how to grow mushrooms the easy way

canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Hardware -

1 case of quart jars (wide mouth) $18.00
1 32 qt pressure cooker - $80
1 mister - $1.00
1 bottle anticeptic spray $5.00

Baggies (quart freezer bags)
Aluminum Foil


25 lbs popcorn $20.00
Bottled water $ 6.00

2 quarts vermiculite $10.00
1 small brick fine coir $15.00

2 syringes full of whathave you - $20









That's it. That is all you really need to grow mushrooms - no fruiting chamber, no incubation box, no humidity control, no light, no birthing, no dunking, no rolling, no injection ports, no tyvek.


FIRST! do an inspection of your house - look for mold - check your refrigerator, if you see anything with mold on it, put it in a bag, seal the bag and throw it out - out of the house completely. The moment you have found and secured that green tub of green growing cream cheese left over from the Superbowl in a ziplock and that sealed ziplock into your trash bin outside, WASH your hands up to your elbows. Now keep looking, check behind and under your couch for the burrito your dog couldn't get to. Now vacuum your house, only AFTER you have swept for mold.

You are to do this several days before anything else - your vacuum will spread all sorts of bad things into the air and you want what is left in the air to settle back down to the floor again.

Now, find a small room in your house, preferably with no windows but what you don't want is air flow of any sort.

Get yourself a folding table, or flat surface that can be cleaned and a nice straight back chair.

1 - prep your grain.


Boil your popcorn in a pot with plenty of water, tap water will do and perhaps nicely as it may have calcium in it.

While you are doing this - go do a load of laundry, include pants and a shirt and several towels - use plenty of soap but not so much that you incur the wrath of your woman - she hates when you use too much soap.

When you see a few of the kernels split drain the popcorn, then rinse it - well, the rinse water should be cold after you are finished, then rinse it again.

Lay your grain out on a towel (clean, but not the one you just put in the wasther) or simply let it sit in your colender overnight. The kernels should be dry or only slightly wet to the touch - Nothing dripping.

Fill each of your 12 quart jars HALF full of grain when the grain is lightly bumped - in otherwords, after you have settled it with some gentle taps. HALF full, no more. If you see any water in the bottom of the jars - STOP, dump it all out and let it dry some more.

Flip the interior lid so that the gasket/seal is up away from the glass and then screw on the collar so it is only slightly snug, you want there to be some breathing or equalization of pressure when the jar is cooked.


2. Sterilize your substrate

Fill your pressure cooker with 7 jars ( or 6 if you are neurotic). Put three inches of water in that pressure cooker, seal it up and turn on the flame. Before you put on the lid take two tablespoons and wrap each one well in aluminum foil. Put the wrapped spoons on top of your jars and then put the lid on, without the weight.

When the pressure release valve slaps shut and and you start to see steam coming from the central vent you will see a steady stream of steam - count one and a half minutes and then put your weight on. When the weight begins to bobble turn down the heat so that it is just a bit over pressure. That is, the weight will bobble and small amounts of steam will escape. Keep it at that temperature - careful, it will change a bit as the interior begins to find it's temperature equilbrium. you are to cook this grain for one hour after that weight starts to shake.


3. Prep your room

Now as this is happening, go to your draft free room and spray down your table and your chair with lysol or some other anti-bacterial spray.

You want a fine even coating of liquid on your table and on the chair. Put a clean rag (CLEAN) or towel on one side of that table - that is where you are going to place your still hot pressure cooker.

Now go back to your kitchen and wait. When the hour is up, let the pressure fall to a few pounds - if you don't have a guage then wait about 15 minutes after the steam stops eminating from your cooker.


Careful it is still hot, bring the whole thing to your room and place it on your towel on your clean table. Put your syringes on the table as well.


Go take a shower and put on fresh clean cloths - a good long hot soapy shower.
Dry off with a clean fresh towel.

Go back into your room and spray more lysol, this time start at the ceiling and spray your way down to the floor - you want a fine mist flowing gently from the top of the room to the floor.


4. Unpack the pressure cooker

Open the pressure cooker and take out the jars one at a time, as you do, shake the jars to loosten the kernels at the same time, break the seal on each jar with a quarter to half a turn.


Now sit yourself down and get mentaly prepared. The jars should be no more than warm to the touch. If you have a door in your room close it - the occasional inhalation of the residual spray will not be harmful, don't worry. What you want is a fluid, efficient set of motions, no dropping things, no struggling, no putting your syringe down, no uncovering the jar mouth - smooth and graceful as you can



Pepare your syringe but do not take the needle sheath off.

Now with your left hand spin the cap off of your first jar until you know you can easily lift it off. Take the sheeth off of the syringe with the first and second knuckle of your left hand so that you can have it ready while still opening your first jar. Lift that jar lid ever so slightly, high enough so that you can insert the tip of your syringe needle into the jar - DO NOT touch anything with that syringe. Now squirt a cc or two into the jar, pull your needle away and place it back in the sheath that is still being held by your knuckles. Hold the syringe still in your right hand and give the jar lid a twist with your left - it needn't be tight, just secure.

Do this very thing with each jar.


now put your syringe away, put your pressure cooker on the floor and tighten the lid of each jar with both hands, very snug, don't use so much force that you will have to struggle the next time you open the jar.

Now do this entire thing again for your second run in the pressure cooker - EVERYTHING, the laundry, the shower and all. What? you don't ever take two showers in the same day? You HATE Doing laundry? tough, do it exactly the same way, no deviations. Don't figure that you only will do half a case - it is possible that you could lose as many as 6 jars (though unlikely if this is a fresh house), then where would you be unless you cooked up 12 in the first place. And you aren't saving any money because you can't buy half cases of jars.


Now put all the jars back in the case, put the case dead square on the table and leave. Go smoke a bowl - you DIDN'T smoke one before you started that would be foolish.


5. Wait

Look in on them every 15 minutes for the next few hours just because you are so excited but get bored with that as soon as you realize that nothing is going to happen yet.

6. Inspect

Let them sit for two days. On the third day inspect each jar very well. Look at the bottom as well. You are looking for anyting that is not white - pure snow white. If you see green or red or black take the jar and throw it away, do not open it.

Soon enough you will see a tiny fuzzy patch or two on a few kernels. After you see that wait one day and then gently shake the jar in a swirling sort of motion, you want each kernel to have come in contact with each other kernel.

6. Winnow

Keep on the lookout for any other color - if you see grey be aware that early on your mycelium may take on the color of the substrate behind it so put it in a place resreved for suspects and look in on it the next day. Don't assume - work jar by jar - if you don't see white in one jar but you do in another, only shake the one you see white in. You may well get some contamination, remember this is a quick and dirty method and it allows for some failure - even if you only get a single jar to fruit you will have enough for the effort involved and more.

7. Colonize


Ok, so you saw white, you waited a day, you shook. In a day or two or three you will see more places where there are white patches. Wait another day and shake again. In another few days you will likely see that every kernel has at least a bit of white - if there is a region that is not - then you didn't shake thouroghly enough - so be sure you do this pass. You have not opened or even cracked the lids of any jars.

When you see that all of the kernels are lightly covered you will know that your mycelium is finally running out of air. You will not kill them even if you don't give them any air but their growth will slow and you won't see that pure white but you will see what looks like grey.

Wait for all of them to be about the same - fully covered but very whispy. Then spray your room down again, take another shower, put on more clean cloths and go back into your room. Now open one jar and pour the air out (remember that the jar is now filled with heavier than air CO2. Try to keep the lid over the jar mouth as you do so, it should only take a few seconds, then put the lid back on and put it back in your box. After you have done your last shake, try to level the top of the grain, the more level the better - shake the jar, pound it in your palm, whatever it takes to get that top level.

In a day or so your kernels will be very white and your mycelium will have bounced back with all that fresh air.


8. Make your casing


Ready? sift your coir so you have only the finest particles, wet it with some water - best if you use bottled water, and mix it with vermiculite. Use a 30/70 mix coir to vermiculite, when it is very thoroughly mixed, put about a quarter of it aside and begin to pour water into the rest (do this in a big bin that you can put your arms in. What you are looking for is the ability to take a big handful of the mixture and squeeze as hard as you can - a few drops of water should come out and drip off of your hand. You will likely overdo it and a rivulet of water will run down your arm- it is too wet so you now can take the quarter of the mixture you set aside and use it to dry the mistake you made.

Finally you will have a field moisture ready bin of vermiculite and coir. now put this stuff in a turkey roasting disposable pan. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and put it in your oven - if you can set your oven to 160 do so - 180 is ok, if you have a thermometer, use it in the center of the mass of your mixture - if you do not, oh well. Now cook this stuff for 4 hours, if you have that thermometer, you want the center to be between 160 and 180 for at least two hours - I like 3.

Put that in your room to cool.

Put your box of zip lock freezer bags on the table.

Remember those spoons? put them on your table and then spray down the room, the jars and the chair.


9. Case

Open your first jar. You will see some fully over grown kernels sticking to the side of the glass, scrape them off with your now unwrapped spoon, then take the spoon and use it to put, one spoon at a time, yor now cool, moist casing (the dirt you pulled out of the oven)

put enough dirt in over the kernels at the bottom of the jar to measure about an inch and a quarter. Then gently tamp the dirt down with your spoon. Lightly compact that dirt and try to have the surface of the dirt as level as you can.

Now take a baggie and place it over your jar and put it back into your box.


Do this for 6 jars, then unwrap and use the other spoon.


You are done.


Now check, in a few days you will see the mycelium begin to run up into your dirt, once you are certain that you see this (it will be obvious as the bits of coir will be embeded in tiny fingers of myclium. Once you see that, wrap each jar in aluminum foil, just up to the top of your dirt.

You are wise to give each jar a few light spritzes of water every day, and then replace that baggie.


Now all you have to do is wait, you will be rewarded with a jar full of mushrooms - each jar will yield at the very least a half an ounce dry. Pick them as you see fit, keep the baggie on as the mushrooms grow into it.


That's it. If you were in a reasonably clean house, if this is your first attempt
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Ok, I thrive on theory not just blind instruction.


here is your theory:


Popcorn is the easiest and most contamination proof, if you use too much or too little water in your boil you will only suffer some loss of yield.

Most contamination is attached to particles in the air, those particles take hours to drop down below your table level, you help that along with a through air spray of lysol.

No breeze or air movement means that particles you have missed will be falling slowly straight down, if you open your lid only a little and keep that lid completely over your jar mouth nothing will fall in. If you do not touch your needle to anything else it is possible for a particle to fall on and attach itself to the needle but you are spraying from just inside the jar so your likelihood of that particle dropping again into your jar is minimal.

you are letting nothing touch the syringe and you are keeping the syringe sheath mouth from touching anything either. The entire operation occurs in 5 seconds, not much time for those slow falling particles to go very far.

you are using one syringe for each 6 jars - so even if you contaminate your first syringe on the first jar you still have a second 6 jars with a new syringe.

Your jars are air tight except for the single time you innoculate. The mycelium is growing on the oxygen that is contained in half a quart of air. As your mycelium grows it produces co2 which speeds growth. The longer your mycelium grows however, the more oxygen is used up - your constant shaking ensures that each kernel is colonized at least in part. It takes far longer for mycelium to jump from one kernel to the next than it does for the mycelium to fully engulf or surround a single kernel - that can happen in the course of a single day. You want each kernel to have been touched by the mycelium so that when you do open your jar to supply more oxygen, any contamination that enters will have a single day to germinate on a free bit of kernel, now beyond that, only the top layer is suceptable to immediate contamination. The mycelium will spring back very quickly after it has been refreshed so once each kernel is touched by mycelium, your entire jar will be fully encased.

You are using the jar itself as your fruiting chamber - it already has a perfect microclimate and your loose fitting baggie will contain enough moisture to maintain that climate without a lot of evaporation regardless of the RH in the surrounding air. Furthermore, enough oxygen will enter the sides to keep your mycelium happy. You get the added advantage of being able to case within the jar. So long as you deny the sides any light (the aluminum foil) then you will get no border breaks - and you will find it next to impossible to pick border breaks in a jar without either breaking the jar or ruining the substrate.

You are using two spoons for the same reason you are using two syringes, if you happen to contaminate a spoon the worst you can possibly do is ruin 6 jars. It might be wise to use a third spoon expressly to carry your casing to your jar but it shouldh't be necessary.

the other focus here is modularity. An infected jar will infect no others and is so contained that you can throw it out without the slightest fear that you will spread contaminiant spores. Even the baggies will contain contamination until you have the time to see it appear.

You are taking advantage of the natural anti-contamination aspects of the mycelium as well.

Finally, you are keeping all the jars in the same case, close enough to take advantage of the mycelium's natural tendancy to create it's own heat, so your box will be several degrees hotter than the outside for the duration of time it takes for it to grow through, after that it will cool on it's own as well, signaling the mushroom to begin to fruit.

About the only flaw in this system is if your area gets too hot - nothing above 78 degrees or you will be tempting problems.
 
Xrangex

Xrangex

Well-Known Member
canndo said:
I was expecting some feedback here - I guess not. Seems that many insist on making things more complex than they need to be - this
"tek" is for the daring folk who hold that easiest is best.
Click to expand...

Really good instructions man, i've never heard of popcorn cernels being used as a substrate. What bennifts does it have that rye seed wouldnt? In your opnion.

haha, "5. Wait

Look in on them every 15 minutes for the next few hours just because you are so excited but get bored with that as soon as you realize that nothing is going to happen yet."

^ That's me with everything I do man, i remember my plants being 2 weeks old and me staring at them expecting to see buds pop out over night.

I think if I get good at rye flower cakes and rye seed in the disposable turkey trays i'll definatly give your tek a shot, or maybe just set afew jars of the popcorn substrate and colonize it with the myc from a fully colonized rye seed jar, then compare the results.


Anyway, don't worry about the feedback bullshit. You've definatly given people something to think about.
 
stonestare

stonestare

Active Member
Popcorn is the easy way to start no bullshit as Canndo stated here is why, Wild bird seed is a bitch it clumps and picking out sunflower seeds sucks, rye grass seed is a pain in the ass on hydration content the size is the issue, its samll in length and thickness very easy to get it to soft then it will not hold moisture it turns to goo. Cracked feed corn works well but its size is large and not as much myc can grow on it as popcorn.If you take a pound of popcorn and a pound of cracked corn theres more surface area on the popcorn.Cracked corn is very effective you just have to use a thicker sub(more corn more poo more coir).Rye berries work well but they are not cheap. Popcorn if you soak,rinse,simmer correctly is the easiet and cheapist to use. I am curious about using milo I am in farm country and its cheaper than popcorn but I do not know how it will hydrate and have not worked with it but am curious.I know milo is not as hard as popcorn so it will take several attempts before I know if its possible. Just not had time to deal with it. I have seen wheat used but its way softer than popcorn and it would be easy to get it to soft and goo.

I will step out and say this about PF TEK VS grain. If you want to dable to see if you can do it okay no problem but it takes longer than grain and the results are light in weight.You just cannot get as many fruit compared to grain, BUT WAIT YOU SAY what about bulk and cakes? Okay then you can go bulk with it use a cheese grater to break up the cake and mix it with poo and coir and case it.The issues are- time, seriously grain takes 10 to 14 days PF takes a month or longer to colize a jar. When you do PF you use a half pint jar a pint at the largest,that is not alot of volume of spawn to start with. With grain minimum is a qt jar, I use 1/2 gallon jars and still colinize in the same time 10 to 14 days.Instead of 3cc's of spore solution in a qt jar I use 8cc's.I use a 40 qt pc and can handle the heighth of the jar. The ONLY benifit to PF TEK is you do not need a pressure cooker.That is the deal its cheap to grow a handfull of shrooms, let me repeat a handfull and you donot need a PC.IF you go bulk with PF your gong to need to buy stock in a jar company seriously and have the room for all the jars.

You buy a Pressure Coocker go no smaller than 15 qts in my opinion. Why? because if you go smaller 90% of the time you are going to run it several times to get the amount of spawn you need to make a substrate. Sure you can run a small PC wait 6 hours pull the jars, then load it again run it by the time you make the second run you proboly just spent the entire day running the PC. You also need to have enough room in the PC so the jar sides DO NOT TOUCH themselves or the PC itself so your going to loose some volume. You can stack jars in the PC safely.A 15 qt PC can do 10 qt jars safely. 10 sounds like alot but IF you plan out the size of your tub before you start you will know how many qts of spawn you need.That is the only way you are going to know how many jars it takes for your tub. Here is a substrate calculator put in the size of the tub, the thickness of your substrate (3 inches minimum) and you will know how many jars of spawn you need.The larger the tub the thicker the substrate. remember the amount of spawn you use is NOT wrote in stone. You do a grow and notice your tub is looking thin on the amount of mushrooms in the tub then you ADD more spawn. You want a better canopy you ADD more spawn. You will proboly need 5 good grows before you know whats going on and can decide to add more spawn. That is why I say no smaller than a 15 qt PC.

http://substratecalculator.info/#
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Um - yes, 23 quart - the one in your link is damn fine and will hold up for years and years - under a hundred bucks - what a deal
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Killua said:
I'm going to use your thread for my first attempt, I'll have a couple of question just to make sure that I don't mess up. Thank you for spending the time to make this thread and for the help. Is there a specific grade(consistency) of vermiculite that i should be looking for? Is this the correct size of coir http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0046DCV9K/ref=s9_simh_gw_p86_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0JFK9XY1EKXQ3GJ1EYMG&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846
Click to expand...

You will be well served if you use the coarsest vermiculite you can find - it tends to create those tiny indentations and irregularities that the mycelium look for in order to find a niche to fruit. So far as coir goes - if you are using coir as a substrate i.e. actually growing the mushrooms on it - you want coarse. if you are doing the tek I wrote, you are only going to use the coir as a nutrient addition to the vermiculite which has no nutrietive properties and is used to hold water and dilute the nutrition of the vermiculite. Using pure vermiculite does not encourage growth into the casing - a pity because you would have less chance of contamination, however coir is ph balanced - remember also though that most coir is pre-innoculated with trich, if you do not pasteurize or sterilize you are doomed. Oh - the size - you want the smallest finest you can get. Be aware that threads or sticks of coir jutting out of the base will invite contamination - I have no idea why. you might consider actually sifting your coir to get only the finest particles.
 
DoItBest

DoItBest

Well-Known Member
Very nice thread! Ordering my spores after this weekend and going to get started as soon as they get here with this tek. Thanks man!
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Mookjong said:
Just ran across this pic, figured it was at least similar to message your trying to convey.
View attachment 2536548
Click to expand...

that would be it - notice the profusion of fruit all coming from the same direcction - a PF cake will not do that, and note also that you don't need any sort of fruiting chamber at all. Of course harvesting (picking is more accurate) is a chore. do the best you can to keep the substrate undisturbed and try to patch holes you made with new casing. If you do that, and you continualy increase your spraying (from once a day to three times a day) you will get at the very least 3 flushes. I have experienced as many as 6 flushes and some times the final flush is a HUGE mushroom.
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
On contamination:


Most people are worried about their ability to determine contamination in their grow.

So here is a little primer.

First, p. Cubensis mycelium is snow white, pure iridescent white in the absence of any color benieth it. I can occasionally be tinted blue and on rare occasions blue green - but this is only the very slightest of color and it is a result of bruising, AND that bruising color will usually only become noticeable later in the life of the mycelium.

the mycelium will tend to grow in a parallel fashion early on, it is very fine and straight.DSCF2121.jpg

Notice in the picture that the mycelium does NOT look white, in the lower quadrant you will see a gun metal blue, this is the result of bruising as the mycelium becomes "aerial" rising from the mass, now note that you don't see pure white in the upper portions either, this is because the mycelium has not yet gained enough density to overcome the yellow brown color of the agar benieth. While we are at it, note the divisions between the colonies. Each geneticaly different colony will tend to avoid the other - this is why you will rarely if ever see a "multipoint" innoculation work as well as a monoculture. When you squirt hundreds or thousands of different cubensis spores into a jar you will get dozens of geneticaly different colonies each competing with the others. Two compatible colonies will eventually find each other as this mushroom is tetrapolar (having 4 spores emanating from each basidia (platform) which in this case grows on the gills of the mushroom. Each unmated colony are monokaryons - that is they do not have a full complement of genetics and cannot fruit. When two complementary monokaryons touch, they become dicharyotic and are then able to reproduce. The mycelium intertwines - contrary to what you see in the picture, and form clamp connections between the filiments or hyphae, this is mushroom sex.

Back to the method of determining contamination.

most mycelium of fungus are off white, grey, or brown but only slightly so. With time you will be able to spot contamination simply by the way the hyphae grow, crookedly, in a non-uniform manner. Cubensis will grow fluffy, that is until it becomes dicharyotic and then it may become ropey, in fact the "ropeyness" is a good indicator of it's ability to fruit, this is called rhyzomorphic.

But the real clue will come the instant your contamination gets ready to sporeulate. Spores contain the majority of color in mold. Most molds will create spores in an orderly fashion, in a circle as that particular portion of mycelium becomes mature. What you will see is a small circle of white with a pinpoint of green, in a few hours that pinpoint of green will grow larger while the white surrounding it grows even larger, whereupon THAT white turns green and the circle of white grows again.

the sooner you identify that color, no matter what color that is, the sooner you know for certain that what you have in the jar is not what you want. Throw it out, don't open it, don't shake it, the jar cost you a buck, the grain 20 cents, your opening it even for the tiniest of moments could well cost you your grow.

So, in short, any color - red, green, blue, black, rust, etc is never ever what you want. If you think that the blue you see is just bruising, simply wait 24 hours, if it has not grown, you are fine.

Study some of what you know is good mycelium for a bit, really look at it, perhaps with a lense. You are far better served by knowing exactly what your desired mycelium looks like than knowing all of the others.


But here is a short list of the bad ones:

Bacillus: This is bacteria, called "wet spot" it is very common, you will see a certain slimy, slightly yellowish spot on your grain. Where the grain touches the jar it will look wet. You may also see milky gray ridges growing around the larger colonies. Cubensis mycelium will not grow on top of this stuff but may well coexist with it. So you will see spots where the mycelium will surround this stuff and seem fully healthy. It is possible to bring substrates with isolated colonies of bacillus to fruition but it is a bad idea, as the endospores from Bacillus are pervasive and will tend to infect further attempts at growing spawn. This stuff grows mostly on agar and on grains. Oh, and if you are ever unsure, take your jar outside and crack the lid just a bit, if yuou smell rotten apples, or some say burnt bacon, then you have a case of bacullus, throw the jar away.


Alternaria:
This is a mold, it is very common and tends to grow on rye grain in the fields. It will also grow on leaves, rotting fruit, and straw. If you look at a bail of straw that has been left out in the rain, that brown/grey color on the bail is likely alternaria. the spores are black and it won't take but a second or two to determine if your grain in the jar is contaminated with this mold.

Aspergillus:
Aspergillus is everywhere. It will grow on any substrate from casing to grain to straw but it prefers neutral to slightly basic PH, which makes it just a bit easier to contend with. Asperrgillis can be seen as having tiny fruiting heads even with the naked eye, there are a large variety of aspergillus, some are quite dangerous, the colors of the spores range from green to black (niger) to yellow (flavus) to clavatus (blue-green) to fumigatus (grayish green) to "versicolor (green, pink or yellow).

The yellow one, Aspergfillus flavus produces a deadly toxin. Aflatoxin from this mold is the most potent hepatacarcinogen in the world. Flavus grows on almost all grains. The toxin however is not taken up by the fruit of the mushroom - still, you should have long before thrown out anything that has a slightly bushy appearance and is yellow.

Botrytis:
You will find this very grey fungus growing on overly wet casing where it grows very rapidly and will eat your fruit before you ever get a chance. Curiously Botrytis is highly prized when it infects grapes as the wine produced from such infected grapes is sweet and full of intense fruity flavors.

Cladosporum:
A dark green to black fungus that grows predominantly on spawn preparations - especially popcorn. The mycelium is highly branched early on and this is often visible to the eye.

Dactylium:
this is commonly called cobweb mold or soft mildew. It will grow on your casing. I is very very fast growing and even a tiny bit of the hyphae will start a new colony. Typicaly it starts on underpasteurized casing or areas that have little or no air circulation. the mycelium is greyish and sparse, billowy, delicate. It can be controled by aplications of salt or baking soda, you will not be able to stop it but you can control it long enough to get a flush in.

Fusarium:
It will be a bright yellow and will grow in your grain. IOn many cases this one is tough to identify in your spawn (grain) because it might not change color, otherwise it coud turn pink, or purple as well as yellow. Careful, this one can be highly toxic. It causes what is known as "Staggering Sickness" lending tot it's victims vertigo, bleeding, headaches, chills and nausea. In Russia during WWII a single outbreak eminating from stored grain it killed ocver 30,000 people. It grows mostly on casing.


Lateritium - pink
Avenaceumn - red
culmorum - yellow
poae - violet
oxysporum - red violet



If you see anything like this, don't mess with it , Throw the jar out, if you can, sterilize the jar intact before - you throw it out.

Geothrichum:

Lipstick mold, mostly growing on compost or casing

Monilla:

it is either a fine, powdery whitish mold - possibly looking like flakes of off white paint. Some say it looks like finely ground pearlite - one reason I never ever use pearlite in my casing.

Grows on your grain mostly but can start up on the sides of your cased trays.

Mucor:
this is the one I commonly mistake for bacillus - because the results of bacillus look mucorish, if that makes any sense. this is called black pin mold and you will see tiny black pinheds standing in the center of a contamination of mucor. This grows predominantly in grain or spent compost. you may see it after 3 or more flushes from grain starting in areas where there is little air circulation.

Penicillium:

Come on, you all know what this one looks like. The problem is that it is everywhere people who eat fruits and veggies are, it may well start on your mushroom debris so get rid of your bits and pieces.

Rhizopus:

Another pin mold, this one grey, will grow on your grain and on the margins of old grows.

And finally

TRICHODERMA:

Forest green mold. this is the one most likely to get you when you have done everything right. Colonies of this can crop up on your casing - keep your grow long enough and it WILL crop up, it does not grow that fast and you can control it with salt or baking soda but that is usually only a temporary fix. If you grow mushrooms for any length of time this one will infest your house. The spores are sticky and will cling to mites, some mites are drawn to this stuff so even your filtrations systems may not stave it off if you have mites. Af first the mycelium will be very difficult to tell from the one you are nurturing but it won't take but a day or two before it turns emerald and then forest green. An outbreak of this will usually signal the end of your grow. It's time to clean everything and start again. It prefers a ph between 4-4.5 and maybe a little higher so this is how you manage to keep it from growing. Your mushroom will continue to exude chemicals that will acidify it's surroundings, eventually it will bring the ph of whatever it is growing on into this range... So, the more basic you start your casing out as, the longer you get before trich arrives - just so long as you don't go too basic such that the mushroom itself won't grow.


Anyway, those are the most common.
 
Thundercat

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Great info cannado, it was good to recap and catch up on some of it cus its been years since I've toyed with growing my mushies, and some great info I didn't know. I have been considering ordering up a bag kit from homestead last time I used it it went great and was very simple low contam risk. I may however just suck it up and cook up a box of jars and give this tech a try. I'm always up to try new stuff, and I may be able to combine things from this with what I've done in the past to make something even better in the future.
 
91GT347

91GT347

Well-Known Member
Can anyone tell me a really reliable place to get the syringes ? I know there are many types. Are any of them easier to grow, or produce better quality than others ? This would be my first time attempting this. I know sometimes it takes a 1/4 and others 2 caps and your ________________________________. lol

Oh, and whats the easiest way to start, a syringe, petri plate or foil print ?
 
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