First mushroom grow - questions

[DjLiquid]

First off I just wanna say Hi! Ive been interested in mycology for a while but never tried growing mushrooms or ever even tried any psychotropic ones so this will hopefully be my first. With my background of migraines/headaches I now have an excuse to be a human guinea pig =).

After reading threads for the last few weeks, watching loads of vids on youtube and getting some nice grow ebooks I figured it was time to order some spores and give it a shot. I got some "golden teacher" (psilocybe cubensis) in a 10ml syringe and did everything I was supposed to do and took extra precautionary measures by steaming the jars for 100 minutes. After the inoculation, I covered the holes again with medical tape and wiped off the jars with alcohol to ensure there would be no contamination. Now this is where my questions come in since none of the guides shed light on this issue. Am I supposed to covered the holes I made with the syringe, and also when I store the jars, can they be completely away from light? When being birthed I will store them in a tote box with water soaked perelite, will dunking be necessary. Later, once the veils break I can take a mushroom and take a spore print, put the spores into a syringe with diluted water and reinoculate more jars to make more cakes instead of buying more spore syringes online, correct?

Sorry for the birrage of questions but I couldn't clarify all of this stuff in any of my previous reading.

Thanks!

[koldjgdaro]

1. Yup, the holes have to be covered. A good idea would be to make self-healing injection ports using silicone gel.
2. Darkness during incubation is better than light!
3. You didn't make PF cakes? Well, as for seeds TEKs look for them on the forums. Basically dunking isn't so important on the first flush as on the later ones.
4. Yup, once you get mature fruits you're self sufficient with spores . You can even make clones. By choosing the biggest and healthiest looking specimens and transfering their tissue (be sterile), you can reach better results in the next runs. Cloning is good!

[DjLiquid]

Thanks for the quick reply. As described in the PF cake method from that quick link, I used the exact same method but they seemed to leave a few holes which is why I felt the need to ask the questions I did. It seemed really straight forward and simple to do. I really hope this turns out because I wish to do many types of mushrooms in the future, which I guess brings me to another question.

Once birthed, can I put different mushrooms geneous' together in the same terrarium or will they interact with each other? To be more specific, if I were to grow button or shiitake mushrooms along with my psilocybin mushrooms, the non psychoactive mushrooms should stay non psychoactive, correct? I mean, I hate to sound stupid but I wasn't sure if lacing was possible.

[MLBjammer]

Lacing is not possible. I don't know the growth parameters of edible mushrooms, but those will not become psychedelic unless you cover them with acid or something!

[Lookyhere]

Take the tape off the holes. No need for that with the verm barrier. I take it you are doing BRF and have the verm barrier...? If you want you can dunk after birthing, it's up to you. I have done both. I prefer to dunk before every flush, but that's me. After the first flush, you need to dunk before consecutive flushes.

[DjLiquid]

Originally Posted by Lookyhere

Take the tape off the holes. No need for that with the verm barrier. I take it you are doing BRF and have the verm barrier...? If you want you can dunk after birthing, it's up to you. I have done both. I prefer to dunk before every flush, but that's me. After the first flush, you need to dunk before consecutive flushes.

I am using the BRF method.

[Lookyhere]

Yeah, then no need for tape, take it off completely.

[koldjgdaro]

Yeah, but don't shake your jars so no contams can get thru the holes if you leave them opened.

[DjLiquid]

Ok, I just wanted to post an update. It's been 4 days since inoculation and I have yet to see any signs of germination or contamination. For the first for 3 days the jars have been in the back of a closet at room temperature. After checking for signs of growth but not seeing any at all, I decided to incubate them under my stairs outside with my air conditioning unit. It's a constant 30 degrees so it's perfect. After a complete day I took another look and decided to take pictures (see bottom). I was wondering what might delay the germination process or if anyone can see any problems with my setup. Also as a note, I the close up is only of my #5 specimen. They've all been kept out of light and in a controlled environment without any contaminates.

Thanks!

[edit] The dead center of the close ups are the inoculation points. I didn't photoshop it but you can kinda see in the first close up where it looks a little clumpy and white, but it doesnt seem like germination.

[DjLiquid]

After 5 days of the first noticeable signs of mycelium growth, this is I have =)

[Lookyhere]

Nice rhizomorphic growth. Next time you put a picture up and not just the thumbnail, it's best if you resize it to 850 or 750 pixels, that way it doesn't come out the way it did. Looks good though.

[DjLiquid]

sorry, I use a 1900x1200 desktop on a 26" screen so it's rather small on mine. Ill be sure to resize it to a smaller image

[blonthedl]

Good start, one thing you HAVE TO, HAVE TO do...is have patience and persistance! These bastards take time, so if you are doing everything you are supposd to be doing, don't doubt yourself just give it some time and good luck.