a Different Kinda Indoor Growing 🍄

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

37 minutes ago, John Stonedwell said:

Started with baby steps, got a ready to fruit bag just to see if I can understand the grow pattern and environmental requirements. Might move along to try to whole inoculation route in the future.

Very sorry to hear about that shit situation man.. really not cool if you have invested a lot of time, atleast the monetary impact is not that bad. 

Good luck with the search man, I hope you get a nice space to grow some beauties. Keep us posted and all of the best 

I appreciate the kinds words brother yeah just keeping on keeping on for now  

I am super glad to see more and more people gaining interest in mycology, not sure how others feel or think about spirituality, but I firmly believe that mushrooms are the flesh of the "gods" and they hold the true elixer of life which can be seen as spiritual, but it's also very physical. Have you watched Fantastic Fungi on netflix? Paul Stammets, godfather of mushroom knowledge, saved his own mother from cancer with mushrooms. and there is dead silence on the matter... we all kinda owe mushrooms a lot of research and I can feel the universal shift for the paradigm  

every second or third person I talk to wana or have grown some shroomies, can't wait till it's every person I talk to who wants to grow them  

@Weskush have you recieved your replacement batch brother? 

[Weskush]

7 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

I appreciate the kinds words brother yeah just keeping on keeping on for now  

I am super glad to see more and more people gaining interest in mycology, not sure how others feel or think about spirituality, but I firmly believe that mushrooms are the flesh of the "gods" and they hold the true elixer of life which can be seen as spiritual, but it's also very physical. Have you watched Fantastic Fungi on netflix? Paul Stammets, godfather of mushroom knowledge, saved his own mother from cancer with mushrooms. and there is dead silence on the matter... we all kinda owe mushrooms a lot of research and I can feel the universal shift for the paradigm  

every second or third person I talk to wana or have grown some shroomies, can't wait till it's every person I talk to who wants to grow them  

@Weskush have you recieved your replacement batch brother? 

Howzit bro. Yea they sent me a replacement pf kit and Alacabenzi spores this time. Apparently it is more resistant to contamination and a bit more beginner friendly to innoculate and fruit. Its been innoculating for about a bloody month with about half the tub innoculated. Nice, pure white! Will post an update once fully innoculated and placed in shotgun fruiting chamber with perlite. Lekker!

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

14 hours ago, Weskush said:

Howzit bro. Yea they sent me a replacement pf kit and Alacabenzi spores this time. Apparently it is more resistant to contamination and a bit more beginner friendly to innoculate and fruit. Its been innoculating for about a bloody month with about half the tub innoculated. Nice, pure white! Will post an update once fully innoculated and placed in shotgun fruiting chamber with perlite. Lekker!

Niiice yeah please do update us with photos! 

I wonder if they didn't have any Psilocybe Cubensis, the common Golden Teacher, they're by far the easiest when it comes to home cultivation. I've had my struggles with getting Alacabenzi to fruit. I've had it 100% clean and healthy, it would colonise substrate within 2 weeks, but then didn't matter how much I tried to perfect fruiting conditions, off maybe 5kg of substrate I got like less than 5g of dried mushrooms. 

I get full flushes off my GT cultures. I make substrate trays of about 0.5kg and I pick about 15 to 20g dried mushroom off one block.  

recent harvest - 

All love and respect brother  

just to clear up the terminology, inoculating is just the act of introducing your culture to your substrate, once you've done that it goes into incubation, this is the period where the substrate turns white, the process is called colonisation or colonising. once the whole thing is white it's reffered to as colonised and then you wana leave it for another week at least for a process called consolidation, because if everythings white around the outside it doesn't mean everythings white on the inside, so that last week is just to make sure the mycelium consumed all the substrate. if you have uncolonised subatrate you will without a doubt be facing contamination comes fruiting time. 

Goodluck man, hope the Alacabensi does better in your hands  

[Weskush]

51 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Niiice yeah please do update us with photos! 

I wonder if they didn't have any Psilocybe Cubensis, the common Golden Teacher, they're by far the easiest when it comes to home cultivation. I've had my struggles with getting Alacabenzi to fruit. I've had it 100% clean and healthy, it would colonise substrate within 2 weeks, but then didn't matter how much I tried to perfect fruiting conditions, off maybe 5kg of substrate I got like less than 5g of dried mushrooms. 

I get full flushes off my GT cultures. I make substrate trays of about 0.5kg and I pick about 15 to 20g dried mushroom off one block.  

recent harvest - 

All love and respect brother  

just to clear up the terminology, inoculating is just the act of introducing your culture to your substrate, once you've done that it goes into incubation, this is the period where the substrate turns white, the process is called colonisation or colonising. once the whole thing is white it's reffered to as colonised and then you wana leave it for another week at least for a process called consolidation, because if everythings white around the outside it doesn't mean everythings white on the inside, so that last week is just to make sure the mycelium consumed all the substrate. if you have uncolonised subatrate you will without a doubt be facing contamination comes fruiting time. 

Goodluck man, hope the Alacabensi does better in your hands  

Shot bro! Nice harvest there!

Ja still need to get the terminology right haha. But thanks for clearing that up. 

Ja its taking a long time to colonize but hooefully it's worth the wait.

B&B were going to replace me with PF classic spores but informed me that the culture was sacrificed and they will substitute. Alacabenzi was probably the only non-contaminated spores available at that time, who knows.

Will post updated soon

Edited March 10, 2022 by Weskush

[Weskush]

Almost there. About 85% colonized. Taking kak long though. Going almost 2 months now! Luckily no signs of contamination. @Naughty.Psychonaut

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Weskush

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

17 hours ago, Weskush said:

Almost there. About 85% colonized. Taking kak long though. Going almost 2 months now! Luckily no signs of contamination. @Naughty.Psychonaut

 

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!!!  

Mycelium slows down drastically in the colder months with some cases of growth stunting completely. to speed up colonisation you could place the tub somewhere warmer. stick it at the back of a towel closet, wrap it up nice and leave it there in the dark warm corner for a while, see how she does. Make sure the top can still breathe so don't put stuff on top of it. Ideal temperature for colonising is 25-28°C. The more constant the temp the faster it will colonise, the more the temp fluctuates the longer it'll take. 

[Ponica]

Hey I only see this thread now!

Ive been growing mushrooms for quite some time now, but nothing serious just normal small scale PF Tek style. Lions Mane, Kings, Blue oysters . Although PF tek is not quite the most efficient way to mushrooms, its a great an easy way to start off with.

For what its worth, Noob to Noob, If you are going to take the PF tek route. Dont stuff around just get a steam pot. You can steralize using other methods but a steam pot and some consol jars makes it so much easier and almost fail proof. And start with oysters they are very resilient and grow fast.

I use the same steam pot to decarb sugar leafs using the same method used to sterilize grow medium. Chuck the leafs or buds into a consol jar (AKA Mason Jar /  Jam Jar)  Instead of making a breather with stuffing just punch some holes and cover the lid with alu foil to keep  the moisture out. I cook it for 90mins just like you would cook  PF Tek.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Ponica

[Weskush]

Yo @Naughty.Psychonaut hope all is well brother! I need your input on my current situation please. My pf cake was fully colonized with no signs of contam this time round. Placed it in a sfc with soaked perlite in my room. Avg temp about 20celsius and rh avg 90% in chamber. Misting and fanning minimum 3-4 times/day. Its been 2 weeks and no sign on pinning and cake is turning light brown. Is it contam? Shot in advance brother

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

15 hours ago, Weskush said:

Yo @Naughty.Psychonaut hope all is well brother! I need your input on my current situation please. My pf cake was fully colonized with no signs of contam this time round. Placed it in a sfc with soaked perlite in my room. Avg temp about 20celsius and rh avg 90% in chamber. Misting and fanning minimum 3-4 times/day. Its been 2 weeks and no sign on pinning and cake is turning light brown. Is it contam? Shot in advance brother

 

Niiiice  

No stress man, the brown discoloration you see there is just a basic form of oxidisation the mycelium experiences as it dries out. 

The cake looks fully colonised but I think the reason it's drying out is because of the SFC... how constant is the 20°C + 90%RH? those are the right conditions to be aiming for, but if it fluctuates a lot it will hinder the growth of the mushroom. the temperatures and humidity has to stay relatively constant for pinning to start. 

I got some GT pins this morning  

hard to see how many there are, but they're all over, few bigger ones will be picked by tomorrow

this little dude with his even littler bro to the left of him

this dude fell over, but they still grow like this, gona make all kinds of funny shapes

Anyway, looking at your SFC, I think the way you made it dries out the mycelium too quick resulting in the browning of the mycelium surface. 

if it's nice and fresh and there's enough RH the mycelium tends to stay fluffy and white. 

did you soak the cake for 24hrs before birthing her into the SFC? the "hydration" is quite important so the cake doesn't dry out too quick and another thing to retain moisture on the cake is the "dunk and roll" which I see you skipped. 

So basically what you do, when the cake is fully colonised you fill a big bowl with filtered water, RO / Distilled water works even better. soak the cake by placing a lid or another bowl ontop to ensure the cake is submerged. 24hrs later you bring over a bowl of dry vermiculite, clean out the bag not recycled vermiculite, then just roll the cake in the vermiculite. when you spray/mist the cake the vermiculite will suck up the moisture and release it slowly around the surface of the cake. 

I don't do cakes at all anymore, but here's an example I got on the internet for you

the last point I wanted to make, I hot my SFC off google too, but it didn't make sense to me to use the same style chamber if I am in a lower over all RH area. Infact I actually had a SFC, but it gets used for storage again these days. 

I found what works better is much fewer holes and smaller ones. 

I moved over to monotubs, but these can be just as easily used to fruit some cakes. 

I can spray / mist the tub in the morning and it'll still have droplets of water on the side tonight when I get home. I still fan as often as I can though, fresh air is the golden key to growing mushrooms, so the more fresh air with fresh humidity you can introduce the better and then the more constant those conditions are the better for the mycelium. 

If everything's 100% in check and still no fruits, only thing it can be is genetics. 

Like I said long long long time ago on this thread, I got Liquid Cultures online, advertised as spore syringes, had to make a bunch of agar cultures with the LC to clean up the genetics, only after subsectioning like 30 to 50 agar plates I got a clean Psilocybe Cubensis genetic that was ready for growing. 

if you take a LC syringe and inject it straight into a substrate you most likely will only get a few mushrooms if any. 

what happens there is like planting 100 cannabis seeds in one pot. you will get a plant, you will get weed, but putting them all together like that isn't fair. you're not giving the genetic a fighting chance when you do that cause now theres 1000 plants competing with eachother. 

same with liquid culture, theres 1000s of culutures within that culture you got and they all competing with eachother. 

where as with agar plates it allows you a 2dimentional surface where the cultures can express themself and branch out in different ways and you select and sub section the strongest culture till you get a perfect clean "master culture" they usually just look perfectly round cause it's closer to one dominant genetic in stead of all out of shape because of many different growth types and genetic variations. 

sorry again for all the reading! I bet it will all be worth it though! Goodluck brother!

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Sorry, didn't even show, but this is what my monotubs look like. 

once fully colonised I place a plastic bag over the surface with minimal breathing on the sides to create a little micro climate / condition of high RH to trigger pinning, once I see pins I take that bag off and the mycelium starts to breathe like crazy pushing loads of fruits!

big 5cm whole saw bits used to make 6 x holes near the top of the bin covered them with a small piece of HEPA cloth, but you can use a pantyhose or a old shirt anything that will keep dust and bugs out. with a single row of 8 - 10mm holes about 5cm off the bottom of the bin right around.

in this case the layer of substrate I put down will be 5cm deep the whole tub through. as the mycelium breathes it will exhale CO2 (like us humans, they suck in oxygen and let out CO2, so they breathe like us rather than like plants... which I think is pretty cool) the CO2 will condense on the surface of the mucelium and start to fall / move out the row of holes made right above the surface, as the air gets pushed out it will naturally start to suck in through the big filtered holes. 

the filter holes also helps it from drying out too fast win win

before I start fruiting, during colonisation when you need much much much less FAE, I cover the row of holes near the surface with this magical waterproof breathable stretchy plastic surgical tape you can buy at clicks or dischem

this stuff! 

[Weskush]

Shot @Naughty.Psychonaut! 

After colonization i did dunk the block in water for 24h but didn't roll in vermiculite. Read somewhere that it isnt necessary..? My perlite doesn't dry out at all which is weird. So many factors. Gonna just let it roll on and see what happens.

Ordered a little something something for shits n giggles from Sporeemporium. Natal Super Strength spore syringe, bulk house substrate(pasturised) and grain spawn kit. Going to try the monotub route. Only need to get a different fruiting tub instead of using the shotgun chamber. Will keep you in the loop of things.

Lekker man and appreciate your time

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

20 hours ago, Weskush said:

but didn't roll in vermiculite. Read somewhere that it isnt necessary..?

waoh hahah don't go back to that place for information  maybe I shouldn't be so hard, but when I was doing cakes the vermiculite was the game changer for me.

Also it's not a said and done thing. vermiculite will help in situations where the cake dries out too quick. and from what I can see this is your situation aswell.

if your setup allows the cake not to dry out too quick then the vermiculite will make less of an impact cause there's already enough relative humidity. 

in my case with the sub, my "cake" is much bigger and I also soak her before fruitng, but it takes a week or two for this big cake to dry out and it doesn't breathe from all sides. as with cakes they are all much smaller and tend to dry out much quicker cause they open on all sides and the SFC is more suited for Amercians and Cannadians where most of the R&D information comes from, but down here in SA we're relatively drier than a lot of other countries in the world so we need to have fruiting chambers that retain moisture a little better. 

unless you wana mist more friequently. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Last thing I need to mention, if everything is 100% in check there is still a possibilty of getting no fruits. if it's not a strong master culture it's easy to get it to colonise a substrate, but fruiting is a whole different thing. 

this is where agar becomes important. once you can clean up cultures it opens a whole world of possibilities!

[Weskush]

2 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Last thing I need to mention, if everything is 100% in check there is still a possibilty of getting no fruits. if it's not a strong master culture it's easy to get it to colonise a substrate, but fruiting is a whole different thing. 

this is where agar becomes important. once you can clean up cultures it opens a whole world of possibilities!

Ja i'm going for week 3 now and still no sign of pinning. Will see. Agar is the next level for sure. Firstly want to see if i can get fruits from spore syringes before i go in all out berzerker!

Those colonizing bags which get injected with culture and broken up with bulk substrate looks like the better alternative to the grain jars available here. With the grain jars you can't really shake/break the partly colonized substrate up to speed up the process...or can you?

Well at least i have a fresh order on the way and will go monotub style or re-use my sfc but tape up some holes instead.

Patience and peace brother

 

 

[Weskush]

Last thing. If my current sfc lets too much moisture out too fast, how about i just use my propagator for the bulk substrate grow? Just mist and fan as required. Good idea?Bad idea?

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

On 6/10/2022 at 9:13 AM, Weskush said:

Ja i'm going for week 3 now and still no sign of pinning. Will see. Agar is the next level for sure. Firstly want to see if i can get fruits from spore syringes before i go in all out berzerker!

Most places advertise as spores, when it's actually liquid culture. 

It's not legal to sell the culture of any magic mushroom, so they call it spores for souvenir / research and development purposes to get by with microspcopy laws, like with cannabis seeds long before it was legal. but you don't get spores in the syringes. unless you really reeeeeeaaally lucky. 

spores generally cost significantly more. just look at the spore sprints. that's why the syringes are so cheap in comparison to them, because they actually contain liquid culture. quite the big difference in the two. 

On 6/10/2022 at 9:13 AM, Weskush said:

Those colonizing bags which get injected with culture and broken up with bulk substrate looks like the better alternative to the grain jars available here. With the grain jars you can't really shake/break the partly colonized substrate up to speed up the process...or can you?

I do all my grain work in jars, actually much easier than the bags. I get the bags for my gourmet mushrooms, but often have one tear open or just kinda split open on a seem. remember they have to go through the pressure cooker and with it already being thick polypropelene it kinda tends to form it's own seems and tear or open along those lines. 

they work nice for a while, but you also can't reuse them. I just moved back to jars, waaaayyy easier. get a tennis ball, when you fill the jars with the grain, don't fill it to the top. leave some room so the grains can move around when you shake it, hit it against the tennis ball just so it comes off the sides of the jar and it should break apart very very easily. 

I trust the jars way more than those bags. they also become expensive over time. 

22 hours ago, Weskush said:

Last thing. If my current sfc lets too much moisture out too fast, how about i just use my propagator for the bulk substrate grow? Just mist and fan as required. Good idea?Bad idea?

I would say this flips the seesaws into the opposite side of the spectrum with too little air flow. 

remember this is a golden key, although mushrooms grow in high humidity, fresh air and fresh oxygen is even more important than the high humidity. 

when there's too much co2 the mushrooms can't breathe. it's the same as sticking your head in a closed box with high humidity, cause mushrooms breathe the same as humans. they want constant supply of fresh oxygen. just with added humidity. 

I would say stick to what you where going to do here, 

On 6/10/2022 at 9:13 AM, Weskush said:

will go monotub style or re-use my sfc but tape up some holes instead.

I think closing some holes will work perfect! maybe close the whole middle row?

Goodluck brother! 

[Weskush]

Shot brother! Thanks for that info.

I noticed my first pin this morning

Its only one so far but it still feels like a   million dollars

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

On 6/11/2022 at 1:22 PM, Weskush said:

Shot brother! Thanks for that info.

I noticed my first pin this morning

Its only one so far but it still feels like a   million dollars

 

Oh yeeeah that's what I like to see!!! Hope you see hundereds of little pins in the next few days!

[Weskush]

Yo @Naughty.Psychonaut my cake isn't pinning as expected probably due to the sudden cold temps the last couple of days. RH in chamber is constant at 90% and temps avg 18celcius. I fan at least 5 times/day and only mist the inside walls when no condensation is visible anymore. Got some strange shroomies popping up and can't find anything on the web. Could you please have a look bru? 

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

15 hours ago, Weskush said:

Yo @Naughty.Psychonaut my cake isn't pinning as expected probably due to the sudden cold temps the last couple of days. RH in chamber is constant at 90% and temps avg 18celcius. I fan at least 5 times/day and only mist the inside walls when no condensation is visible anymore. Got some strange shroomies popping up and can't find anything on the web. Could you please have a look bru? 

 

Hey bud the blueish bruising I see there indicates the presence of psilocybin and or psilocin. 

Those are some magic mushroom pins you got there brother  

yeah the cold can slow things down drastically even bring things to a complete halt especialy with mushrooms! 

but I also think this could be just the fact that the culture wasn't cleaned. happens to me a lot when I test cultures, I end up with only one or two shroomies then I make tissue culture from that one or two mushrooms I get, clean the culture till I have nice fast and even growth, then I put it to substrate and get full flushes 

you say you mist only when you don't see droplets on the side? why is this? 

this might seem conflicting with what I said before about you don't want your tub to dry out too fast... well you also don't want it to stay wet inside there for longer than the period it takes in between fanning and misting. you need to mist each time you gona fan, but you should fan more when you go to fan and mist. don't mist more than you fan.... other way around, fan a lot more than you mist... this is also why fresh air is so important, no air should get stagnant.

remember bigger droplets take longer to evaporate, so mist with something that makes the finest mist with the smallest droplets you can possibly find. and literally only mist like 2/3 sprays and let the droplets fall where they may. you only want a teeeeeetsy bit of moisture on the surface. and you wana replace that moisture as often as possible, by continuously evaporating the old moisture off, without letting the cake dry out...

walking a tight rope here  

helps a lot if the cake is hydrated and never dried up.

idealy, you would like to use fog which is not the same as mist. the air particles between mist is much less than with fog, fog has more fresh air in it thus doesn't carry as much water and also evaporates much quicker. best in the bizz is those ultrasonic foggers / humidifiers from clicks. you can also use the pond fogger from the hydro store. 

If I can draw a small little "flow diagram" it will make it much easier to understand, but what triggers pinning is moisture evaporating off the surface of the mycelium....

Open SFC, fan all the old air out for about 1 min, then mist lightly so it doesn't take too long to evaporate, then fan again before you close to induce evaporation... should be dry by the next time you come to do the same. 

your cake should never be dry but also never wet. 

the dunk & roll after birth makes all this muuuuuuuuch easier

[Weskush]

2 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Hey bud the blueish bruising I see there indicates the presence of psilocybin and or psilocin. 

Those are some magic mushroom pins you got there brother  

yeah the cold can slow things down drastically even bring things to a complete halt especialy with mushrooms! 

but I also think this could be just the fact that the culture wasn't cleaned. happens to me a lot when I test cultures, I end up with only one or two shroomies then I make tissue culture from that one or two mushrooms I get, clean the culture till I have nice fast and even growth, then I put it to substrate and get full flushes 

you say you mist only when you don't see droplets on the side? why is this? 

this might seem conflicting with what I said before about you don't want your tub to dry out too fast... well you also don't want it to stay wet inside there for longer than the period it takes in between fanning and misting. you need to mist each time you gona fan, but you should fan more when you go to fan and mist. don't mist more than you fan.... other way around, fan a lot more than you mist... this is also why fresh air is so important, no air should get stagnant.

remember bigger droplets take longer to evaporate, so mist with something that makes the finest mist with the smallest droplets you can possibly find. and literally only mist like 2/3 sprays and let the droplets fall where they may. you only want a teeeeeetsy bit of moisture on the surface. and you wana replace that moisture as often as possible, by continuously evaporating the old moisture off, without letting the cake dry out...

walking a tight rope here  

helps a lot if the cake is hydrated and never dried up.

idealy, you would like to use fog which is not the same as mist. the air particles between mist is much less than with fog, fog has more fresh air in it thus doesn't carry as much water and also evaporates much quicker. best in the bizz is those ultrasonic foggers / humidifiers from clicks. you can also use the pond fogger from the hydro store. 

If I can draw a small little "flow diagram" it will make it much easier to understand, but what triggers pinning is moisture evaporating off the surface of the mycelium....

Open SFC, fan all the old air out for about 1 min, then mist lightly so it doesn't take too long to evaporate, then fan again before you close to induce evaporation... should be dry by the next time you come to do the same. 

your cake should never be dry but also never wet. 

the dunk & roll after birth makes all this muuuuuuuuch easier

Shot brother! Stoked to hear that it isn't contamination! The stem development just seems different than what i've seen on the net. Bit of a mutation you reckon?

My reason for not misting so regularly is that my perlite has stayed consistently moist since the beginning and maintaining 90% RH. I still mist though. Just not with every fanning. 

Will definitely go with spore prints/swabs to agar in the near future. Fascinating stuff!

I also taped closed the middle rows holes on the fc. Definitely keeping the condensation in for longer than before. 

Lets see how they grow! Shot brother.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

19 hours ago, Weskush said:

Shot brother! Stoked to hear that it isn't contamination! The stem development just seems different than what i've seen on the net. Bit of a mutation you reckon?

Nah not mutation, just environmental. Mushrooms are extremely sensetive, they'll quickly show you what's up with your environment. 

Too much fresh oxygen and too little humidity = short stems with big caps

Too much humidity with high levels of co2 with too little fresh air = loooong stems with tiny caps. 

The thing you mentioned about the perlite staying moist, that is 100% and it shouldn't deter you from misting. you should still mist.

What I see there, the cake drying out till it turns brown on the surface, the muhrooms forming like there's not enough humidity it's all clear indication that there's too much fresh air, it's a too dry in there. needs humidity.

this could also be low moisture content on the inside of the cake. you said you soaked it for 24hrs after you birthed it, right? well you also incubated for waaaaaayy longer than 2 weeks, which is the normal incubation period. cakes that are colonised within 2 weeks are still quite moist inside and has some weight to it, but then is still soaked for 24hrs. 

what I am suggesting is, yes I know you soaked the cake, but maybe it was already much drier than a cake that was only incubating for 2 weeks. you see? and maybe needed longer soaking? 

the perlite can be soaked, you just can't float cakes on water or they'll fall over, so you put perlite so there is a surface and sooooaaaak it, it must be wet wet wet, and as it slooooowly evaporates upwards it'll help trigger pinning aswell as add humidity inside the tub and will form condensation that obviously comes with high levels of co2 and needs to be fanned out more and more. 

and don't forget to roll your cakes in vermiculite!!! will help A LOT! 

[Weskush]

7 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Nah not mutation, just environmental. Mushrooms are extremely sensetive, they'll quickly show you what's up with your environment. 

Too much fresh oxygen and too little humidity = short stems with big caps

Too much humidity with high levels of co2 with too little fresh air = loooong stems with tiny caps. 

The thing you mentioned about the perlite staying moist, that is 100% and it shouldn't deter you from misting. you should still mist.

What I see there, the cake drying out till it turns brown on the surface, the muhrooms forming like there's not enough humidity it's all clear indication that there's too much fresh air, it's a too dry in there. needs humidity.

this could also be low moisture content on the inside of the cake. you said you soaked it for 24hrs after you birthed it, right? well you also incubated for waaaaaayy longer than 2 weeks, which is the normal incubation period. cakes that are colonised within 2 weeks are still quite moist inside and has some weight to it, but then is still soaked for 24hrs. 

what I am suggesting is, yes I know you soaked the cake, but maybe it was already much drier than a cake that was only incubating for 2 weeks. you see? and maybe needed longer soaking? 

the perlite can be soaked, you just can't float cakes on water or they'll fall over, so you put perlite so there is a surface and sooooaaaak it, it must be wet wet wet, and as it slooooowly evaporates upwards it'll help trigger pinning aswell as add humidity inside the tub and will form condensation that obviously comes with high levels of co2 and needs to be fanned out more and more. 

and don't forget to roll your cakes in vermiculite!!! will help A LOT! 

Aaaah yes! The cake being more dehydrated than usual is a big factor! Didn't think of that. Will keep on misting and fanning. They're growing though, just slowly. How about after the first flush, dunking the cake for a solid 24-36 hours and see if the second cycle will be better?

Shot alot again brother! 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Weskush

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

6 hours ago, Weskush said:

Aaaah yes! The cake being more dehydrated than usual is a big factor! Didn't think of that. Will keep on misting and fanning. They're growing though, just slowly. How about after the first flush, dunking the cake for a solid 24-36 hours and see if the second cycle will be better?

Shot alot again brother! 

yeah do that and see how it goes, I am not completely sure how it will effect the second flush or even if that's the problem, but you should soak the cake beteween flushes. go for 36hrs and put something ontop of so it's submerged 

[Bos]

Happy to find this thread.

Eishh, so I'm not the only one with "dialing in" struggles haha.... (I still have a ways to go.)

@Weskush congrats on that cake, hope you get some lekker fruits.

Going to do 2nd round pf-tek with brf today, have a few LC syringes(Pesa and wavycap from sporeemporium) with some leftovers from the 1st round(10days no visible myc) suspect enviromental conditions were fluctuating too much as I tried to dial it in. At least no visible contam so believe my sterile technique is good. 

Now managing stable temps 20-22 and 95%rh as I'm using the garage, not sure if airflow FAE will be adaquate but can adjust if neccesary. Still reading a lot regarding this new endeavour, would like to get some sporeprints, then go mono tub route. Found lots of updated info on 'shroomery' wrt pf tek, agar, monos, substrates etc. 

Set the bar high it seems....Want to eventually be able to grow the cubensis and woodloving shrooms indoors.