Getting ready for some MycoPorn!!

[shroom_seeker]

I recently placed an order from SpaceCowboy for his 3 bags of mushroom spawn special, which includes dowels of Shiitake and 2 types of Oyster mushrooms.
I plan on using 1/2 pint and 1 pint mason jars a la pf style. Hardwood sawdust will be used along with a supplement (probably millet and brf).

The shiitake will be birthed from jars and possibly cased (not sure if they need it); I understand the shiitake will "bark-over" before fruiting which should be pretty interesting to see. The oysters will either be fruited from their jars or birthed and DEC - any suggestions? I plan on cold-dunking any cakes that may be birthed of either type. For the most part I plan on following the pf tek and fruiting these jars in a mono tub under high humidity.

One big question: The jar caps will be left intact and taken off after sterilization to allow dowels insertion - when inserting dowels should they penetrate the contam barrier or simply touch it without passing through?
Well, I look forward to getting started and can hardly wait for the porn. Please comment on my thread especially if you have any experience growing these edibles from mason jars! The rest follows...

[Hippie3]

i hope you post plenty of pix, i'm sure many of us are interested in seeing how spacecowboy 's stuff works out.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by shroom_seeker

One big question: The jar caps will be left intact and taken off after sterilization to allow dowels insertion - when inserting dowels should they penetrate the contam barrier or simply touch it without passing through?

I insert my dowels through the dry contamination barrier so that they touch or penetrate the dry substrate. This is risky if done in the open air, but so far I have not been getting much contamination. Use your better judgment on it.

The member I got this idea from (Bluecat) stated that all you really need is one dowel right down the middle.

I have found that when I do get contams taking over, it usually starts around the jar edges by the inoculation points. I am beginning to believe that in most of my inoculations I am getting contamination breaches of the barrier, just the mushroom mycelium is able to grow faster then the contam and out compete/grow the contam for substrate domination. Probably one of the reasons I have better results with wheat bran vs brown rice flour as a supplement to the oak sawdust used vs other grow media.

Originally Posted by Hippie3

i hope you post plenty of pix, i'm sure many of us are interested in seeing how spacecowboy 's stuff works out.

Me too, took me 5 years of experimenting to get to where I am at by following mainly what I have learned here, from books, and MushWorld too. So far it works, and is working for others.

I am using the same strains and spawn guy from when I started. Even though these strains are meant for natural log cultivation, they also work on composite substrate too. I feel that I am kinda lucky to have this spawn guy because his only stipulation on the use of his spawn is that I do not try to re-isolate it (guessing that means collect spores and start a new strain). Plus these strains are also used to create grain spawn (spawn guy sells them that way too). I am surprised no one has bought spawn from me and tried to see how far they can stretch it. It was one of my first experiments.

Upon talking with my spawn guy it was pointed out to me that he works from master cultures stored cryogenic. I am given the impression that when the isolates are grown up for spawn that they are either geared towards composite or natural cultivation. He does not share his cryogenic technique or composite substrate formulas with me, just spawning technique for natural and composite growing.

God Bless for your help and support. Feedback wanted.

[shroom_seeker]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

i hope you post plenty of pix.

Hip - you should know by now that's my favortie part.

I received my spawn today, quicker than expected as I'm still scrambling to get all my materials together. The dowels were packaged well and look exceptionally healthy. Thanks for including a paper copy of the instructions and grow parameters as well (also offered on website). No doubt I've been given a good start; hopefully I can do SC's product justice and don't end up "screwing the pooch" on this one.

I plan on using two dozen wide mouth pint mason jars purchased today. Originally I was going to mix it up with some wide half-pints but my shop seems to have stopped carrying them. I'm not sure if I will use one dowel per jar or multiple, leaning towards one "right down the middle" but perhaps I'll try both methods.

I still need to get a hold of some hardwood sawdust to use for substrate. I do have a couple bags of pet bedding (pics below) but I'm not sure if they will work because they are softwood chips - red cedar and pine. I also need to pick up supplement - wheat bran, millet, or both to mix in with the sawdust.

Other stuff I have laying around that could be used include vermiculite, coco coir, and brown rice flower. I plan on mixing it up and experimenting a little; it'll be fun to see what comes out.

Thanks SpaceCowboy for offering spawn for these edibles (it even came chilled - very professional). I'm a beginner to mushroom cultivation so please don't hesitate to offer advice! I'll keep ya updated.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by shroom_seeker

...I plan on using 1/2 pint and 1 pint mason jars a la pf style...

I recently did some shiitake in a regular mouth pint, and it is fruiting invitro. I have no idea how to get them out of the jar without breaking it. I have pics, but are on a different computer at this time so I will upload them later. Make sure you can remove the shiitake cakes from the jars for fruiting.

[shroom_seeker]

Thanks for the warning Space. So far I'm using 1 pint wide mouth jars - hopefully I can birth the shiitakes from these!

On 4/20 I made my first batch of 6 jars. I mixed 8 cups of pine bedding, 4 cups of organic wheat bran, and 4 cups of water in a large mixing bowl. This recipe works well because it fills all the jars just to the point where you want to start a germ barrier and no mix is wasted; dry pine bedding was applied as a barrier. I punched holes in the center of the substrate for dowel insertation and capped off with a bit of cotton.

I was negligent during PC'ing as my friends invited me over for a 420 smoke - jars reached 16psi for an undetermined length of time (~20min). The next day I innoculated jars with 1 dowel of Oyster spawn (Pleurotus ostreatus) per jar. Unfortunately the dry pine barrier seemed damp, probably from the poor pc'ing, so between that and the use of pine sawdust we'll see if anything happens.

Space- I noticed in one of your edible threads that you innoculate with several dowels down the center of each jar. I plan to try this next time around because I have plenty of dowels and it likely speeds up colonization in these pint jars. I still want to get my hand on some hardwood sawdust for the shiitake and plan on experimenting a little with the oyster spawn.

Will keep you posted...

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by shroom_seeker

Space- I noticed in one of your edible threads that you innoculate with several dowels down the center of each jar. I plan to try this next time around because I have plenty of dowels and it likely speeds up colonization in these pint jars. I still want to get my hand on some hardwood sawdust for the shiitake and plan on experimenting a little with the oyster spawn.

Will keep you posted...

When I do the several down the middle I have done them in the flow hood. Also I just realized that the sawdust your using is pine or cedar...not sure how the mushrooms will react to it, but the wheat bran so far has given me really good results vs using BRF, unless using the straight BRF/vermiculite as called for by the PF Tek. Be interesting to see how it turns out.

I hope to start offering white oak sawdust again, but the weight was killing me on shipping it with spawn. Been checking out sites that offer oak wood chips for cooking to see how they price as a starting point.

Also here are pics of the invitro pint and an invitro half pint. I am hoping that the pint jar is just showing popcorning, but it looks like I have 2 maybe 3 mushrooms pinning. The half pint has one nice sized fruit body, and what looks to be another pinning on the opposite side of the jar.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by shroom_seeker

...I mixed 8 cups of pine bedding, 4 cups of organic wheat bran,...

Thats a pretty good ratio, kinda like PF substrate only wheat bran instead of BRF, plus the vermiculite in the PF substrate is not consumed, just acts like a scaffolding to retain water and create air pockets from what I am lead to believe. Bet you have some decent results. In the past I have gotten fruits pretty quickly off PF substrate (30-45 days from what I recall).

The shiitake in the last pics and these up to date pics were grown off a 50/50 mix of bran and oak sawdust by volume. So far the 1/2 pint has put out 3 decent mushies invitro, and all I did was inoculate around the edges with 4 plugs and a 5th one down the center, removed the jar lid after colonization, then set it and forget it in a home made storage tote terrarium with perilit to keep humidity. It gets indirect sunlight as it is sitting in front of a window with Venetian blinds.

Took a 360' view shoot of the pint. I am hoping to free the 1/2 pint cake, but the fruitbody growth kind of has it wedged in place.

[shroom_seeker]

I tweaked the heat in my incubator from 75 to 80 degrees and noticed some colonization soon afterwards. Looks like my jars survived the pc'ing and show no signs of contamination yet. I hope to get all my spawn going soon - just been pretty busy as of late.

Thanks for sharing the nice shiitake pics Spacecowboy. If all goes well I may have some oysters to share soon.

[dizzydank]

lookn good.

[shroom_seeker]

5 of my 6 oyster cakes are ~80% colonized; one cake didn't seem to do anything so I'll likely insert another dowel and try again.

Cambos seem to look well, hope to see some pins soon.

[fahtster]

those cakes look nice and happy. good luck on the oysters!

fahtster

[shroom_seeker]

Originally Posted by fahtster

those cakes look nice and happy. good luck on the oysters!

Thanks Fahster! I'm still pretty new to growing so its always nice to hear things look good; really looking forward to some oysters.

[Hippie3]

i'm moving the dunk post to its' own thread.

[shroom_seeker]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

i'm moving the dunk post to its' own thread.

[FlyvAgaric]

lookin good man.

[shroom_seeker]

Left my babies for 3 days with no light or fresh air. Pins started to pop up just before leaving; I returned to mushrooms!

[shroom_seeker]

Left my babies alone for another day; by the time I returned some mushrooms had started to drop spores. Mature mushrooms were harvested and put in dryer. There is a biggun growing on the back middle cake in picture that I am interested in cloning (without agar). If anyone has a simple tek please pass it my way, also I will check vaults.

Oysters are just about 100% and will be going into fruiting chamber soon.

nice cambos!
you can clone a tissue into an LC jar right away..
good luck.. keep us posted!

[shroom_seeker]

Thanks Vinz - I plan to try a LC to make a clone.

These cambo cakes gave a real nice first flush - I plan to start picking 'em a little sooner (before veil breaks) to avoid the spore-storm that has just taken place in my tub. Very pleased altogether, as these cakes were my first successful home-made batch.

nice! i love cambos.. they were my first too.. congratulations on your grow.. theres that tek about cloning the tissue of the mushroom by using a syringe to poke thru it..
like having a syringe with some cc's of distilled water in it, then wipe the outside of the mushroom with h202.. then, poke it on that spot with the clean needle of the syringe.. then pull it out.. then ul have tissue inside the needle which stays clean
and you can squirt it into the LC with the help of the distilled water to push the tissue out..