I've finally gathered all the stuff to start growing but still confused on a few issues. For one I live in a humid muggy place so I have a lot of bugs to worry about. I'm thinking of taping coffee filters over the holes in my shotgun terrarium to keep gnats out. Will this fuck up the air exchange? And if the whole thing is gonna be covered up I'm thinking of putting the lights directly inside under the lid. The lights I'm using are 2 6500k 15watt CFLs. Has anyone done this? What would be the issues to look out for, too hot, too much light? And this one is gonna sound retarded but I can't find any info on this. When consuming do you eat the stem as well? Or just the cap? Any info would be greatly appreciated
You don't actually need to have holes in the fruit chamber as long as you fan it out good two to three times per day while keeping it nice and humid. Basically just fan it then spray with mist a few times and trap that mist in. Also don't put the lights inside, bad idea with all of the humidity. Lastly, any light will do just fine, shit depending on how secretive you are having to be, you can just leave them out in a room, even that is enough light, otherwise one small fluorescent of any kind will be just fine, they don't actually get energy from the light, just need it to initiate a hormone production so they fruit. Good luck!
You eat the stems as well. I have heard that certain parts of the stem and cap are stronger, or that they contribute to different parts of the trip, but I do not know if that is true. Just eat the whole thing.
If you do what clearwater said you can use a totally covered container (terrarium) and use a blow dryer with a cool setting to suck the carbon dioxide out. Make sure it has a cool setting so as to not overheat the environment.
I'm gonna put up progress reports of me using the pf tek, might be a while, but keep an eye out. And keep me posted
Ive inoculated and the Mycelium is spreading nicely. But Ive just noticed a lot of condensation on the inside of the jar. I read that direct water droplets can damage the Mycelium. Does this mean the jars are getting too hot?
As long as the mycellium keeps growing don't worry about the condensation. The #1 way newbs screw up is by fussing around with stuff that is perfectly fine. Once you innoculate your jar there is nothing more you can do for it other then inncubate it at 85f. If the jar contams or you added too much moisture there is nothing you can do to help it now so fussing about it and looking at the jar 10x a day isn't going help. my advice is put your jars in a warm dark closet and don't look at them for a week.
Ok still confused. The water droplets have turned cloudy. There is an odd smell, kind of sweet/sour, hard to describe. And there are some yellow spots. I tore one jar apart to examine it better and the water droplets are gel like. What do you all think? Bacteria contamination? Will they still pin if there contaminated? They look fully colonized but no pins yet.
So I have a question. I was wondering if it's okay to have the 12 different cakes in the fruiting chamber, but with 4 different spores. For example; 3 with B+ strain, 3 with Golden teacher, 3 with Tazmanian, and 3 with Amazon. Please let me know,, thanks!
Yeah thats no problem, different strains can fruit together, you might just find they take different times to colonize but once theyre fully colonized they all fruit the same way.
and I have one more question. I saw in a video after this guys cakes colonized he birthed them, cleaned them off, let them soak for 24 in a water bath, then after roll them in dry verm. would this contaminant or no?
dabla, sweet/sour smell is usually not good...does it smell like feet haha kinda vague but every time I've gotten bacteria the substrate darkens, produces this soupy mess, and smells like nasty feet...healthy mycelium should smell...earthen is a good description, like mushrooms literally. Sharp, the "dunk and roll method" is really a matter of preference it seems. Vermiculite is not highly prone to contam, as it really offers no real nutrition value. Personally, when I used to do pf I would usually just birth the cakes and wait for the first flush then dunk, flush, dunk, flush etc...however, dunking before the first flush does replace moisture that is lost during incubation (which really isn't too much) and can indeed produce a more robust, large (fruit size) first flush...I'd recommend running a test "side by side" so to say, if you have enough cakes, dunk half upon birthing (roughly 12 hours is sufficient), then don't dunk the other half pre-first-flush, then simply see which group does better. Either way, after the first flush you will need to dunk at least 12 hours between flushes as mushroom production uses a lot of water. Good luck fellas!
sweet, thanks for the help. and now I have another haha. so lets say after this first grow I'm feelin a little experimental, are you able to spawn the LC and use it with a bulk substrate? if so how would I go about doing this because it seems that the bulk substrates are better and the LC seems the same way. thanks agagin!
you can use LC to spawn any type of substrate really, though it may be best to spawn jars/bags of bird seed, let those colonize and then use those to spawn the bulk, sort of work your way up so to say
I was reading about that. So when you inject it it'll colonize on each individual strain then when you break it down it'll spawn each individul one in the manure or coir mixture. correct?
a bit confused as to what you mean by each individual strain...are you talking about a LC that has multiple strains in it? If so, while it is possible for different strains to grow on the same bulk substrate, it is more likely that the more robust one will take over, there will be much competition
I mean, each individual seed, will have its own spores on it then when its mixed with the coir or the manure, it will do its crazy shroom magic and spread like wildfire mwuahahahahaa
Thanks Rivers. I been reading kinda the same thing on shroomery so I bought some white mushrooms from the store and tore em up to smell. Mine got that same smell. Almost exactly like them. So I think I'm good.
so i got one more question. since we didn't inoculate the cakes through the holes, and theres no holes for air to get in are we still gonna see growth or should I take a needle (sterilized of course) and poke holes in the injection ports?
