Let's Grow Mushrooms - A Beginners Gigantic Bulk Attempt with PF Tek

aeviaanah said:

I will be starting using popcorn. Should i dunk in water as well after inoc? Do you continue to spray with water while pins show and develop?

It seems submerging mycellium under water for 24 hours would do harm. do lots of growers do this method? what would be done if i chose not to soak for 24 hours?

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You need a severe education before you start making cakes with popcorn and such. I dont mean this in a bad way at all though, just need a little learning on what to use. My first advice to ANYONE wanting to grow mushrooms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHJQrsZFQdE

Watch part 1, 2, 3 and 4. Do that, do that EXACTLY not skipping any steps or substitutes and then you'll get the hang of the grow cycle fast.

Mycellium under water for 24 hours is what almost every "PF TEK" grower like me does. It does zero harm and doubles or triples your yields. Not doing it would be the same as telling your plant in week 6 of flower "Eeh, fuck you, you need no more water till week 9". No water is harmful! Hope this helps and good luck m8

researchkitty said:

You need a severe education before you start making cakes with popcorn and such. I dont mean this in a bad way at all though, just need a little learning on what to use. My first advice to ANYONE wanting to grow mushrooms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHJQrsZFQdE

Watch part 1, 2, 3 and 4. Do that, do that EXACTLY not skipping any steps or substitutes and then you'll get the hang of the grow cycle fast.


Mycellium under water for 24 hours is what almost every "PF TEK" grower like me does. It does zero harm and doubles or triples your yields. Not doing it would be the same as telling your plant in week 6 of flower "Eeh, fuck you, you need no more water till week 9". No water is harmful! Hope this helps and good luck m8

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You are a sight for sore eyes where are all the spore women at.Do ya have a sister lol.J/J.Keep rockin and I'll keep watchin.maybe get good at this myself.Right now the reg brown tops are everywhere here in the jungle in the gulf states.I dont get all the intense process yet when ya can pluck them from shit in Thailand.But I will learn.Badass.....

I suppose it has to do with other fungi/mold I usually eat them after spotting them in the outdoors but I may actually let a batch dry before eating them.

praises to you research kitty, your fruits of knowledge are very bountiful. I love this thread and all of the great pictures you are sharing.

emmmmm... yum too bad you only have a few.... lol

hydrotech364 said:

You are a sight for sore eyes where are all the spore women at.Do ya have a sister lol.J/J.Keep rockin and I'll keep watchin.maybe get good at this myself.Right now the reg brown tops are everywhere here in the jungle in the gulf states.I dont get all the intense process yet when ya can pluck them from shit in Thailand.But I will learn.Badass.....

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My sister is 12. My boyfriend jokes "Give her a few years and she'll be done flowering". (Me=grower He=glass guy, i gave up a while ago)

On a scale of one to ten how hard is it to grow mushrooms? Ten being you need a masters.

Im always rooting around doing reserch here and there but never plucked up the courage to give it a bash.

Blanked again this year picking over here, well i got around ten of the smallest shrooms in the field(Dont think that counts).

24 hours again have passed, and the cakes are looking even better still. Yay.



This is the total harvest (including todays). Todays harvest was a little more than yesterdays.



The Z and Cambodians are popping like crazy.



See?



Z Strain



Cambodians



More Z Closeups.

Richie LxP said:

On a scale of one to ten how hard is it to grow mushrooms? Ten being you need a masters.

Im always rooting around doing reserch here and there but never plucked up the courage to give it a bash.

Blanked again this year picking over here, well i got around ten of the smallest shrooms in the field(Dont think that counts).

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One to ten on how hard to grow shrooms? With PF Tek, your first time I'd give it a 5. After your first time (This is my SECOND grow EVER of Mushrooms!) I'd give it a 2 or a 3. Marijuana I'd give a 6 or a 7 on difficulty scale.

The only real way you screw up is not following instructions of the "tek" (tek means method of growing mushrooms, mine is the "pf tek") or by having a poorly sanitized area that allows mold to be present thereby contaminating your cakes. Ask questions as much as you need there's a ton of great mushroom growers on RIU.

to RC: i also found for my first time humidity is a must when fruiting! i kept wondering why i wasnt getting pins then after like a week i finally realized on my SGFC i had to many hole. taped some up and bam there they went.

so to richie thats another thing you must get right

If you are misting and fanning regularly, I would turn off the air pumps... what you have there is a shotgun terrarium, if you just have a small fan circulating in the room then that is plenty of FAE for a shotgun terrarium if your fanning it manually already... I think the pump may be overkill and may be lowering your RH% and deminishing yeilds... You cant make up for low RH% by misting more frequently... misting only replaces the small amount of water that evaps off the cakes from fanning... the evap and rehydrating of the cakes surface is what makes good pinsets.... Some of the caps in your pics looked a bit moist? When you mist them, make sure you have a fine mist and do it from up high to let the mist gently fall over your cakes, big water drops are a no no. Also, if your cakes are fuiting from the bottom it means they like the conditions better there than on the top of your cake, which also tends to be an RH% issue... I would soak your cakes that havent fruited for 24 hrs, re-hydrate the perlite, and pull out the air pump and see how that goes... at least try it on one of your tubs to see the results??? Good Luck! Mycology is so much fun

Thanks Dan! I only use the air pump now for a minute before I open the drawers to mist them. Then I turn the pump off, mist, and close drawers. I didnt know big water droplets are bad so I'll get a nice fine mist droplet sprayer in the next day or two to help that out a little bit. It was just one upside down cake, so I think the RH is great overall.

Have you been doing it that way from the start? Just running it for a minute before you mist? Or were you runing it more often before? Do you every manually fan it? I would try fanning them manually with a tote lid or something for 30 sec several times daily... I would guess the air pump is deffinately not getting you enough Fresh Air Exchange on its own... you need to evacuate the excess co2 buildup...I would fan them manually... and do it after you mist with a fine spray from above.

This is a quote from RR, the person who did the Lets Grow Mushrooms video.
"Don't mist primordia. Once they become pins, it's ok to mist gently with a very fine spray. As creamcorn said, up your air exchange after each misting so the pins don't sit there wet. If you mist with large drops or a forceful spray, and then leave them wet, they'll abort." -RR

Cheers!

dankillerbs said:

Have you been doing it that way from the start? Just running it for a minute before you mist? Or were you runing it more often before? Do you every manually fan it? I would try fanning them manually with a tote lid or something for 30 sec several times daily... I would guess the air pump is deffinately not getting you enough Fresh Air Exchange on its own... you need to evacuate the excess co2 buildup...I would fan them manually... and do it after you mist with a fine spray from above.

This is a quote from RR, the person who did the Lets Grow Mushrooms video.
"Don't mist primordia. Once they become pins, it's ok to mist gently with a very fine spray. As creamcorn said, up your air exchange after each misting so the pins don't sit there wet. If you mist with large drops or a forceful spray, and then leave them wet, they'll abort." -RR

Cheers!

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Yep, that way from the beginning. I'll get a timer for it later. When I open each drawer they get manually fanned with a plastic tray to move the air and then misted then closed. I think the ones that havent pinned yet are probably more that they werent 100% ready in the jars as the other strains, and will be popping soon. Time will tell.

"up your air exchange after each misting so the pins don't sit there wet. If you mist with large drops or a forceful spray, and then leave them wet, they'll abort." -RR-

What are your temps by the way? Do you have holes on all 6 sides of your tubs?

has anyone had success wtih out using a pressure cooker?? i've gone to 2 sears,2targets,1bed bath and beyond and all i find are 6-8qrt cookers with no pressure gauge. they just have, i guess some kind of vent valve that flops around. if i can find one big enough i'll but it,might just have to go on ebay or some shhh for it.

i saw them videos on youtube, that kitty posted, awhile back and they didnt use a pc, just boiled them...and it seemed to wrok, i know everyone argues back and forth about this topic.. if my spores come in before ican find a p/c i might just go without it. wat ya think

oh and kitty nice friggen job, i check this theard every day, very inspired keep it up girl

Senor SmokeAlot said:

has anyone had success wtih out using a pressure cooker?? i've gone to 2 sears,2targets,1bed bath and beyond and all i find are 6-8qrt cookers with no pressure gauge. they just have, i guess some kind of vent valve that flops around. if i can find one big enough i'll but it,might just have to go on ebay or some shhh for it.

i saw them videos on youtube, that kitty posted, awhile back and they didnt use a pc, just boiled them...and it seemed to wrok, i know everyone argues back and forth about this topic.. if my spores come in before ican find a p/c i might just go without it. wat ya think

oh and kitty nice friggen job, i check this theard every day, very inspired keep it up girl

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my pressure cooker does not have a guage i just cook for an extra half hour the box says its max pressure is like 15, works fine for me its a walmart one to
but if your doing brf you dont need a pressure cooker but it would be better if you had one

dankillerbs said:

"up your air exchange after each misting so the pins don't sit there wet. If you mist with large drops or a forceful spray, and then leave them wet, they'll abort." -RR-

What are your temps by the way? Do you have holes on all 6 sides of your tubs?

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Temps are 77(f). Holes are on four sides of the tubs, however all 5 sides get sprayed. There's enough holes for air circulation, otherwise none of my cakes would have pins I'd think. The slower cakes that I guessed would be pinning soon are mostly all started to pin this afternoon. I'll get more pics of them tomorrow with the daily-ish update. Cheers.

Art909 said:

Amazing Grow! I just tuned in, & Now Im glued!.... always wondered how u got spores??. This is crazy, great set up!!

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Thanks I buy spores from ralphstersspores.com he's been around 20 some years selling them.