Do you dunk your bulk projects?

[RedOctober]

I was curious if anybody finds it necessary or helpful to dunk a bulk tray? I know that some people dunk logs and I always dunk jars with fantastic results. There is of course the issue of feasability. You can't easily pry a rectangular brick of mycelium colonized substrate out of a tray without the thing falling apart on you. But if you have done it in a tray with holes along the sides, couldn't you just dunk the whole tray and the water would just seep in and permeate the substrate? The reason I ask is that it would seem to simulate the water that the ground receives during a rainstorm which is then usually followed by mushroom fruiting immideatly afterward. In other words, it's closely modeled on nature. I find that dunking cakes makes the mycelium fluff up nicely and fruit tremendously so I dunk after each flush. I thought why wouldn't the same apply to a tray? I am in the process of finishing a tray where colonization of the casing is just about complete but the growth is not terribly "thick"; what I mean is that I can still see a lot of coir, it's not a sea of white. It is much more rhizomorphic than my usual cakes though.

So is dunking advisable, or would simply misting heavily from a sprayer be sufficient?

[Hippie3]

flooding is what one does with large projects,
much as you just described.

[RedOctober]

....flooding being....dunking a perforated tray?

Do you dunk berfore the first flush, just after the casing gets colonized?

[ANON]

flooding = taking your tub and pouring water into it.

[drtask]

i have a question as to after you flood your tray. a foaf dunked a monotub project and it contamed and failed horribly. he is worried that after dunking for say, 24 hours, that the tray would simply be too wet, as if one was using over-hydrated hpoo. what would be the most efficient way to get the tray back down to field capacity after the dunking? could one place the inverted tray on something to support the tray and let it drain for 20 min. or so?

[GoVols]

Originally Posted by drtask

i have a question as to after you flood your tray. a foaf dunked a monotub project and it contamed and failed horribly. he is worried that after dunking for say, 24 hours, that the tray would simply be too wet, as if one was using over-hydrated hpoo. what would be the most efficient way to get the tray back down to field capacity after the dunking? could one place the inverted tray on something to support the tray and let it drain for 20 min. or so?

I usually sit it in my kitchen sink and pour water over it and let it sit for a couple of hours. 24 is too long.

[Hippie3]

the problem i see most often is failure to drain long enough.
the bigger the mass the longer it takes to drain.
i recommend a full 24 hours to drain
then check back in another day
by looking under it and removing any free water pooling there.

[Nabby]

Wire racks are a godsend for this sort of thing, but if you can't get your big bulk grow out as one big brick, maybe it's not colonized enough? The myc holds it together pretty well... see my dixieland growlog, I birthed that bulk like a big cake. http://forums.mycotopia.net/mushroom...ixielands.html