Making Casings.....Soon. HELP!!!

I have 3 half pi

Mushrooms are not plants they do not photosynthesize so they do NOT need 12/12. 1/23 would work. It's all about moisture content on the casing layer and air exchange at the time the mycelium pokes through is crucial. Just keep warm until mycelium pokes through your casing layer.

Don't do anything until they are fully colonized. Plastic bag isn't necessary if you are clean--use latex gloves. Break up into 1/2" chunks and make an as -even as possible- layer with your cakes as deep as possible. Cover with verm and mist daily until mycelium shows. Then, fan + mist with sprayer 3x daily and give it a bit of indirect light.

www.shroomery.org is the place to learn this.

Yes, wait 100% until they're done colonizing. Taking them out now is asking for contaminant spores and all the other crap that will land on them contaminate your culture... THE WHAT REZ EFFECT? Screw those crappy teks.

You could use anything. Grass Clippings, Straw, Hay, Manure base substrates, Anything organic with a good nutrient balance. Manure base substrates...

Pasteurize your bulk substrate with manure base substrates using this method:

*Pasteurization tek
Load the pre-moistened to field capacity casing mix, compost or manure into quart mason jars. Place a lid and/or foil over the top. Put the jars into a large covered pot of cold water, with the water filled to 2/3 to ¾ of the way up the jars. A large kettle or pressure cooker works well. If necessary, put a plate or some other weight over the jars to prevent them from floating. Make sure you have a spacer or dishtowel under the jars to prevent the direct heat of the stove burner or flame from cracking your jars. Place the lid on the pot and turn on the stove. Bring the water to a boil, but watch over it and as soon as the water actually reaches a boil, shut off the stove, but leave the pot sitting on the burner. The preceding is for an electric stove that will remain hot for a little while after shutting off power. If you use gas, allow the water to boil for one to two minutes before shutting off the stove. After a couple of hours when they’ve cooled, the jars can be removed and used.
The first time or two you use this technique, monitor the interior of your jars with a meat thermometer. Place it right into the center of the peat or compost. You want to make sure the center of the jar reaches at least 140F and stays there for an hour, but don’t allow it to exceed 170F. Depending on the thickness and capacity of your kettle and lid, you may need to adjust the above times slightly. This tek works because glass is an insulator, so the temperature inside the jars lags the water in the kettle. When I use the above procedure with 7 full quart jars in my All American 921, it comes out perfectly just as written. If you use a smaller pot, you may need to turn the stove on briefly at the ½ hour mark for a few minutes.
The advantage to this tek is there is no pillowcase, etc., to drain and little to no mess or stink is made in your kitchen or pressure cooker. The disadvantage is you have a bunch of jars to wash when you’re done. PASTERUIZING TEK

Once done with that layer your spawn meaning place substrate down first, then spawn, then substrate, then spawn, at the top make sure it's manure. Having dry grain at the top will dry out providing week mycelium leaving it vonuerable to contaminants. Cover with aluminum foil and pop some holes in. Wait for 100% checkin every third day making sure it's not dry. If dry mist it directly.

Once fully colonized put it a tote with 3-5 inches of well drained perlite with small 1/4th inch holes everywhere to ensure it's nice and humid with loads of air exchange, which is far more importiant than anything else but you do need to fan and mist 2-3 times a day to make sure it's nice and moist to the point of it glissening. Leave the lid ajar ... FAN after you mist. Mist the sides too. For lighting......



*Many things. I've found the brightest light stimulates more pins. You need to look at pinning triggers like the instruments in a band. One instrument can be slightly off, and the band still plays the song. Often one instrument can be taken away and the music still sounds ok. However, if all are working together, it's awesome.
Perhaps the projects you remove from light after exposure are maintaining a higher humidity due to no heat from the lights. Humidity is a pinning trigger just like light. Maybe the ones you remove from the lights get better air circulation. Fresh air is a pinning trigger just like light.
For the record, light has no effect on colonizing mycelium, good or bad. The old advice of "incubate in total darkness" is bunk. Stamets wrote those words in TMC 20 years ago, and he disavows that advice today. I concur. The only real time that keeping in the dark has an advantage in my experience is during casing run, when the introduction of light after casing colonization can serve as one of the pinning triggers along with air exchange and proper humidity. Bare in mind, you want a constant rate of evaporation from your substrate to achieve the best pinset. If you're at 100% humidity, there will be little to no moisture evaporating from your casing layer, and pinsets will suffer.
To repeat, light is a pinning trigger, but it isn't the only one, and it's greatly overrated. For the best pinsets, you have to balance several triggers at once. Screw up on any of them, and pinsets suffer, regardless of what you do with light. LIGHTING
RR

The above quotes are taken from shroomery by RogerRabbit. I take no credit in those.

Toppers said:

Mushrooms are not plants they do not photosynthesize so they do NOT need 12/12. 1/23 would work.

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Sorry but this is wrong. The mycellium uses the light along with other factors to determine when to fruit. Without a normal somewhat realistic light cycle they wont fruit well. Shrooms also grow towards the light.

People always mess with different ways to get better results. The best way is to mimic what nature does. All good mushroom growers use 12/12, so why shouldnt you?

Toppers said:

Mushrooms are not plants they do not photosynthesize so they do NOT need 12/12. 1/23 would work. It's all about moisture content on the casing layer and air exchange at the time the mycelium pokes through is crucial. Just keep warm until mycelium pokes through your casing layer.

Don't do anything until they are fully colonized. Plastic bag isn't necessary if you are clean--use latex gloves. Break up into 1/2" chunks and make an as -even as possible- layer with your cakes as deep as possible. Cover with verm and mist daily until mycelium shows. Then, fan + mist with sprayer 3x daily and give it a bit of indirect light.

www.shroomery.org is the place to learn this.

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Completely false. They are photosensetive and yes High Frequency Blue end of the spectrum floursecent shop lights with 6,500k or higher is bright enough to penetrate deep within the casing layer to promote hyphal knots. Ambient light will produce some pins but if you want wall to wall flushes...go with what I suggested above.

What's the point of a casing layer if it fully colonizes?

Vermiculite is not a casing. It can give the moisture to sustain a flush but it doesn't have the benefiical micro-organisms to fight off contaminants and vermiculite does have nutrition, very little but it does. Furthermore cobweb mold LOVES damp vermiculite and when it's colonizing the vermiculite which it will mold mycelium that lands on it will direct it to the inside of the colonizing mycelium below. It's almost no better than no casing at all which isn't required for cubensis.

Thompson3600 said:

Vermiculite is not a casing. It can give the moisture to sustain a flush but it doesn't have the benefiical micro-organisms to fight off contaminants and vermiculite does have nutrition, very little but it does. Furthermore cobweb mold LOVES damp vermiculite and when it's colonizing the vermiculite which it will mold mycelium that lands on it will direct it to the inside of the colonizing mycelium below. It's almost no better than no casing at all which isn't required for cubensis.

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You are spewing misinformation left and right and should really not be giving advice. Vermiculite is a heat-expanded mineral, totally devoid of any nutritional content. It is in fact a very viable casing layer. I can show you grow logs where we compared it side-by-side to typical 50/50 peat/verm, and the results were comparable.

Cobweb mold will affect ANY casing layer if air exchange is poor, and in fact is MORE likely to strike in 50/50 peat/verm if it is PH buffered incorrectly because it prefers the out-of-the-bag acidity of peat.

Verm does not require a buffer, and is much more resistant to cobweb mold.

But as I said, proper air exchange solves cobweb issues. It only gets a foothold in stagnant environments.

And on the lighting issue, you are out of your league here again son. There is no established photoperiod for mushrooms because there isn't one.

Air exchance, temperature drop, and proper casing layer moisture in conjunction are your key areas to get good pinsets. Lighting is the last area you need to worry about, and if you are lighting on a set cycle, the joke is on you.

I can back this up with pictures and chat all day on the subject.

Toppers said:

You are spewing misinformation left and right and should really not be giving advice. Vermiculite is a heat-expanded mineral, totally devoid of any nutritional content. It is in fact a very viable casing layer. I can show you grow logs where we compared it side-by-side to typical 50/50 peat/verm, and the results were comparable.

Cobweb mold will affect ANY casing layer if air exchange is poor, and in fact is MORE likely to strike in 50/50 peat/verm if it is PH buffered incorrectly because it prefers the out-of-the-bag acidity of peat.

Verm does not require a buffer, and is much more resistant to cobweb mold.

But as I said, proper air exchange solves cobweb issues. It only gets a foothold in stagnant environments.

And on the lighting issue, you are out of your league here again son. There is no established photoperiod for mushrooms because there isn't one.

Air exchange, temperature drop, and proper casing layer moisture in conjunction are your key areas to get good pin sets. Lighting is the last area you need to worry about, and if you are lighting on a set cycle, the joke is on you.

I can back this up with pictures and chat all day on the subject.

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If it wasn't an isolate there is no test. Have you even done a test on lighting? With Isolates? You're talking about a species which will grow in complete darkness(cubensis). Not commercial edibles such as oysters, shiitake, lions mane, etc.... Compare that with a genetic isolate of the same kind and put one with ambient lighting and one with fluorescent lighting with high blue end of the spectrum with 6,500k lighting and post your results. I would take my word from someone who spends millions of millions of dollars annually on the study of mushrooms and they all suggest the lighting I'm talking about than you(not being an asshole in any way shape or form) putting it bluntly.


Vermiculite does have trace amounts of nutrients. I just reformated and can't find my notes atm. I'll find em though hopefully. Temperature drop has nothing that tells cubensis to fruit. They'll fruit in 90F weather. Air exchanges 3-5 an hour with high humidity tells the mycelium to fruit.

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/5940197

RR is practically brothers to Paul Stamets.

RR is promoting the archaic and inefficient PF tek at the Shroomery to sell his cheesy DVD's--Stamets would laugh him out of town. Sorry you bought into his image, but that's all it is. The guy is an intermediate cultivator with a big ego--at best.

This discussion IS about cubensis, nobody veered off course re: edibles except for you. Along that note I have had similar results with lions mane, shiitake, and oysters. i.e. little to no lighting.

I will post a picture shortly when I can dig it up.

anyone who says the PF tek is inefficient wasnt doing it right. or has never done it.
you suggest newbs just jump into straw logs!?

most of the posts in here are wrong
most mushroom cultivators DO NOT use 12/12!?
vermiculite has no nutrient value to mushrooms

cubes dont need to be cold to induce pinning...
they only use light to know which way is up....
anyone who has actually grown mushrooms will tell you they will pin in the damn jar in the dark if you let them go long enough....
please stop spewing missinformation if you have never even had one grow, its obvious

the pf tek is old, but there is a reason its been around. it works. its idiot proof.

hemlockstones said:

anyone who says the PF tek is inefficient wasnt doing it right. or has never done it.
you suggest newbs just jump into straw logs!?

most of the posts in here are wrong
most mushroom cultivators DO NOT use 12/12!?
vermiculite has no nutrient value to mushrooms

cubes dont need to be cold to induce pinning...
they only use light to know which way is up....
anyone who has actually grown mushrooms will tell you they will pin in the damn jar in the dark if you let them go long enough....
please stop spewing missinformation if you have never even had one grow, its obvious

the pf tek is old, but there is a reason its been around. it works. its idiot proof.

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HAHA to the above rant of crap.

1. I never said anything for noobs to jump into straw logs.
2. Mushroom Cultivators, ones who are in it for money(hence some species who don't use/need it). Paul Stamets does and agrees, in fact, it was RR who told Stamets different and now they're using it. If they didn't agree they would simply tell him no, like they'd waste so much money on something if it wasn't true. A LOT of mushroom growers, especially the pioneers like 'agar' from shroomery used 12/12 and it does make a difference using "High frequency tube shop lights with the high blue end of the spectrum, 6,500k or greater" They benefit well and form hyphal knots from down deep. ACTUALLY, air currents tell which way to go, if you don't believe me use a fan on one side of your fruiting chamber and rotate it every day, they'll grow up in a spiral.

*Recent experiments (over the last 23 years) have shown the error of that statement in TMC. Many experiments have shown conclusively that fluorescent lamps in the 6500K range produce better pinsets and healthier, meatier fruits than other forms of light. Stamets himself does not repeat that 'flash of light' triggers pinning nonsense. In fact, he recommends fluorescent lamps in the 6,500-Kelvin range for 12/12 just as I do. In addition, there's a huge difference in saying something can result in 'pins', and helping to trigger a very nice flush. Light, and the intensity/frequency of light is extremely important if one is interested in greater than mediocre performance. Many species, such as agaricus and P cubensis, can pin in the total absence of light. That doesn't mean light isn't required for best results, especially with light sensitive species such as P cubensis and P ostreatus.

*There's a world of difference between 'blue spectrum' and what you get when a red light (incandescent) shines through blue plastic. (Dim) By 'blue' they mean high frequency light, such as would be emitted by a metal halide bulb, or natural sunlight fluorescent. You'll want to get better lighting to get the best pinsets. It's better than nothing, but only ten percent of the electricity to run an incandescent is turned into light. The other ninety percent is turned into heat. Fluorescent fixtures are the opposite. 90% of the energy is turned into light and ten percent into heat. They're also closer to the frequency that is ideal for pinning.
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/6611363#6611363

3. Vermiculite has minerals/trace nutrients, yes.
4. Once again you're talking about a specific species.
5. Your talk is so 95...
6. Indeed.

iv been using blue led night lights for years to fruit
glad you just caught up

yes a specific species.... Psilocybe cubensis... which is what hes working with if you would of read the post?

"your talk is so 95"
are you a valley girl?

more copy and paste please!? this time make it relevant

What works for you won't work for someone else, it's souly based off your experience. Mushroom farms spend MILLIONS annually on research, you think they would use something that wasn't beneficial? Mycology has came a long way since TMC and it's evolving even faster each and every day. That's great it works for you but it's not optimal. For light if you want some pins go with ambient lighting but if you want wall to wall flushes, go with what I said above.

50% Peat Moss, 50% Vermiculite, 10% Gypsum, Teaspoon per dry cup of peat of HYDRATED LIME(make sure the hydrated lime is non dolomite and low magnesium) IS HANDS DOWN THE BEST CASING MIX OUT THERE, mix dry ingredients together and hydrate to field capacity, with the use of lime you keep contaminants at bay and you don't need to pasteurize. DO NOT EVER sterilize a casing layer at which is kills the beneficial bacteria which helps fight off contaminants which will land on your casing no matter what, If you can provide the optimal air exchanges, 3-5 per hour, results are superior however, It's better safe than sorry. You want the casing layer light and fluffy but not fine. Ask yourself what is the point of a casing? To provide moisture and a high humidity climate for the fully colonized substrate below. The reason for it to be light and fluffy is so that air can penetrate the substrate below to promote primordial growth(aka baby mushrooms, pins, etc...).

Given your giving the optimal air exchanges, 3-5 per hour you should be misting heavily 2-3 times a day and than fanning afterwords(mist the sides as well and direct mist, mushrooms love it, just don't mist promirdia or knots and leave them wet, it can cause aborts), Your tote should consist of small 1/8th inch holes all over 100+(FOR BULK SUBS/CASINGS MAKE SURE THE TOTE IS ABOVE THE SUBSTRATE LINE or it'll pin there).

www.shroomery.org


This website will have everything and everything you will ever need to know about any aspect of mushroom growing.


hope it helps!!!

Mr.KushMan said:

How would I go about exchanging air 3-5 times per hour? A fan bringing outside air in wouldn't work. So what I ask, I have been every time I think of it opening up the container to do a manual exchange but once every 12-20 minutes is a little hectic, can some suggest a solution?

Peace

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Small holes drilled in everywhere will do that, we're talking about exchange, not blow out all the air. Mist 3-5 times a day, fan right after. Small holes won't take away as much moisture/humidity, that's why they're preferred.