Temp & light questions for invitro grow

[Hobbit Girl]

Hi, my FOAF recently knocked up some jars and has them in an approx. 80 degree environment with 100% 24/7 light provided by christmas tree lights. Because she'll be doing some traveling and can't leave them in their environment during the entire colonization period, she'll need to move them into a dark environment for two periods of about a week each, with temps in the 65-70 range. She has the following questions:
1. Will this fluctuation in temp and light damage the mycelium, or will it just slow it down, and when restored to light and warmth they will continue to colonize?
2. If jars are already colonized, will they fruit in darkness and lower temps? Seems to me I read somewhere that they will, albeit more slowly.

Thanks!

[surf.shaman]

you want darkness for the first part. you do not want light until you are ready to fruit. 80 is a good temp for colonizing mid 70s for fruiting.

[steeq]

Actually light from day one is what most do with invitro but I would get rid of those Christmas lights and go buy a push LED light from Wal Mart for $5-$10. Christmas lights are dangerous and can cause fire. Lookyhere had this problem about a year ago on here.

They should be fine if you can't get them light while you are gone it just will slow things down a bit. I would personally lower the temps down now to slow things down because they can pin in as little as 2-3 weeks and if you're going to be in and out of town over the next few weeks...

Invitro is great and super easy, try to get some FAE during fruiting if you can and dunk after the 1st flush and each flush thereafter. Good luck!

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by steeq

Actually light from day one is what most do with invitro but I would get rid of those Christmas lights and go buy a push LED light from Wal Mart for $5-$10. Christmas lights are dangerous and can cause fire. Lookyhere had this problem about a year ago on here.

They should be fine if you can't get them light while you are gone it just will slow things down a bit. I would personally lower the temps down now to slow things down because they can pin in as little as 2-3 weeks and if you're going to be in and out of town over the next few weeks...

Invitro is great and super easy, try to get some FAE during fruiting if you can and dunk after the 1st flush and each flush thereafter. Good luck!

Excellent. Thanks for the advice. I'm a little worried though now about the christmas lights. My FOAF is using them not just for light, but also for warmth. She tried one of those push lights, but it really quickly drained the batteries.

[Hippie3]

xmas lites will work if that's all you got.
for safety just put them on a timer
so they can shut off and cool down now & then

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

xmas lites will work if that's all you got.
for safety just put them on a timer
so they can shut off and cool down now & then

So you don't think there's a fire danger? I had assumed not, because people use zillions of them every year. Thanks, Hippie.

[Hippie3]

if left on for days on end,
cheap lights might get hot enough
to melt plastic
but unless there's an electrical short in the wiring
i doubt it could ignite a fire.
still it would be wise to take a few simple precautions,
a timer as i mentioned to turn it off and on,
a smoke detector
and of course keep flammables well away.

your jars that you inoculated will be fine. the FOAF thing, pointless.
like i said, your jars will be fine. the lower temperatures will just slow things down a bit.

when it comes time to fruit, i would definitely upgrade your lighting.

[Soliver]

Originally Posted by seintos

when it comes time to fruit, i would definitely upgrade your lighting.

She's not growing reefer here... the lighting is the least of your concern,
as long as you have some you'll be just fine.

Growing invitro is like watching paint dry, and about as difficult. The only
thing you can do to mess it up is to stress the jars too much, or potentially
fry 'em by messing around with new light / heat sources after they're colonized...

Lower temps for a bit won't hurt at all, may slow it down a bit, no sweat.
Unless your X-mas lights are providing heat as well as light, you COULD
swap 'em for something that produces less heat, but like Hip said, a timer
is an inexpensive item and should ease any paranoia.

I have Xmas lights in many closets here at home (for people light) and
haven't burnt the house down yet.



soliver

It's a proven fact that light in the daylight spectrum range is best for fruiting. (aside from indirect sunlight)
Incandescent x-mas lights don't exactly provide this.

No, she's not growing reefer and x-mas will get the job done by the hair of their chin but that's no reason to use the worst possible light source.

Any time you're growing something that occurs naturally, you are ideally wanting to come as close as possible to recreating those natural conditions.

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by Soliver

She's not growing reefer here... the lighting is the least of your concern,
as long as you have some you'll be just fine.

Growing invitro is like watching paint dry, and about as difficult. The only
thing you can do to mess it up is to stress the jars too much, or potentially
fry 'em by messing around with new light / heat sources after they're colonized...

Lower temps for a bit won't hurt at all, may slow it down a bit, no sweat.
Unless your X-mas lights are providing heat as well as light, you COULD
swap 'em for something that produces less heat, but like Hip said, a timer
is an inexpensive item and should ease any paranoia.

I have Xmas lights in many closets here at home (for people light) and
haven't burnt the house down yet.



soliver

Thanks a lot for this, especially the reassurance on how tough the jars are during invitro grow. I also appreciate Seintos' info on light quality. During fruiting she'll certainly try to provide a better quality light source.

[Hippie3]

Any time you're growing something that occurs naturally, you are ideally wanting to come as close as possible to recreating those natural conditions.

to the contrary-
one wants to improve on nature.
that's the whole idea of cultivation
as opposed to gathering from the wild.
in nature the temperature and humidity is all over the dial daily-
shrooms can survive, maybe,
but if you control the heat and humidity to optimum ranges
growth will be faster, yields higher, problems fewer.
and surely
while bugs abound in nature
no one in their right mind
deliberately brings bugs into their grow area.
we do not mimic nature,
we use our intelligence, skill and tools
to take control of the equation
instead of just allowing random events
to decide the matter.
why wait for rain when the crops are dying ?
grab a water can -
might be un-natural
but it's smart.

[Hippie3]

Originally Posted by Soliver

She's not growing reefer here... the lighting is the least of your concern,
as long as you have some you'll be just fine.

Growing invitro is like watching paint dry, and about as difficult. The only
thing you can do to mess it up is to stress the jars too much, or potentially
fry 'em by messing around with new light / heat sources after they're colonized...

Lower temps for a bit won't hurt at all, may slow it down a bit, no sweat.
Unless your X-mas lights are providing heat as well as light, you COULD
swap 'em for something that produces less heat, but like Hip said, a timer
is an inexpensive item and should ease any paranoia.

I have Xmas lights in many closets here at home (for people light) and
haven't burnt the house down yet.



soliver

listen to soliver-
he actually knows what he's talking about.

yes, use incandescent x mas lights and enjoy sub optimal yields.

and hip, i know you're an admin, but i'm not afraid to say this:

yeah, take what i said and throw it completely out of context. very mature.

[Hippie3]

oh bullshit.
i invented the invitro tek
and i know what works,
been doing it many years now.

save your bogus wisdom
for arguing with newbies-
you're talking to hippie3 now man.


now
heard your pov and advice,
move along
before i move you.

before you move me?

oh i forgot, this is the only myco forum on the entire internet.

i promise to behave and bow to you mindlessly like everyone else from here on out.

[buteo]

sub optimal yeilds are adequate

[Hippie3]

eh, he's full of himself,
and that's bullshit.

a brief flash of light -any kind of light-
will begin the pinning process
if repeated daily.

these are fungi,
they do not use light to grow like plants do,
they have no chlorophyll at all,
for them light is just a signal
that the mycellia has reached the surface
and it's time to fruit.

you could blast them 24 hours a day
with 10,000 watts of top notch grow lights
and you won't get a single more gram
than the guy who opens his sock drawer
and shines a flashlight on his jars 2 seconds a day.

[hyphaenation]

I once had a straw/poo log of F+ that I accidently left colonizing in a dark cupboard. There couldn't have been more than a sliver of light coming into this closed cupboard ( very dim room) which was only open a couple times in a month.

When I remembered the log I went to clean up what I thought would be can ugly mess (looked like a touch of wetspot before I abandoned it).

Turns out the F+ strain decided it was going to grow invitro. It burst through the seams of the bag after getting quite large. Here's what I found when I opened the cupboard ...



Best of luck Hobbit. Keep up the good work.

[buteo]

i leave mexi cubs under my bed and get tons of mushies...

[steeq]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

xmas lites will work if that's all you got.
for safety just put them on a timer
so they can shut off and cool down now & then

Sorry for the bad info, I was referring to an accident someone on here last year. There are some heat issues to watch out for if you leave them on as a heat source in an enclosed area. Listen to Hip and Soliver they know there stuff fo sho.

[Hobbit Girl]

Thanks all for the advice, especially the reassurances from Soliver and Hippie, that everything is not getting fucked up by the christmas tree lights!

[Hobbit Girl]

Hi, I know that Hippie recommends light 24/7 for an invitro grow during the entire colonization period, and through fruiting as well. Question. Would I be better off maintaining stable temps in a dark environment during the colonization period (heat bomb in a tub with jars), than by using christmas tree lights as a supplemental heating source which produce uneven and fluctuating temps? Bottom line, will the jars produce as big a yield invitro (even if slower) by exposing to light only after the jars have colonized in darkness?

Appreciate any/all advise as always!

[steeq]

Hippie actually only recommends some light during the incubation stage with invitro. You don't need 24/7 light. Just a little each day will be fine, even a few seconds but with Christmas lights you'd probably want more like 30 minutes or so.

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by hyphaenation

I once had a straw/poo log of F+ that I accidently left colonizing in a dark cupboard. There couldn't have been more than a sliver of light coming into this closed cupboard ( very dim room) which was only open a couple times in a month.

When I remembered the log I went to clean up what I thought would be can ugly mess (looked like a touch of wetspot before I abandoned it).

Turns out the F+ strain decided it was going to grow invitro. It burst through the seams of the bag after getting quite large. Here's what I found when I opened the cupboard ...



Best of luck Hobbit. Keep up the good work.

That's REALLY encouraging!

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by steeq

Hippie actually only recommends some light during the incubation stage with invitro. You don't need 24/7 light. Just a little each day will be fine, even a few seconds but with Christmas lights you'd probably want more like 30 minutes or so.

Huh. I was pretty sure he recommended 24/7. But what if none can be provided, will light during fruiting still provide as good a yield?

[steeq]

Originally Posted by Hobbit Girl

Huh. I was pretty sure he recommended 24/7. But what if none can be provided, will light during fruiting still provide as good a yield?

24/7 is not needed, I only give mine 1 hour a day but even that isn't needed. Take a look back through this thread, Hippie and Hyph address this issue. Light triggers the pinning so if you wait until they are colonized completely for light, it just slows down the process a bit. g'luck

[chimp]

Hobbit girl , they speak the truth. Not much light at all is needed. A little bit of indirect sunlight is all I have ever used and it works for me...invitro or not. It's still the same idea and the same life cycle of the mushroom.

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by oibchip

Hobbit girl , they speak the truth. Not much light at all is needed. A little bit of indirect sunlight is all I have ever used and it works for me...invitro or not. It's still the same idea and the same life cycle of the mushroom.

Thanks, and sorry if I've overlooked something, but do you all think it's ok to do without any light at all during colonization, and still have a successful invitro grow during the fruiting phase, at which time some daily light would be provided?

[chimp]

Originally Posted by Hobbit Girl

Thanks, and sorry if I've overlooked something, but do you all think it's ok to do without any light at all during colonization, and still have a successful invitro grow during the fruiting phase, at which time some daily light would be provided?

Yes, but it will take longer

[Hobbit Girl]

Originally Posted by oibchip

Yes, but it will take longer

Great!