Woot! Free Oysters! - or - Proof That Woodlovers LOVE HW Mulch!

[Bobcat]

So I went to lowes the other day and got some hardwood mulch to cover up my windmill palms before winter really grabbed them by the kahonies. I bought 4 bags of their standard. The greenhouse was locked up so I couldn't run the bags out that door. Instead I just ordered them at the checkout and some dude brought them out to me. I loaded them in my truck and picked one lumpy bag up and recall saying to the guy that this one was frozen solid.

Well, as it turns it wasn't actually frozen solid... but a giant mycobag of oysters! (I know because of the smell of the mycelium) I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like this.... Fortune has smiled upon me, thank you mushroom spirits!

That is also proof positive that woodlover mushrooms just LOVE the standard hardwood mulch most people can find just about anywhere. In fact... thats 3.5 cubic feet of proof!

I have since made several tubs and given some out as presents. If I can get a nice flush I will take some more pics and share!

[waylitjim]

That's pretty cool Bobcat!
And funny the guy said it was frozen.
Those spores can be pretty sneaky sometimes.

[Lazlo]

Bah! Sweet.

[Bobcat]

Originally Posted by waylitjim

Those spores can be pretty sneaky sometimes.

Very true! I also wondered if the tree itself was colonized pretty well when it was chopped.

[Lazlo]

Sorry to get off topic but, I recently did some isolation work with a cubensis strain. Well, after I had already inoculated my starter jars with wedges from cubensis isolate, I noticed that there was a mushroom contaminate showing up on the agar plate. (I used wedges from the plate before it was totally colonized and the contaminate had showed up). I thought to myself, "crap, I hope this contaminate doesn't screw my starter jars up". This is well after I had even done the G2G transfers also. Well after the G2G jars were going, I noticed that a 1/3 of them had these weird holes in them like there was a bacterium present or something, but there wasn't. It was the mushroom contaminate showing up in a 1/3 of my jars. Not to mention that the mycelium looked awfully strange in them, not like cubensis mycelium at all. So I ignored the weird jars and then only used the jars that were strickly rhizomorphic in pattern and had colonized smoothly to spawn manure with. Damned if a prior Oyster grow didn't screw the shit out me almost. I'm glad I noticed that something fishy was going on with some of the jars. I let the Oyster's go far too long and there were spores all over the room. All over the floor, the baseboards and in the hall way floor as well. Oyster mushrooms are loaded with spores. You really should harvest them a bit earlier than you think. I had to clean the living piss out of that section of the house, walls and all. The spore load was so bad that I had them in the corners of my eye sockets after leaving the room. I could literally dig spores out with my finger tips from my eyes. Not good. I can show you if you want? The contaminated plate and the grain spawn? It's nothing spectacular really.

[Bobcat]

Actually that would be cool to see, if you don't mind, Laz!

I've heard that in large pleurotus operations people have to use breathers/face masks to protect their lungs from the spores. And that without this they can form allergic reactions to the spores- because there are so many that their bodies form an immune response to them!

I've seen the spores sloph of in strings. Mushrooms are so cool.

[Lazlo]

See the mushroom contaminate at the top of the dish? That's the Pleurotus mycelium. There's an obvious line drawn between the 2 mycelia. The chunk taken closely to the line was the problem inoculant for one jar, in which was the problem for a 1/3 of my G2G jars. It's a good thing I saw it and didn't use them for spawning. It's rather obvious as you'll see below.



This is how the dish is supposed to look like for cubensis mycelium.



Here are the holes I was mentioning. They were far worse when I first noticed them. It appears that the cubensis mycelium is no match for this Pleurotus mycelium, as it's gobbling up the grain spawn and the cubensis mycelium easily.





Cubensis mycelium after the G2G transfers.




Pleurotus mycelium after the G2G transfers.



A comparison of the 2 different cultures. Cubensis on the left, Pleurotus on the right. Man am I glad I wasn't sleeping on this one. Although the contaminate's rather obvious huh?

[Lazlo]

And if you're wondering how I know it's Oyster mycelium, it has a distinct smell to it.

great luck and great find bobcat! lazlo i hear about oysters dropping insane amounts of spores. i clean my mushrooms in my garage on am old door i use as a table. ive set some oysters down and gone inside the house for dinner...30 minutes later return to the garage to clean the mushrooms and theyve turned the table white with spores dropping.

[Bobcat]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

And if you're wondering how I know it's Oyster mycelium, it has a distinct smell to it.

Yup, thats how I know what I got, too! I distinctly pleasant smell, imo.

Those shots are nice Laz, thanks. I notice there is yellowing too, which is distinctly oyster.

This is off topic, but for anyone working on agar, you have actually provided a valuable picture. Your one shot of non-contamned agar shows diverging rhizomorphes. Those often occur on MS plates that are allowed to grow out. Grabbing one of those = isolate, without lots and lots of transfers.

[Lazlo]

Ehhhhhhhhhh, something strange is going here. I had a tub sitting in darkness until the other 2 finished up to be cased all at once and there were the strangest primordia i've ever seen in my life! Really weird looking little buggers for sure. I'm hoping it was the lack of light that caused this, but this morning I woke up to patch the casings and there was yet another one. Just like the others i've already harvested. They do bruise blue and have a super tiny cap, along with a set of rings around the stems.

Damn if I ain't screwed this grow all to hell. lol. Let me show you a picture.

[Lazlo]

Ah, nevermind for now. Let's see what happens when I fruit the tubs. The primordia are all Tiger fang shaped, with these awesome rings on the stems.

[Lazlo]

Check it out. The rings aren't as visible with these smaller specimens, but with the larger ones it was rather obvious.





Looks like i've got a really wacked sub-strain going here! I know one thing, it's gunna rip!

[Bobcat]

Whoa! Any updates on that Lazlo? Strange growths continued?

My first tub of these oysters went downhill unfortunately. First I thought I had enough air exchange in my tub. Nope. See pic.



Then I got bugs that I never saw before. Couldn't get good pics of them. Wild critters I guess. They were real tiny. THEN I got an explosion of yellow slime mold. Never had so many probs with oysters. Much of this was laziness. Didn't give them their own area, didn't treat right, blah blah blah.

So lets do this again.... Much of the wood was just left outside and has since slowly dried out in the harsh winter winds. Hopefully that has taken the bug population down a notch. I brought it in, thawed it out and hydrated it in a 20% of 3% H2O2 solution and mixed it up with about 5 lbs of Wlover mix (oak chips, pellet fuel, organic potting soil). Also had some cardboard scraps left over from a recent project and in they went. Over 30 hours later it looks like this:



Not a great pic, but I wanted to leave it be. You can tell the mycelium is recovering nicely. The tub is a seedling tray with a dome top. Never tried these before for this but its working out nice so far. Top fits secure, but loose enough for some gas exchange. That was a few days ago so I am hoping for an update soon. I am going to build a chamber special for this project....

[Bobcat]

Oh, and I was thinking that if I see those critters again I could do a bleach dunk. But instead of just bleach, I was thinking of making a milk from the standard bleach solution and diatomaceous earth. Any comments, suggs or ideas on this?

[Hippie3]

dunno about that
but a solution of boric acid works good on pests

[Bobcat]

Hmm, never heard of using that. Thanks Hip, it sounds interesting. Can you give more info? I did a search but didn't come up with much. Product to use or dilution?

[Lazlo]

They weren't very tolerant to high CO2 is all. These were the large Redboy's that I grew. This strain really forms weird looking fruitbodes in an enviroment with high CO2.

[Bobcat]

Update: Not a great shot. Someone has my good camera. The pic is a little deceiving on the color of the block. Whiter than that. It is oyster mycelium, with all its wonderful smell. And loads mycelium piss! I am putting it back in the tub and letting it go longer. I want it denser and whiter. No bugs yet, though! It has dried out quite a bit, so I spray-hydrated it with about 2 cups of water.

[Hippie3]

Originally Posted by Bobcat

Hmm, never heard of using that. Thanks Hip, it sounds interesting. Can you give more info? I did a search but didn't come up with much. Product to use or dilution?

you want 5%
most i find comes at 40% so dilute it,
use like either karo for sweet-loving bugs
or vegetable oil for protein-eaters