has anybody had any luck with this method of growing where they fruit inside the jar? http://www.thenook.org/archives/tek/invitrotek.htm and any reputable spore vendors would be good too. thanks
fruiting a pf jar in vitro works, but will alter the time it takes to get your yield, and it will make the mushrooms essentially unsuitable for any type of consumption other than using them for tea. you get verm stuck to your mushrooms even when you grow using the normal PF tek, but this way your mushrooms will be very ugly and will have verm ALL OVER them. still perfectly fine to cut up and put in tea bags/strainers though, so if thats your thing then go for it if you want a slightly easier and still more discreet means of making mushrooms. oh, and you'll want to dry them out before dosing, because the moisture level and thus potency will be different than that of your average fresh mushroom. drying them out should give you roughly the "right" potency for regular dried shrooms. but yeah, if you'll only eat them, dont do this, because you'd have to eat a lot of vermiculite. you can't just pick it all off...mushrooms and mycellium are networks of cells and can grow around the verm so that there may be a peice INSIDE the bottom of the stipe, or at least embedded in the side.
also you'll want to harvest the first flush or two prematurely. wait for them to be big enough to be useful, but get them before the caps open. after one or two flushes the size of the cake itself will be reduced, and the mushrooms will have more room to grow and mature. if you let them get too big with too little room, it could potentially damage them.
thanks for the info. Sorry a few more quick questions If I transferred the cakes to larger jars when the mushrooms were about to come up would they fruit in their to actually look like mushrooms? How long do they need light for? I read several minutes per day is that right? one final: How many cc's of spore solution usually comes in a spore syringe? sorry if these are stupid questions and thanks nesta, your a pretty knowlegeable dude
yes to the first question. second, technically they only need a few minutes but it would be wise to do closer to 12 hours of natural or fluorescent light high in blue spectra. third Q, 10cc per syringe.
you also see syringes that come at 12cc, but these are less common. a syringe will last a while if you use it properly (sparingly) and even longer if you can handle making a mycelium solution, but this is more prone to contamination and you shouldnt try it for your first time. quick editorial: if you're going to the time and effort of getting a second, larger set of jars to fruit your cakes in, it may be wise instead to just go to the effort of building a makeshift fruiting chamber. i'd reccommend a large translucent rubbermaid bin with about 1.5-2" perlite lining the bottom with just enough water to get the air inside humid. on the one hand, fruiting invitro will help reduce the risks of contamination. if a jar gets hit, immediately dispose of it's contents in the garbage and seal the bag and take it out asap. disinfect any areas such as the space around your jars with some lysol, but make sure it doesnt come in contact with any of the desired fungal tissue. the noninfected jars should be ok and your entire crop wont be ruined. on the other hand, it would be cheaper to build a fruiting chamber, it would be easier to maintain proper humidity and air exchange, and you'll be much more likely to grow beautiful textbook cubes more than suitable for any manner of ingestion you desire. the risk of contamination is present still, and if you have one infected cake you're more likely to have more, but i still have not had much trouble with this. if you do choose to fruit in vitro, i'd suggest doing yourself and your mushrooms a favor in regards to gas exchange. remember, mushrooms are living things just like plants or animals, and like plants or animals the biology of mushrooms requires certain gases to be present, and certain others are expelled by the organism that are poisonous to it in high concentration. magic mushrooms, like people, need fresh oxygen to "breathe" and produce Co2 in turn. too high a Co2 level will slow the colonization of a jar or the maturation of a mushroom. it can even kill them off. the filtered airholes/innoculation holes in the lid of the jar should be enough to allow proper gas exchange for colonizing jars, but once you're in the fruiting stage it's different. if you're growing in a terrarium or similar container, you need to fan it out about two or three times a day. it helps disperse the Co2 and keeps the still, extremely humid warm air from providing too much harbor for antagonistic/poisonous bacteria or fungi. since you can't very well fan out a jar when fruiting in vitro, i suggest you keep the lid on tight, and place the jar LID DOWN on top of something small that wont cover the holes. i've had good luck with large bottle caps. it only needs to be slightly raised above the surface of the shelf/table/floor for this to assist in proper gas exchange. the way it works is that carbon dioxide is a good bit heavier than oxygen, and with the openings on the bottom rather than the top of the jar the carbon dioxide will essentially fall or leak out of the bottom, to be replaced by oxygen which will rise up to take the place of the Co2. of course it isn't a perfect technique, but i found it to be somewhat helpful in my few experiments with fruiting in vitro.
whoa thanks for the info... you really know your stuff. I'll take your advice on keeping the CO2 to a minimum. How long does the average grow take, from inoculation to the picking of the shrooms usaully??
with the pf tek (vermiculite cakes in fruitin chamber)... A month or so. 2 weeks for colonization, and another 2 weeks in the fruiting chamber until you can pick your first babies. That was it for me. They are so beautiful, smell good, and fun to touch
