shrooms, weird occurance!

ok so i've got a few questions for anyone that can answer


first one, i've colonized some BRF cakes i have 4 that are about 90% colonized, and 2 that i ran low on mix so they were only 2/3rds as full as the other jars(100% for almost a week and moved into fruiting chamber), no issues with sterility so far

BUT my 2 jars in the fruiting chamber won't fruit. i did the dunk and roll(after 3 8 hour soaks(submerge, refrigerate, rotate repeat), they are in the rubber made container with an inch of perlite on the bottom, the cakes are sitting on cds so they stay out of the perlite, and i have a 20 gallon aquarium air pump pushing fresh air into the perlite to introduce new air and increase humidity(might put it in a bowl of water see if that works better. i'm averageing 70% humidity, it has gotten down to 55% once. temp is between 68-80, fluctuates with the room temperature. any idea why i have no fruit after 2 weeks?
(strain was B+)

i also have 6 jars of a puerto rican strain, but i ran out of foil for the last jar, so it was steralized with just a lid and holes drilled. then once innoculated put in a ziplock bag....

oddly enough this jar has about 10 times the growth of the foal covered lids

innoc. points of foil lids have growth about the size of a dime(3 spots around the jar) the jar in a bag has 1.5 inches of growth down and has circled the top of the jar already.

any ideas?


thanx

messed up the steriltilty.... my guess

i don't know, they MYC is growin over the vermiculite that i covered the cake in, no green mold, i had them on cds and decided to put them on foil instead, the MYC had grown down into the perlite through the center of the CD.

is it possible that the center of the cake has not fully colonised? or something like that?

anyone have any input on why a jar without foil would colonize faster? better air flow maybe?

abso1utepain said:

i don't know, they MYC is growin over the vermiculite that i covered the cake in, no green mold, i had them on cds and decided to put them on foil instead, the MYC had grown down into the perlite through the center of the CD.

is it possible that the center of the cake has not fully colonised? or something like that?

anyone have any input on why a jar without foil would colonize faster? better air flow maybe?

Click to expand...

It's possible, but it should continue to colonize for a bit on the inside regardless if you've already started fruiting.

And to the second question, yes, it probably has something to do with air exchange.

As far as your fruiting problem... This may sound odd, but put them directly on the perlite. I noticed a dramatic increase in growth when I did this. The only downside is when you pick them you'll have to pick out a few pieces of perlite here and there from the stem. Some might even grow out from underneath the cake. Shrooms seem to seriously love it when you do that.

EDIT: Overall, be patient. It can take longer than you expect sometimes.

~Ethno

ok they have moved directly to perlite, i have also moved my air pump to a small dish of water in hopes if it splashing the water into the air/onto the perlite increasing humidity further.

but in the process i discovered what look like the start of mushrooms see circles in attached pic, this is only on one sofar

heres another question, i'm leaving for 4 days coming back on the fifth, just how long will it take for these mushrooms to grow to maturity? i'll be back a week from today i just want to make sure when i come back none of them have grown and begun to decompose.

I think your main problem is the RH in your fruiting chamber needs to be up around the 90's all the time... get that right and they will explode out of that cake.... its funny people talk about this stuff on RIU when there is Shroomery.org which is like the authority on mushroom cultivation just like RIU is for marijuana cultivation

they look like pinsets to me... are they getting at least a little light?
i wouldnt keep the jars covered with foil they need to breath a little.. i only keep the foil on till i see some fluffy white growth.

also.. after u dunk and roll.. mist the cakes a few times a day with water/5%h2o2
untill u see pins

if u have colonized jars.. thats half the trouble.. if u dont see green, black, bright yellow, or what looks like cobweb in the jars/chamber. ur sterility should be fine...
a little yellow is fine (byproduct of digesting the rice, piss)

if they come out of the jars in one fluffy white chunk and smell liek fresh cut mushrooms u should be fine... sour smells are bad

once u see pinsets stop misting, and they should pretty much double every day

i'm really not sure how to get the humidity up and maintain a healthy amount of air exchange, its humid enough that the sides of my fruiting chamber are always coated with moisture. i have a cheep acurite thermometor/borometer. maybe its inaccurate...

the jars are healthy, and they smell like mushrooms, no weird colors, they get a fair bit of light.

heres another weird question, checked on shroomery and couldn't find anything, is it possible to inject moisture into a cake as well as a food source? like one cc of water and a little BRF or Rye flower? i know it would need to be steralized but could this be used to increase yields or increase number of flushes?

yes u can do this...
take a half inch drill bit... i think thats the size... and sterilize it with some alcohol... then drill a small hole in the top (with ur hands not a drill, dont rape it) 1/4-1/2" deep and put one of those big Micky D's straws into the hole (cut to about 1-2") then every day u can fill up the straw with some 5% h202 solution.. the cake will soak it in everyday for more flushes, and larger flushes. u can fill the straw with a syringe to make it easy.
only done this once as i normally do so many cakes its a pain in the ass

what about that adding of a food source by doing this, make a very runny rye flower paste and let that drain down the straw, i think there would be alot of bacteria growth that way(straw)buy why not make some thin paste, almost water, steralize it, and a syringe, andinject that and then put a piece of vermiculite in the hole to keep out contaminants, that would provide food and moisture.

right now i think my reader(temp and humidity) is reading from the display aka inside temp , rather than the fruiting chamber(sensor/outside)
its to the point you can feel the humidity when you put your hands over the top of the box(has about 20 5 mm holes drilled to let air out, and the fishtank pump putting air in

only problem i could foresee is that the cake wouldnt really hold that much water if u just tried to "inject it" ... keep in mind most of the vermiculite in the cake is allready colonized and wont hold much moisture at a single injection point. iv heard people dunking with milk, i havnt done it and only heard it on this forum once... but that might add some food.

going back to the straw idea... you could mix up a light LC mix with some honey and put THAT in the straw...

but also, the more u fuck with a cake... the more likely it will contam...
so you have to weigh the results... is it easier to just make more cakes.. or is it easier to try to keep each single cake alive to MAYBE get more but risk losing later flushes.

iv also heard of people dunking and rolling in BRF AND verm... but then again i havnt tried that.. and putting "food" and moisture omn the ouside of the cake will increase your likelyhood for contams

i found for my needs it was just easier to make more cakes then deal with all the daily maintenance of babying a single cake.. plus once you have a steady flow of colonized cakes.. then you can do some more experimenting...

its just not that hard to throw 10 in a PC sat night.. and then knock them up every sunday... then.. a month later.. every week you have 10 more jars to mess with and see whats best for you

i usually get 3.5-7g off a 1/2pint cake

well since yesterday/day befor(can't remember) my cake that started pinning has gone from those 5(found a few on the side) to almost 80 pins, i can't beleave how many there are.this cake is still on foil, my other cake that i moved onto the perlite has now started pins.

i think i'm going to take your advice get a few more jars and just make a few every week, i gotta find a cheep place for verm tho, or an alternative. around here its pretty expensive. 10 USD for a small bag about 14 inches tall 8 inches wide and 5 inches deep. is it possible to make a cake out of whole rye? or would it fall apart? i know i could use whole rye and then caste it but i want to get cakes figured out first.

i've also discovered that my reader is screwed up, the sensor(inside my chamber) is only reading the temp and not humidity. not sure what to do about that tho i put the whole reader inside the chamber and its reading between 82-84% humidity. but i don't expect it to last long in there.


hemlockstones, just wanted to say thanx, you've been one of the most helpful people i've found on this site

hemlockstones +rep for all the assistance!

thanks man!


my humisate was off too... cheap wallmart crap!
if u put em on the perlite they will pin faster... but watch iv had a lot of pins form on the BOTTOM of the cake cuz its so much more humid.. then u have to flip em over... no biggie.. pins are pins!

i had a problem finding decent verm... DONT BUY it from walmart... $14 for a small bag? told my father to pick some up at a hardware/garden store if he saw any... came back with a $10 bag as tall as a 10 year old (5 cubic feet i think)... not worried about verm now!
just make sure they place doesnt store the verm outside, real nasty mess full of bugs and moisture, and OTHER SPORES.

u could make a cake out of rye grain.. and it would stay together... but i think it wouldnt hold as much moisture without the verm and thus less flushes. havnt tried it but, hey... whats it cost to try and find out? about nothing.. i love growing shrooooooms

glad to see u got ur pins! you can pretty much watch them grow
enjoy friend!

lol, yea, gotta find a cheeper place. going outta town for a few days but here are a few updated pics of the pins, hopefully my other cakes will have started pinning when i get back.

ur about to shit ur pants when u get back

wow. so this morning all the pins are about an inch long. in 4 days they shouldn't drop spores yet should they? i want to take a few spore prints(as many as i can) for syringes. if anyone knows please let me know asap i'll be leaving in about an hour