Hey SWIM is working on his first mushroom grow. He is using PF tek and his jars are almost fully colonized. What is a cheap and simple method SWIM could use to heat his fruiting chamber?
Get two of whatever contained you will use as your fruiting chamber. Put some water in one, so that the second one you add in lies in the water. Buy an aquarium heater to put into the first bucket. Personally I don't sweat the temperature, whatever my room temperature is has been fine, but you can't be too safe. To help humidity and temperature I have used a coffee warmer with a cup of hot water on it. Not submerged in liquid, of course.
^same for me. imho, its probably better to err on the side of caution and NOT heat it. colonization temperatures are high - upper 80s to lower 90s on the fahrenheit scale - and fruiting temperature is significantly lower than that. around the 70s. a little bit higher than "normal room temperature" should be perfect. any heated incubators should be used only during colonization.
If you have to raise the temps (say it's in the 60s) then I would get a space heater and aim it at the door of the growroom, if it's relatively small. That method has been working just fine for me. It doesn't stay perfect, but it's good enough, with 78 being the high end of the spectrum, while 68 is on the low side. The main thing to remember about fruiting is that you can't have too much FAE until you lower humidity.
Sorry, but what's FEA? I googled it and couldn't find a definition, just that it's important in fruiting.
FAE = fresh air exchange (I had a typo the first time.) You want as little CO2 and as much O2 in the chamber as possible without lowering humidity past about 85%.
I use a warm air vaporizer, in a portable greenhouse. Works wonderfully. The scary part is all sorts of things love that environment, so be nice n' sterile about it.
Have you tried this? I had problems on my first grow with not being able to drop the temp and had a horrible pinset.
