchanges and a misting or two

In fruiting chambers, you should have 3-5 inches of moist perlite in the bottom of your chamber to keep the humidity up between listings and fanning, but I usually sit my cakes on a square of foil so they arenā€™t directly on the perlite itself, causes the mycelium to kinda dig into the perlite or odd contam issues

Casing is taking a colonized grain spawn, placing in a baking tray, plastic shoebox, Rubbermaid monotub and covering it with a non nutritious layer it can fruit from

Not quiteā€¦ Thatā€™s where the casing comes inā€¦ I like to use either the 6qt plastic shoe boxes or the little aluminum bread pans from the store to dump the colonized spawn into and then case with coco or verm/coco or peat/verm, what have you.

Doesnā€™t need to but I like to wash it off first and fully hydrate it with some really hot waterā€¦ Cakes and spawn should never be in or directly on the perlite.

No stupid questions at all, itā€™s a bit much to get used to the terms and such but once you find your rhythm it wonā€™t really matter anyway.

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Big shoutout to @7lpdwcaw and @toastyjakes, yall are paving the way for us rookies. Cant wait to see more from you two :mushroom:

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@7lpdwcaw
Is that some nylon black bag or something similar?
What happens when the substrate shrinks? Does the nylon remain adhered to the substrate?
Side pinning?

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Some really good info being thrown out there.

This terminology isnt clear for me, but each Cubensis ā€œstrainā€ is just a variant. Thereā€™s a popular phrase ā€œa cube is a cubeā€ because they are all essentially the same, just different phenos/variants - like with cannabis (except i believe all cubes will roughly have the same makeup). The only exception are penis envies.

So when it comes to cultivation you can do it a number of different ways - like with cannabis. You can start with a spore syringe (MSS - Multi Spore Syringe). These contain MILLIONS of different spores, all slightly different. Its really the luck of the draw if you get a large yield from a syringe because of the diversity, all the different incompatible mycellia will compete with each other for nutrients.

Another option is to go down the agar route. This is what I do. With agar, you can cultivate mycellium and isolate compatible genetics from each other. Having a homogeneous culture will create an even canopy and more consistent fruit (but you wont know until you test it by fruiting it ala my post above with the mutant tub)

MSS would be like using a bag seed
Agar would be like growing from a clone

Thereā€™s is also a method called ā€œliquid cultureā€ which is basically like agar except you grow mycellium in a nutritious liquid and inoculate via syringe rather than cutting up solid agar.

My fruiting tub I posted is a combination of genetics iā€™ve isolated, and the recipe of the spawn (I use rye grain which will always yield more than brown rice). Also I am badass :sunglasses:

For PF Tek, yeah thats all there is too it. For bulk/other tek, ā€œcasingā€ just refers to covering the substrate after you spawn from the jars into your tubs.

The very first thing I did when I started out was to learn all the terms. Helped massively. This is a good start

Exactly this. My tubs rarely need misting, but I am still trying to dial in best way for fresh air exchange. Currently Im leaving the tub lids on half way (similar to the unmodified mono tek except my tubs also have holes in it and im using a small tent (called ā€œmarthaā€ except I also dont have a fogger)) I like to call this ā€œthe hacked together 7 tekā€

:+1:

Yes so without the bag, the substrate will end up growing side pins. What the liner does is shrink as the substrate shrinks (moisture being pulled out to grow the fruit) making side pinning less of an issue (it still happens but not nearly as bad). Itā€™s literally just a black bin bag cut to size and taped to the sides of the tub.

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Here we go again!

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Nice looking jars. I use oats as they are really cheap, and a wide varietyof species will take to them.

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I had a quick question about agar-tek and monospore/monoculture? Do you take what you consider to be the ā€œchampionā€ fruited from a flush, sterily biopsy on the stem under the cap, and drop in agar? How do you get the agar culture (I dont mean make and pour the agar but decide what will be cultured) and how do you decide what genes from which mushroom go in the agar?

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