My little pin dance

[SouthernShroomer]

Well here are my little babies on my first time!
I think that casing looks fine...... Im not sure exactly what overlay is.
So I don't know if Im having that problem, but it seems to be fruiting fine.

[duncan]

Those 2 cakes look great, Looking at the small bulk trya looks like a bit of overlaying. But for your first time Congrats is in order!

[Nabby]

Quite a bit of overlay, looks like. Your myc is chompin through the casing. What temps and humidity are you keepin it at and how much air is it getting?

way to go !

[SouthernShroomer]

well Nabby that one Ive been keeping it in with the cakes. I have others made that Im going to do in a tub by themselves. Just my first run... Should I maybe patch those areas with some straight dry verm?

[Hippie3]

not dry, damp.
but no real need,
overlay is harmless
the only real downside is
the casing layer once overlaid
won't absorb water quickly
so misting is hampered.
but
your casing does NOT have bad overlay.
let it be...

[Nabby]

True, I've seen a lot worse overlay! I wish my first tubs had turned out so well, and now you know a little more about the differences in growing cakes and cased tubs. Can't wait to see your next grow!

[oibchip]

[Sunstar]

nice cakes what strain you working with there SS?

[SouthernShroomer]

These are Acadian Coast from The Good Spore. Thanks Hillbilly!

[TVCasualty]

Looks good!

Any time you have knots/pins forming in abundance like your casing has, leave them alone like Hip advised!!

If the casing surface gets impervious to water and quits forming pins, you can get a clean fork and scratch the casing down to, but not into, the substrate.

I actually scratch any time I wait too long before initiating pinning after applying the casing. I get a much more even pinset that way. If part of the casing is matted (overlay), and part is uncolonized, a good shallow scratching makes the entire surface pin at once, similar to how shaking a jar results in quicker/more even colonization.

For example, the WBS substrate in this cased tray (picture taken today) was inoculated in quart jars on 3/31, cased on 4/4, and scratched on 4/12 (waited a little too long between casing and initiating due to FC not being ready). Left alone, it would have fruited in uneven patches and made harvesting a pain in the ass.



Sorry about the pic quality, it was taken through plastic sheeting, but at least I can take pictures now!

[Hippie3]

your wbs finished in just 4 days ?
that's rather incredible...

the WBS substrate in this cased tray (picture taken today) was inoculated in quart jars on 3/31, cased on 4/4

[SouthernShroomer]

Nice, Well I'll see what happens in a few days. Maybe harvest my first pins then give it a scratch. Thanks for the advice!

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

your wbs finished in just 4 days ?
that's rather incredible...

It won't be when I finish my new workshop and can lay out a nice photo-illustrated TEK that shows how I do it! I've been horribly stalled and frustrated by, let's just say, "life's challenges" for the past three years and I have only in the past few weeks started getting back on top of things. Probably explains a lot, eh? But yes, four days is typical and frankly the grain is already getting a little tough to shake by then. I'm trying to refine it enough to sell as a kit, but either way I'm hoping to post a how-to within the next two months. I'm not even sure yet that it's particularly original, but it works every time.


SouthernShroomer:

Don't mess with those pins! Let them do their thing and only scratch if it appears stalled. Next to contamination, love is the biggest cause of failure to grow mushrooms- growers love them to death, misting and poking and prodding and fanning and scratching so much that the poor mycelium has no chance to focus on making mushrooms and instead uses all its energy dealing with all the 'love' it receives.

Like a lot of other people, I only believed this after I threw a nasty funked-up tray of grain out into the yard. It had red and yellow splotches of ooze on it, and stunk bad. So bad I covered it with some leaves and straw (and the red kind of freaked me out I'll admit). It rained like hell the next day, and remained humid for a long time (this was back when I lived in Tennessee). Two weeks later there were some of the biggest mushrooms I ever grew (to this day) lifting up that straw and leaves. I was elated and pissed at the same time: glad to have the mushrooms but jealous and hurt that it didn't ever respond that way to my attention.

So if you have pins, and they are continuing to grow, let them. When I scratched the tray in the picture there were no visible knots or pins. If a second flush begins to pin on its own, let it do its thing too. If it looks like nothing is going on for a few days, then pluck off any aborts and dribble a bunch of water on the surface (gets lots more water in it than spraying a mist at it) followed by a scratching. I add water before I scratch which allows me to dump a lot on quick and sloppy (no need to worry about puddles) since the scratching I do immediately after fluffs the casing back up to how it should be. You could also only scratch half the casing to see a side-by-side comparison for future reference.

Good Luck!

P.S.- by "harvest my first pins then give it a scratch" I thought you meant pluck them before they grow into mushrooms; when I re-read your post I realized you might have meant harvest your mushrooms...

[SouthernShroomer]

Thats exactly what I ment TV! And I did do a small scratch where there were no pins. Just to see what would happen. This is my trial batch anyway I have two more in the works that Ill post some pics of soon. Thanks for all the advice really appreciated!!!

[SouthernShroomer]

Btw heres a pic of it today.

The other one is blury I know. But its a cake I tried rolling in vermiculite and its shot this buddy out after two days in the chamber. Its eatting up the verm like crazy!

[SouthernShroomer]

This is what I have created from my knowledge of what I have done so far. My plan is to let this fully colonize, then layer again with straight dry verm and then mist and fruit. I don't want to mess this one up so ideas are MORE than welcome.

I love the hairs! And I couldn't have done it without the great people here and their well written TEKS.

[TVCasualty]

Your pics look like a casing that is colonizing, so adding the dry verm on top of it then misting would be redundant (if that is in fact what I am seeing). What's the substrate, and has it been cased? Your post and the pictures are somewhat ambiguous about that, and it's an important point. Looks like good healthy rhizomorphic growth, regardless.

In the future, I recommend getting kitty litter trays or using something besides aluminum, since the mycelium tends to eat holes through aluminum. Not sure what that might mean.

The humidity looks good for this stage, but will likely be a little on the wet side after the pins have set (you want to drop the rH a few % when the knots turn into pins), just thought I'd mention that now so you can be prepared. If your fruiting chamber doesn't have constant air movement (most don't) then drier (85-90%) is better than too wet (95-100%). If there is a constant recirculation of air within the FC (just a small fan keeping things moving around) then higher humidity can be tolerated and the mushrooms are much happier. I also get nicer, firmer fruits when I keep the temp around 75 degrees.

I'm thinking that you might want to scratch those trays soon, actually, but I'm not sure since there's too many variables I don't know...

Looks nice southern. Good work man.

[SouthernShroomer]

Well TV Ill try to explain what I have done to get the best advice.

I took two BRF cakes fully colonized and layered the bottom of my pan with coir/verm mixture. Then broke up the two cakes by hand which made a pretty thick layer of Myc. Then layered it again with a nice thick layer of the coir/verm.
Its been in the top of my closet since then. I was thinking it would be kinda like a cake if I let if fully colonize that and cover it with verm to make it start to fruit while in the chamber.

The reason I was thinking of doing it this way is because of the last one I did ended up with that overlay.

The other casing I harvested now. So I took a fork and scratched everything off the top being careful not to go to deep. It left me with a clean coir/verm layer on top. So I misted that a bit and stuck it back in the FC.

Hope that was a little better explained.

[SouthernShroomer]

This is what gave me the idea. This is from Elf Salvation. Hope you don't mind me using your beautiful work Elf!

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by SouthernShroomer

Well TV Ill try to explain what I have done to get the best advice.
I took two BRF cakes fully colonized and layered the bottom of my pan with coir/verm mixture. Then broke up the two cakes by hand which made a pretty thick layer of Myc. Then layered it again with a nice thick layer of the coir/verm.
Its been in the top of my closet since then. I was thinking it would be kinda like a cake if I let if fully colonize that and cover it with verm to make it start to fruit while in the chamber.

The reason I was thinking of doing it this way is because of the last one I did ended up with that overlay.

The other casing I harvested now. So I took a fork and scratched everything off the top being careful not to go to deep. It left me with a clean coir/verm layer on top. So I misted that a bit and stuck it back in the FC.

Hope that was a little better explained.

Yeah, broken up cakes will recombine into a single block after a few days, making one big cake. I'm not familliar with using coir, but a lot of people are casing with it or using it as part of a substrate, usually after pH adjusting it if necessary and adding some vermiculite. Since you added a layer of it, it means you've already covered your substrate in what will act as a casing soil so adding more vermiculite isn't necessary.

This is important: Vermiculite does not stimulate fruiting. Light, fresh air, lower temperature, and high humidity do. These conditions are met in most fruiting chamber designs, and if doing it in a closet don't forget to add light!

This thread (Questions on casing... [merged]) has a discussion of coir and peat and casing in general that might be helpful (also, search out and read several others to get a good overview of the subject).

Since coir has nutrients, it's probably not the best casing material since nutes promote thick mycelial growth and when it's on the cropping surface that kind of growth is called overlay. On the other hand, P. cubensis doesn't need a casing to fruit, so the overlay on coir might, if left alone, still fruit like it was a regular uncased cake. I'm not sure.

Either way, if you scratch the top, you are just fluffing the surface back up to the ideal light and airy texture that promotes lots of pins, you are not removing that layer from the tray. Don't "scratch everything off the top," just stir it around a little in other words...

Which brings me to the most common thing I've ended up telling most people who've had trouble getting mushrooms but seem to grow great mycelium: Take a step back. Love them from afar, not up close where you're tempted to poke at 'em. They are expert at doing what they do, so let them do their thing. All my early success was in spite of my loving them nearly to death, and some I really did love to death ended up producing large numbers of huge mushrooms after I threw the whole tray into my yard. That was a good lesson for me.

Basically, it's a lot more work to grow fewer mushrooms!

Indirect light from a window (or flourescent bulb), around 75 degree air, high enough humidity for visible condensation (but not too much), several sessions of fanning them fresh air every day (at least). Just maintain those conditions and watch closely, that's it. Other techniques are like bells or whistles; get the fundamentals nailed down before worrying about overlay since scratching won't help if the environment they're in won't support fruiting in the first place.

[SouthernShroomer]

Well I was bored so I thought I would post up some pics of my updates.
The pan has a some nice pins, though Im worried about them not having enough water to produce nice fruits. Well ill just have to correct that problem next time around.

[TVCasualty]

Keep the humidity up and the fresh air exchanges on schedule and it looks like you'll have a nice flush off the tray. In your pics I see plenty of knots forming on the vermiculite; be gentle with them at this point- no scratching or heavy direct misting (spray the walls of chamber if humidity needs boosting).

And of course post some follow-up pics as they develop!

[SouthernShroomer]

These guys are clustering up like crazy.
Though they don't seem to be getting very big.
Im sure this is coming from the lack of water they have been getting.
So I know what to correct next time around.

[hyphaenation]

They look awesome ! I love the colors and that spotting is great, like a deer fawn.

cheers

H

[TVCasualty]

Originally Posted by SouthernShroomer

These guys are clustering up like crazy.
Though they don't seem to be getting very big.
Im sure this is coming from the lack of water they have been getting.
So I know what to correct next time around.

At that stage they really need to have enough water in the substrate moreso than the air to develop into really big ones (and there is still time to do that for the next flush); the caps in your pics all look like they are happy with the environment in your FC, so if they were mine I'd shoot 'em with a bunch of water after harvesting what's there and otherwise leave them alone.

In the original post, you mentioned this was your first attempt, so congratulations on your success! The best trips are homegrown...