Quick Bleach Dunk?

[nick23]

I am thinking about doing a bleach dunk at birth. Do I only dunk in the bleach solution for a half hour or do I dunk in the bleach solution for the full 24 hours?

[dial8]

No need for bleach unless you think there is a contaminant present. Dunking in bleach without cause will only slow down myc growth. Try just a clean water dunk.

[nick23]

There are some brown spots on the jar. I have birthed like this before and been able to fruit the cakes but they typically go to shit after 2 flushes so I want to try and prevent that with the bleach dunk.

[Looky]

The brown spots are most likely just myc waste. Click on bleach and it should tell you. I wouldn't do a bleach dunk though either unless you're sure of a contam, it will stall things a bit.

[Myketos]

Swim has seen better results with bleach dunking on 10 + varieties , than ever with distilled or spring h20 dunks. Sense using the bleach dunks (always wiil) every flush after the 1st one, even with verm/coir subs they average 6-8 flushes dropping an average of 10g wet after the 3rd flush , friends of swims have all switched to bleach dunks , and are achieving the same results. Never noticed slowing at all, in pins sometimes in 24hrs after dunk always within 24-72hrs ....try it

[BuckarooBanzai]

Nah, stay away from the bleach unless you are fighting contamination.

Dilute bleach doesn't kill mycelia, but it most assuredly does stunt it's growth. I have noted this with cakes many, many times. I have seen bleach dunked cakes show some surface bluing from the stress.

How could adding poison to the dunk water possibly make a cake or a bulk sub perform better?

[warriorsoul]

I'll play devil's advocate here..

Perhaps its the slight stress of the bleach dunk that accelerates pinning, I've seen in grows that have had a slight bacteria infection result in massive fruiting, perhaps in response to the less than ideal mycelium conditions.

I think fungi would be more than happy to stay in its mycelium stage (vegatative) forever, it fruits when conditions become less than ideal, in order to survive.

We should look at why mushrooms fruit (a response to stress) and the fruiting parameters and triggers differently than what would be ideal for simply mycelium growth.

Of course stress-trigger and stress-harm is a fine line...

BTW.. ive never used bleach dunks, its just a working hypothesis .

[BuckarooBanzai]

I have never heard the theory that mycelia fruits simply as a response to stress. Could you give me a little more info on your source for that?

[warriorsoul]

It does seem counter intuitive, yet..

"Fruitbodies ONLY form in response to some stress in the environment... heat, cold, fire, flood, running out of food, that sort of thing."

Although they are stress triggers they "stimulate" the mycelium to fruit.

http://www.alohamedicinals.com/Quality_Web_Page.htm

It seems our understanding of the mechanisms of fungi morphogenesis have to be synthesized into a complete story.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw8...uiting&f=false


Once pinning is started, a different set of factors independent from stress triggers play a role in overall fruit production (Co2 and humidity levels).


http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=c...EmbiozNjCkpLlw


Hope that helps!

[BuckarooBanzai]

I think I follow your logic.

I would respond that the stress I wish to apply is "running out of food" by completely colonizing the available bulk substrate. I also like to stress by introducing fruiting conditions before a substrate is 100% colonized.

I do not like to stress by denying available water in the substrate.

I do not wish to stress them by introducing toxins into the environment.

I want to stress them with state changes somewhat similar to natural growing conditions, though amplified.

BUT!

If ya got some "bleach dunk did this, water dunk did this" type pics to share - I'm totally into looking at those, man.

Everything I know about mushies, I learned by reading shit and looking at pics in posts. What I "know" I have learned. Most of what I've "learned," I've learned here. Most of what I "believe" is from playing around with cultures and grows over these last three years.

I am going to do some reading in "Microbiology Of Fermented Foods," by the way. I saw some bits and pieces there that looked interesting.

Thanks for the linkage.

I still think bleach dunks are a bad idea unless you are combating a contam.