Have trich & cobweb on casing

[Fyr Pyxy]

My FOAF has been picking mushrooms from her very first flush for about two days and today she found trich & cobweb. Wet down the trich to keep airborn to a minumum and removed it and all mushrooms around it with a spoon. Also, casing had just been spot watered yesterday, very carefully using a syringe, because it was starting to dry out.

Cambodian is being grown bulk in a tub approx 16" x 35" in a 4 shelf plastic enclosed greenhouse. She used vermiculite, peat and crushed oyster shells for casing. The greenhouse is humidified using an ultrasonic unit in a bucket with air from a couple of fishtank pumps pushing it in. Temp is currently running 72 - 75F although it reached 80F last night when the a/c unit had a hiccup. Rh varies from 75-85.

Since this is my FOAF's very first time growing she is reluctant to just give up and throw the tub out, as some threads have mentioned. She read that sprinkling the top of a tub with lime (using the oyster shells) while it's still in the mycellium stage can help to prevent trich. Can it be sprinkled on now, with mushrooms growing, and might it help to prevent the trich from coming back?
Also, can the mushroom bodies themselves be hurt if sprayed with the hydrogen peroxide to get rid of the cobweb?

There is another cased tub in the greenhouse, which has been covered with Glad wrap the whole time. Is there any chance that this tub may be safe?

Can a spore print be safely taken from one of the mushrooms still in the infected tub? It's the biggest mushroom in the tub.

Please help!!

[golly]

Welcome to Topia...!
Need to increase your ventilation for mold prevention..Lime will only subdue the trich that it's in contact with , so it's likely there will be more..
Shrooms don't like peroxide much - they may turn blue if sprayed directly..i would put that casing outside if possible .. keep away from the healthy ones..

Ps..Gen not a good idea to print from moldy grows...

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by Fyr Pyxy

My FOAF has been picking mushrooms from her very first flush for about two days and today she found trich & cobweb. Wet down the trich to keep airborn to a minumum and removed it and all mushrooms around it with a spoon. Also, casing had just been spot watered yesterday, very carefully using a syringe, because it was starting to dry out.

Cambodian is being grown bulk in a tub approx 16" x 35" in a 4 shelf plastic enclosed greenhouse. She used vermiculite, peat and crushed oyster shells for casing. The greenhouse is humidified using an ultrasonic unit in a bucket with air from a couple of fishtank pumps pushing it in. Temp is currently running 72 - 75F although it reached 80F last night when the a/c unit had a hiccup. Rh varies from 75-85.

Since this is my FOAF's very first time growing she is reluctant to just give up and throw the tub out, as some threads have mentioned. She read that sprinkling the top of a tub with lime (using the oyster shells) while it's still in the mycellium stage can help to prevent trich. Can it be sprinkled on now, with mushrooms growing, and might it help to prevent the trich from coming back?
Also, can the mushroom bodies themselves be hurt if sprayed with the hydrogen peroxide to get rid of the cobweb?

There is another cased tub in the greenhouse, which has been covered with Glad wrap the whole time. Is there any chance that this tub may be safe?

Can a spore print be safely taken from one of the mushrooms still in the infected tub? It's the biggest mushroom in the tub.

Please help!!

Once trich gets in, it's a mean one. If you try to save a substrate, be sure to remove a very large chunk around the contaminated spot since it's a lot deeper than it appears (the leading edge of the contamination is not visible to the naked eye and deeper that it looks). Also, once it goes green it's a threat to everything nearby. I'd cover the patch of trich with a paper towel soaked in peroxide to keep the spores down while removing it. Don't spray the trich with anything as that will just disburse the spores.

Sometimes covering a patch of contamination with salt inhibits it enough to get the last flush or two out before it goes all bad. You have to catch it very early for salt to work.

Peroxide will not kill trich or cobweb, just like it won't kill mushroom mycelium (it actually can, but if it's strong enough to kill trich, it'll also kill your myc.). It does kill spores however so using it is a good idea to prevent outbreaks from spreading.


Personally, I factor occasional losses into my grows and make redundant copies of most steps: Several spore prints to several syringes (or 10 petri dishes) to several BRF jars until finally I pick the one best looking jar out of 5 to make my blended slurry-in-a-hurry to inoculate spawn masters with. With backups ready to go, it's easier for me to make the decision to toss the contaminated grow, and usually I just toss them outside and get a few more flushes after a good rain. I'd dump it trich-side down.

So, IMO it's better to toss it and move on to the next grow. It's a false economy to hold out for a few mushrooms and in the process potentially jeopardize all future grows until the area is thoroughly cleaned (by that I mean things like bleach-mopping the ceilings, windows, trim, floor etc.. for starters).

Good luck, and keep it clean!

[Fyr Pyxy]

Thanks for your quick reply golly.

Ventilation; There are three fishtank pumps pushing the mist into the top two shelves of the greenhouse. These are isolated from the bottom half of the gh, except for a small fan which is aimed at a 1 1/2" diameter pipe to help with air circulation. How much more would you suggest is needed? Is it still necessary to open and manually fan a couple of times a day?
Should she just pick every shroom and then dump the casing onto the compost pile?

[Fyr Pyxy]

Thanks TV

My FOAF wants to try to get as many shrooms as possible, since this is her very first grow, so will be trying to subdue any mold growth over the next day or two with peroxide and salt. Will be keeping a very close eye on things and picking what she can.

The cobweb is at the far right of the tub, the large shroom that she wants to print from is about 2" from the left edge, and the trich was 16" from the large shroom. Is there a chance that a print could be clean? She really wants more spore to start another round with.

[golly]

It always helps to give a forcefull fanning occasionally...It could be your Humidity is too high, being as grey mold is forming on the surface..Or mebbe u went too long in incubation with too little air exchange...

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by Fyr Pyxy

My FOAF wants to try to get as many shrooms as possible, since this is her very first grow, so will be trying to subdue any mold growth over the next day or two with peroxide and salt. Will be keeping a very close eye on things and picking what she can.

That sounds really familiar. I think it might be because I did the exact same things for the exact same reasons for more grows than I care to mention while I was learning and working the bugs out of home mycology, so to speak.

Often I would get a few more shrooms as the trich patch quickly expanded, then I'd get pissed off and toss it outside. Then, of course, I'd go out and glance at them a few days to a week later and often there'd be a solid flush of very large mushrooms sitting there. I usually got there too late and they were black with spores and buggy, so I began checking them every two days, or every 8 hours if pins were visible. They're fast outside.

I soon realized I should dump them under bushes or on the north side of buildings to keep them out of direct sun, and later I began to put a big piece of window screen over them (that I tucked under the chunk of substrate, if possible) to keep the flies and snails out. As I got more aggressive with how I treated them I started to give them a good soaking with the hose if it hadn't been raining much. A good way to water them quickly but gently is to spray the full blast of the hose into the bushes above them. After I added the screen I'd often get 3-4 flushes and few if any bugs, and that was sometimes even after harvesting 2-4 flushes indoors.

When dumping contaminated subs, cut off and quarantine the infected parts somewhere else or even bag them and throw them out in the trash.

I guess all that is just to say I wanted the most bang for my buck too and when bad trich outbreaks happened, putting them outside gave me what I was after so long as the weather wasn't too cold (if it's too hot and dry, water more often and cover w/ mulch).

[BuckarooBanzai]

Get that tray out of your house!

Once trich goes green, it is already sporulating. Once your environment gets infested with trich spores...well, moving is easier than the amount of cleaning you have to do.

Direct sunlight exposure will kill trich. Almost nothing else you can do that won't destroy your project can fight trich.

GET IT OUT!!!

[feralronin]

Originally Posted by BuckarooBanzai

Get that tray out of your house!
Direct sunlight exposure will kill trich. Almost nothing else you can do that won't destroy your project can fight trich.

GET IT OUT!!!

Didnt know that BB thanks.

[Fyr Pyxy]

Thanks TV. The contaminated tub has been dumped outside on the compost heap, slightly surrounded with straw and watered. The screen sounds like a good idea. We will all be keeping a close eye on it for fruiting!

My FOAF is just hoping that all the disinfecting done in the greenhouse has worked and there is nothing of the trich left. Keep your fingers crossed for me! After spraying the whole thing down with bleach, leaving it to dry overnight and then wiping it out with alcohol, she then lightly sprinkled the surface of the tub that had been recently cased with hydrated lime and calcium carbonate. Very lightly. The strands of mycellium are just starting to poke through now. She's also keeping the Rh a bit lower (about 80% for now)and doing 2-3 FAE a day. The Rh will get dropped when the mycellium seems to be fully colonized.

I did lots of research online on trich to find out if it is harmful to humans and found out that it it not. Couldn't find anything either way about the cobweb. Anyone know?

[BuckarooBanzai]

Trich is only harmful to humans if you get it growing on you!

Seriously, Trich is considered extremely beneficial to green plants. Some of the coir out there for hydroponic substrate use is actually intentionally infected with Trich to improve growing conditions.

As far as I know, cobweb has no significant health risk associated with it.

The "seeds" of both contaminants, Trich and cobweb, are incredibly prevalent in the natural world and almost impossible to avoid once your project gets exposed to the air.

What you can avoid are the conditions under which both thrive: stale, moist air in the dark. Good FAE will help more than anything else to keep the green monster at bay!