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        New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2004 >> Shrooms growing question
        
(Message started by: grandteton on Apr 13^th, 2004, 10:14pm)

Title: Shrooms growing question
Post by grandteton on Apr 13^th, 2004, 10:14pm

Hi all,

I'm in the process of growing my own shrooms but may have come to a bit of a hurdle. I'm at the stage where the mycelium has grown and been removed from the jars and planted. I used a well set out instruction guide I found which prefers the use of plastic trays (about the size of a shoe box) and plant the substrate cakes with potting soil/mix in them. This has been left for 7 days as instructed with a lids on, and I last night removed the lids to find the white mycelium growing on the surface of soil as expected.

However there was also some green coloured mycelium on the surface, and looking this morning I found this had spread somewhat. I have a bad feeling this may be some sort of mould, but was hoping that it may just be the type of spores I planted.

Has anyone experienced this before? If so, are my crops looking like they might be destroyed?

I have another two substrate jars still to plant, so any tips on where I may have gone wrong, (if I have) would be of great help.

I have read other instruction guides who prefer the use of Terrarium to cultivate the mushrooms. Is this essential?

Sorry about the long winded query. I just really need to get this right. I'm so close!!

Thanks
Mark

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Pinkfloyd on Apr 14^th, 2004, 12:56am

Well...the preferred method by experienced growers is often this type of "casing" because it will usually yield bigger crops.
It does have the downside of also being more susceptible to contamination. Which most assuredly the green growth is.
I'd suggest the following to *try* to save the casing.
Sterliize a spoon with either a flame or bleach. Scrape out the infected areas, fairly deep, even if you must scrape off part of the underlying cake. Spray the areas that have been cleaned with a 10-1 mixture (10 of sterile water) of water and peroxide. Just mist the area.
Recover the area(s) with clean vermiculite. If it pops up again, repeat as needed to stop it from spreading at the first sign of green.

Pray...a lot!!

You may want to look into getting a terarrium set up for the other jars. Just in case.

PF

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by grandteton on Apr 14^th, 2004, 1:18am

Thanks PF!

I'm wondering where I might have gone wrong this time. What's the best approach in terms of the lids? ie, the technique I am using says to keep the lids on for the first 7 days, whereas another technique I read said to take the lids off daily to change the air within the trays/cases.

Could the mould be the result of no fresh air in the cases for the most part of the week?

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Bob P on Apr 14^th, 2004, 8:40am

I'd bet that if your potting soil wasn't thoroughly sterilized, it's the culprit. As an experiment I cut up a cake after the first flush and planted it in potting soil. Most of the containers grew strange, contaminating molds.

I had best results just 'birthing' the cakes and then placing a spoonful of vermiculite on top of the cake.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Pinkfloyd on Apr 14^th, 2004, 8:53am

on 04/14/04 at 01:18:59, grandteton wrote:

whereas another technique I read said to take the lids off daily to change the air within the trays/cases.

I would suggest fanning and air exchange at least once a day. Two or three times a day is better yet.

good luck,
PF

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by notseinfeld on Apr 14^th, 2004, 10:15am

Teton--

I do respect the effort you've gone through to yield a good crop but may I suggest next time just grabbing a myco bag and injecting it? Basically it's the 'easy chair' version of growing these babies though not nearly as fun.

Actually found it difficult to contaminate them and they come pre-sterilized.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by JDH on Apr 14^th, 2004, 10:42am

on 04/14/04 at 10:15:42, notseinfeld wrote:

may I suggest next time just grabbing a myco bag and injecting it? Basically it's the 'easy chair' version of growing these babies though not nearly as fun.

Actually found it difficult to contaminate them and they come pre-sterilized.

I haven't had much better than a 50% success rate due to contamination and I'm thinking of trying these next time I grow.
Anyone else have any thoughts on these bags good or bad?

Jim

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Bob P on Apr 14^th, 2004, 11:20am

My first batch I took great care with (standard cake method). I wound up with 10 cakes and no contamination.

My second batch came from a print made from the first batch. Unfortunately I neglected to save the syringe so I had to use one I had for injecting seasoning into meat. I tried to wash and sterilize it the best I could but wound up with most of the cakes contaminated this time. Cleanliness is a must.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Pinkfloyd on Apr 14^th, 2004, 2:10pm

on 04/14/04 at 11:20:56, Bob P wrote:

I had to use one I had for injecting seasoning into meat.

Well hell Bob, why didn't you say this before. No wonder you didn't have success with this treatment.
We've found that 100% of people that have used meat seasoning syringes have failed. ;)

PF

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Flounder on Apr 14^th, 2004, 2:48pm

on 04/14/04 at 14:10:19, Pinkfloyd wrote:

Well hell Bob, why didn't you say this before. No wonder you didn't have success with this treatment.
We've found that 100% of people that have used meat seasoning syringes have failed. ;)

PF

LMAO [smiley=laugh.gif]

Watch out though, he may have some new buttons he got for Easter.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Bob P on Apr 14^th, 2004, 3:59pm

Are you trying to tell me that I did it wrong!

These are my stash for the impending cluster. I've got 4 doses of shrooms that taste like porterhouse.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by grandteton on Apr 14^th, 2004, 6:43pm

Thanks for your replies peoples!

Bop P, can you explain a further what you mean when you say 'birthing' the cakes? I might give this a go with my last two substrate jars.

I actually did (attempt to)steralise the soil by putting it in the oven for 15 minutes before casing it.

Obviously not well enough though!! :P

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Bob P on Apr 14^th, 2004, 6:52pm

Here ya go:
http://www.pahlow.net/albums/shrooms/index.html
In picture #3 I've birthed the cakes (taken them out of the jar by unscrewing the lid and turning them over).
In pic #4 and farther on, you can see how I cased the cakes on top with some vermiculite.
In the last 3 pics you can see the containers where I cut up a cake and planted it in potting soil in the far end of the terrarium. This produced 1 shroom before the potting soil grew over with a strange fungus and I removed them from the terrarium.
All in all, it was a good crop.

Here is the porterhouse crop:
http://www.pahlow.net/temp/P1010021.jpg
The jar on the right has some kind of slime growing in it. The middle and left jar have a tan colored fungi growing in with the pure white shroom fungi.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Pinkfloyd on Apr 15^th, 2004, 12:13am

on 04/14/04 at 18:52:46, Bob P wrote:

Here is the porterhouse crop:
http://www.pahlow.net/temp/P1010021.jpg
The jar on the right has some kind of slime growing in it. The middle and left jar have a tan colored fungi growing in with the pure white shroom fungi.

LOL....the one on the right looks like your porterhouse had mad cow disease.
Step away from the steak Bob, step away from the steak!!!

PF

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Thorns on Apr 15^th, 2004, 9:19pm

on 04/14/04 at 18:52:46, Bob P wrote:

In pic #4 and farther on, you can see how I cased the cakes on top with some vermiculite.

I'm getting ready to birth this weekend; what does this do?

Thorns

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by pinksharkmark on Apr 16^th, 2004, 4:23am

on 04/15/04 at 21:19:35, Thorns wrote:

I'm getting ready to birth this weekend; what does this do?

Putting some damp vermiculite on top acts as a mini casing layer. A "casing" is just a non-nutritious layer of porous material over top of the mycelial mass. It serves a couple of purposes:

1) it acts a water reservoir. Without a casing layer, there is no way to replenish water to the mycelial mass. Since mushrooms are 90 per cent water, once the mycelial mass exhausts the water it has locked up inside it through the production of fruitbodies, production halts -- even if the mycelium itself is still hardy enough to produce more.

2) it provides a micro-environment right at the interface of the mycelial mass and the casing material which is conducive to pinning (initiation of baby mushrooms). Sometimes a birthed cake which is reluctant to pin can be induced to pin by doing as Bob did -- adding a casing layer to the top. You will notice how in the last picture there is a clump of extremely robust mushrooms growing not from the sides of the cake, but from the casing layer.

It's a tradeoff, though -- any form of casing will increase the yield from a given mycelial mass, but it also increases the risk of contamination. The vermiculite-on-top-of-the-cake method Bob used is the least efficient form of casing (because the amount of moisture that small bit of vermiculite holds is relatively small) but at the same time the least likely to promote contamination. It's a great way to ease yourself into the full caasing method, though.

The full casing method described by grandteton is the most effective method of increasing yield, but also the most likely to produce contamination. The mold he describes is likely the dreaded "forest green mold" (trichoderma) and is almost impossible to kill completely. You can fight it off for a while -- maybe long enough to get a few mushrooms out of the infected trays -- but eradicating it completely is extremely difficult.

I have found that leaving a cased tray completely covered with no air circulation for an entire seven day period is a sure recipe for contamination. I never leave my trays covered for more than 48 hours after casing. I case, cover in plastic wrap with many holes poked in it (I use a fork to poke the holes) for two days, then remove the wrap, do a thorough air exchange, and cover it with fresh plastic wrap (also with holes poked in it). From then on I change the wrap and do another air exchange once a day until the pins appear, at which time the wrap is discarded completely and the tray is left in the terrarium to fruit.

And no, a terrarium is not absolutely essential for casings -- if you can keep the humidity in the space your trays are located in the mid to high eighty per cent range; say 85 to 88% relative humidity. Unless you live in Guam or Borneo this can be hard to do without some kind of enclosure -- i.e. a terrarium.

A terrarium is essential for fruiting bare cakes though.

pinky

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Bob P on Apr 16^th, 2004, 9:55am

Credit goes to Pinkshark for suggesting that I use the casing method in the above pics. It is correct that many of the best fruit originated from the vermiculite casing on top of the cake or from the base of the cake which also had a layer of vermiculite (in preparing the jars I put a layer of vermiculite on top of the growing media before I closed up the jars and after birthing this layer is at the bottom of the cake). I also used an eye dropper to add a few drops of distilled water to the top casing every day.

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Thorns on Apr 16^th, 2004, 11:35am

on 04/16/04 at 04:23:08, pinksharkmark wrote:

The vermiculite-on-top-of-the-cake method Bob used is the least efficient form of casing (because the amount of moisture that small bit of vermiculite holds is relatively small)

Thanks for the info Pinky. What is the best casing material? I am not too worried about contamination b/c I work in a microbiology lab with access to an autoclave, etc... This really helped my jars--all completely pure!

Also, is there a link to the method you refer to by grandteton? Thanks again,
Thorns

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by grandteton on Apr 16^th, 2004, 6:46pm

Pinky,

Thanks for the advice. It's making a lot of sense now. Being new and very keen to get rid of these CH I probably didn't read up as much as I should have before jumping in! I will give the birthing method a go with these last two jars and hopefully get enough crop to do me for the time being.

GT

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by pinksharkmark on Apr 16^th, 2004, 9:20pm

on 04/16/04 at 11:35:57, Thorns wrote:

Thanks for the info Pinky. What is the best casing material?

Lots of stuff works just fine as a casing material. My current favorite is straight coconut coir, but the rumor is that some brands of coir contain trichoderma, and most have fairly high levels of salt. If you thoroughly soak and rinse the stuff first, then autoclave it, you can get rid of both the salt and the contams. Also, coco coir can tend to dry at the surface fairly easily, so it tends to require more frequent misting than a mix of coco coir and vermiculite. The vermiculite granules act as mini-reservoirs to release water.

Some people swear that just straight vermiculite is all you need, others use a 50/50 mix of vermiculite and peat moss, buffered with oyster shell or some other form of calcium carbonate to combat the acidity of the peat moss. This is so-called "50/50+ mix" is probably the most widely used casing mixture. Still others use a mix of coco coir and vermiculite. Some mix all three. Some have had great success with a mix of 50/50 vermiculite and black potting soil.

To be honest, Psilocybe cubensis is such a forgiving mushroom that you should have success with any of them. If I was forced to recommend just one, I'd say go with 60% coco coir and 40% vermiculite (by volume). Just make sure to leach out all the salt from the coir, sterilize the mix, and away you go. I have found that the mycelium rips through the coir faster than it does through straight vermiculite or peat moss, so you can use a thicker casing layer (hence more water hence more eventual yield) than normal.

But I admit there are others out there who would advise you to go with the "50/50+ mix", and still others who are absolutely convinced that straight vermiculite is the easiest to prepare and the least likely to contaminate. Done correctly, all will work.

Also, is there a link to the method you refer to by grandteton?

There are tons of links all over the web. Here is a most excellent and extremely comprehensive place to start: http://www.shroomery.org/index/par/3288

The various subsections of this FAQ have links galore. You can literally spend days reading every last one, but it's not necessary. The main things are to make sure your casing material is free of contams (sterilize it, or at least pasteurize it), that the water content is within the acceptable range, that the layer is not too thick or too tightly packed, that there is sufficient air exchange, and that if you choose to go with any mixture including peat moss (which has in my opinion a better mechanical structure for pin formation than straight vermiculite) you make sure the ph is not acidic.

I must stress once again that if you are depending on this set of cakes to produce your medicine and you have an immediate need for it, do not risk going with a full-on cased crop your first time out. Properly done, the risk of contams from cased cakes is not all that much higher than fruiting bare cakes, but it is higher. There's nothing more tragic than casing a dozen beautiful healthy contam-free cakes which could have produced dozens of doses, only to see your casing trays covered in contams a week later.

My advice has always been and always will be -- do not try full casing for your first grow. Secure your basic stock of medicine first, then experiment with casing techniques for subsequent grows.

I do not consider the "mini casing" technique Bob's photos illustrate to be a full casing, by the way, so if you want to birth your cakes and leave half of them bare, and a mini casing layer on the other half, go ahead.

pinky

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Thorns on Apr 16^th, 2004, 11:17pm

Pinky,
Thanks for the wealth of info. After reading up on the different methods, I do think I will now try the full casing method with at least 1/2 of my jars.

However, there is a little confusion reguarding where you put the containers (terrarium or warm place) after you have cased them and for what length of time?

Do you wait for the mycelia to poke through the casing layer or for small pins to actually develop before putting them in a terrarium? Almost there,
Thorns

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by pinksharkmark on Apr 17^th, 2004, 12:31am

on 04/16/04 at 23:17:48, Thorns wrote:

However, there is a little confusion reguarding where you put the containers (terrarium or warm place) after you have cased them and for what length of time?

All that is covered in detail at the link I provided.

Quote:

Do you wait for the mycelia to poke through the casing layer or for small pins to actually develop before putting them in a terrarium?

Again, those questions are all answered in the FAQ at The Shroomery.

Every now and then, I let my tendency to educate folks get the best of me. Let's remember that this forum is a place for people to discuss treatments, not for discussing in detail methods to maximize the yield of the medicine you use for treatment. I just spent twenty minutes reviewing the information on that FAQ(without detouring to any of the othere links within the FAQ) and I can guarantee you that your questions are answered within the main FAQ itself.

Take some time to re-read it. You won't regret having invested your time, I promise you.

pinky

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by Thorns on Apr 17^th, 2004, 5:07pm

on 04/17/04 at 00:31:48, pinksharkmark wrote:

Let's remember that this forum is a place for people to discuss treatments, not for discussing in detail methods to maximize the yield of the medicine you use for treatment.

Yes, I do realize that this isn't a message board for the fine tuning of 'farming' techniques. I guess I got just a little too excited about moving on to the next step and it drove me to be somewhat selfish and impatient.

I just want to be one of the success stories that I have read about here. Given the choice of fighting insurance companies, Dr.'s, and popping pills for the rest of life or dosing every couple of months so that I can lead a somewhat normal life again--Well, I think we know what my choice is at the moment.

It's just a little difficult to determine what is the correct/best method with the plethora of info that is out on the web with this topic. I should have and I will divert future inquiries to a more discreet method of communication. Although, I do not think that I'll have any--the FAQ you mention is pretty thorough. Thanks again,
Thorns

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by pinksharkmark on Apr 17^th, 2004, 6:08pm

Heh. No problem.

You can e-mail me if you wish. I've coached dozens of folks through the process.

pinky

Title: Re: Shrooms growing question
Post by grandteton on Apr 18^th, 2004, 7:04am

I know how you feel, Thorns.

When you're growing these for the first time and have a dozen links to various information sources, it does very much become a bit of information overload! And when you're so keen to get it right first time, you really do want to know 'the best' method to ensure success.

It's helps so much to have some specific answers to the queries you have, rather than a 3 or 4 options to choose from.

So thanks again Pinky and co for your help.

Grand Teton
:)