more questions about mushrooms~

the spawn bags each contain one pound of ryeberries... the mad bag is a pound as well but I'm not sure whats in it exactly... the casing bags also contain one pound and I have ordered 2 of them...these are sterilized btw... the only thing I will be using that wasn't sterilized is the vermiculite... I have read that this isn't necessary because of it's zero nutritive value... bacteria has no interest in it*

*please let me know if I'm incorrect about this.... ty as always guys!

If you are going to fruit those ryeberries you will have to case them with something. Plain bags of ryeberries will dry out really fast and won't produce much fruit. If you don't want to use a bulk sub like poo or straw, then do what is called the rez effect. Mix the berries with either coir or vermiculite in a 1:1 or 1:2 (spawn:substrate) ratio, cover with foil and put several holes in the top of the foil for air exchange and stick them back in the incubator for a couple of days until the mycelium takes over the tray. This link will give you some info on what i'm talking about, just need to sub your rye for the wbs and decide if you want to use verm or coir.


https://mycotopia.net/forums/coir-p...d-coir-bulk-substrate-rez-effect-variant.html

You will be much happier with your results with this tek as opposed to just fruiting them as is.

donniemcm said:

the spawn bags each contain one pound of ryeberries... the mad bag is a pound as well but I'm not sure whats in it exactly... the casing bags also contain one pound and I have ordered 2 of them...these are sterilized btw... the only thing I will be using that wasn't sterilized is the vermiculite... I have read that this isn't necessary because of it's zero nutritive value... bacteria has no interest in it*

*please let me know if I'm incorrect about this.... ty as always guys!

Click to expand...

Vermiculite typically does not need to be sterilized. Correct it has no nutritive value, it is used simply as a water retention ingredient for substrate, also used to promote pinning in casing layers.

Do you mind if i chime in here and ask a few questions? I'm at about the same place in my first mushroom growing experience and have a few things i would like to ask the pros.

I tried PF with BRF jars and "nothing" grew, blamed it on the syringes and moved on.

now i am trying bulk tubs. i am currently using shoe box sized containers to colonize my bulk in.

I am also using popcorn as my first medium. in pint jars.

I started trying to do a horse poo/straw 50/50 mix but quickly ran out of horse poo. and am now trying to use just straw.

i have one penis envy cake i am trying to fruit atm (no fruits yet and its been in the light 3 or 4 days - worry yet???).

my 2 big questions are:

will plain pasteurized wheat straw work "well"? (i plant to at least add gysum and verm in the next batch)

and

Does the size of your cakes have much of an effect on yield per lb of sub, quality/potency, and number of flushes per cake?

and finally would you mind sharing or linking your bulk sub mix for us Canndo?

To all you guys looking into bulk, here is an excellent tek for beginners or pros alike. I've been running it for almost a year now and pull betweekn 8-9oz of dried fruits from i throughout the life of the tub. This last one was actually a little closer to 10oz. I'm also looking at making some changes that might increase yield and pinset.

Damion5050's Coir Tek

And yes, you can fruit straw on its own.

If you are doing cakes, you really should stick with the 1/2 pin canning jars. Anything bigger takes too long to colonize, if it even does colonize completely. Cakes are slow enough to begin with. I think another drawback with bigger cakes is you lose on the surface area to volume ratio.

I also think you guys should really look into liquid culture. There are many methods out there that explain the advantages, so you guys can check that out on your own. I did a little tutorial a few months ago on how I make my lids.

How I Do Liquid Culture

Sorry that I can't answer your questions Justin. I just wanted to say something to some of the new growers on this thread. If you have the resources to try a coupla different methods at one time. I would suggest doing a small mono tray along with doing a small cased tray. I realize that a cased tray can/will offer a greater yield as opposed to doing just a monotub(tray). But, the one benefit is that you can actually see and learn more of what is actually occurring while the main body is growing. This will not only give you the experience of using two methods, it will greatly benefit any future grows. One more "trick" that I learned when you first spawn to bulk is to crumple a piece of wax paper, unfold it, and place it over (not seal on) the spawn/bulk mixture before you seal up your spawn tray. It is non-nutritive, and will help to retain moisture while blocking contams. You can keep the paper on until or after your initial pinning. Also, I have had great spawning success with totally sealing up my trays and keeping them sealed in black plastic bags. At that point you just set and forget.
I use an unnecessary bulk mix. My recipe is coco, verm, spent coffee, gypsum, some popcorn, a little chicken shit and just to get it out the house, I've started adding some brf to the mix. Like I said. Unnecessary. You can have awesome success with just coco and verm. Or coco, verm, spent coffee, and gypsum. The biggest hurdle for me has been creating a reliable fruit method. Patience is key. But, I've had some very large fruits so far. And they are strong. And I want to eat them all the time. After I get my fruiting to the point where I am happy, I will start to try to grow some pan cyans.
Trust me. Any and all work that you put into this "hobby" is worth it. To have your own supply of "spirit snacks" around is definitely something that you should take seriously. I've already spent hours seeing rainbows coming out of the white walls of my apartment. And laughed for hours at every little thought that my mind would form.
Good luck to you.
Peace out kid.

Justin00 said:

Do you mind if i chime in here and ask a few questions? I'm at about the same place in my first mushroom growing experience and have a few things i would like to ask the pros.

I tried PF with BRF jars and "nothing" grew, blamed it on the syringes and moved on.

now i am trying bulk tubs. i am currently using shoe box sized containers to colonize my bulk in.

I am also using popcorn as my first medium. in pint jars.

I started trying to do a horse poo/straw 50/50 mix but quickly ran out of horse poo. and am now trying to use just straw.

i have one penis envy cake i am trying to fruit atm (no fruits yet and its been in the light 3 or 4 days - worry yet???).

my 2 big questions are:

will plain pasteurized wheat straw work "well"? (i plant to at least add gysum and verm in the next batch)

and

Does the size of your cakes have much of an effect on yield per lb of sub, quality/potency, and number of flushes per cake?

and finally would you mind sharing or linking your bulk sub mix for us Canndo?

Click to expand...

Are you asking if the amount of spawn has any relationship with final yeild from your final substrate? Very little but thhe more spawn you use the more assured you are of a contaminant free result.

My bulk mix? Pasturized wheat or oat straw, no additions. The critical issue is the size of the straw - it should be very finely chopped to 3/4 inch or so, your yield at this size (and density) will be only slightly less than horse manure - this mixture will grow any secondary or primary decomposer - why dance with exotic mixtures and ingredients?

I have a question for the master canndo too!

Can I mix spawn if one of the quart jars is from an isolate and the other quart jar is from a spore print of the same strain as the isolate?

canndo said:

Are you asking if the amount of spawn has any relationship with final yeild from your final substrate? Very little but thhe more spawn you use the more assured you are of a contaminant free result.

My bulk mix? Pasturized wheat or oat straw, no additions. The critical issue is the size of the straw - it should be very finely chopped to 3/4 inch or so, your yield at this size (and density) will be only slightly less than horse manure - this mixture will grow any secondary or primary decomposer - why dance with exotic mixtures and ingredients?

Click to expand...

great thanks, it is just sooooo much easier to keep a bail or 2 of straw around and not near as messy as horse poo.

and what i was asking was about cake size. my current cakes are about 10 or 11" by 6 or 7" and about 2 or 3" thick. i want to know if changing those dims will change the yield, quality, or speed. i have some larger ones colonizing atm so i will find out soon.

Well I would say that if you made bigger cakes you would get bigger yield simply because there is more nutritive substance for the mushrooms to eat. But as canndo said with bulk the amount of spawn won't have huge effects on yield, but the more substrate you have the greater your yield will be. Also, it typically takes a pf cake 7 to 10 days after it is introduced into the fruiting environment to start pinning so just be patient.

smilinjack said:

Well I would say that if you made bigger cakes you would get bigger yield simply because there is more nutritive substance for the mushrooms to eat. But as canndo said with bulk the amount of spawn won't have huge effects on yield, but the more substrate you have the greater your yield will be. Also, it typically takes a pf cake 7 to 10 days after it is introduced into the fruiting environment to start pinning so just be patient.

Click to expand...

great thanks i didn't realize it took that long.

I think i am going to try some different sized trays to see what works best, i feel like the ones i have now are to thin and might dry out faster then a thicker one.

morfin56 said:

I have a question for the master canndo too!

Can I mix spawn if one of the quart jars is from an isolate and the other quart jar is from a spore print of the same strain as the isolate?

Click to expand...

Yes, but you will be defeating the purpose of an isolation. Stamets does a very interesting experiment. He put some morel sclorotia in the ground in a number of places, one particular location yielded over 100 fruit... but, how could he be sure that the morel he picked was the identical one he planted? He placed a bit of his original mycelia on one side of a petri dish and a bit of mushroom from his harvest and watched the intersection of the merging mycelia - they integrated perfectly. Now he took two known different morel mycelia and did the same - there was a distinct interference pattern, a line between the two. You can see this outline when you make multi-spore dishes. Eventually the mycelium will sort themselves out, but this takes a great deal of energy and seriously inhibits your yield. Monoculture is very important.

canndo said:

Yes, but you will be defeating the purpose of an isolation.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I was wondering because I wanted to make a monotub but I guess I will just have to do that some other time when I have more spawn of this isolate.
Doing a G2G tomorrow, Thanks again.