My first class with the golden teacher

[RetiredMatthebrute]

Hey RIU

My name is Matt and i have been a long time grow journal logger for my canabis cultivation projects. i have went from not being able to grow mold to having a pretty decent green thumb, thanks to countless hours of reading and help from RIU members.

now that my canabic projects are in full swing and fairly low maintenance i feel its time i move on tho the wonderfull world of mycology.

I want this journal to be a learning experience for everyone. I will admit im not too him with all the termonology but i do know a little so bare with me here as this should be a long and interesting ride. if i use a term i will highlight it in blue for the first couple of posts so you guys can correct me if im using something wrong. this will help me learn and possible help others learn who are in the same situation as me.

I wont be testing my final product untill probabally this summer when i can get out of the house and go on a camping "trip" har har see that pun....score!!

heres the vid i have watched and will be implying this Tek. it seems to be the most simple way of doing this. This vid is about an hour long and worth every second of watching in my humble opinion. also some really cool time lapse's

[video=youtube;er1i3M-w51E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1i3M-w51E[/video]


The List
heres what i have to get started. i do believe i shouldnt need much more supplies.

Pressure cooker
Spores 2x 10ml golden teacher spore syringes, purchased from spores101.com they should be here next week sometime.
vermiculite
brown rice flour
1/2 pint mason jars. i know my jars arent tapered, i will have to deal with that when the time comes as i couldnt find tapered ones.
temp/humidity meter with indoor/outdoor temps
heavy duty tin foil
perilite
32 liter clear plastic tote for my FC (fruiting chamber)
1 gal distilled H2O

things i still need...

lysol disenfectant spray or a quality spray bottle for a bleach water solution.
another clear tote to make a glovebox
some gloves to use to make the glovebox.


ok on with the details of how im going to attempt this.

I will be innoculating 8 jars to start (thats all that fit inmy 8 quart PC) so i will start off with 8 jars, i will hammer 2 holes in each lid like the vid suggests and fill them with a mixture of brown rice flour and vermiculite. the vid calls for a 1/4 cup brown rice, 3/4 cup vermiculite and 1/2 cup distillied H2O for a 250ml jar which is a 1/2 pint jar. i will be following this recipe and multiplying it by 8.

I dont really have a good closet or room to use for a sterile enviorment so ill just be making a glove box. i will place all of my sterilized jars, syringe and a lighter into the glove box and then mist the inside with a mild bleach water solution or a disenfectant spray and closing the lid. i wont open the lid until i am done innoculating and have the foil back in place. im hoping this will be enough precaution to keep contams out of my medium.

I will also be attempting to make my own syringes using the same method with the glove box as my inoculation procedure. though iwill have to bring in the mushroom which cant really be sterilized. i will place the mushroom into a ziplock bag and sterilize everything else. any tips or tricks on this procedure or a good video would be appreciated.

im going to try and keep my incubation chamber at 82F.

my FC will be relativly simple. im going to use the clear tote with holes drilled in the side for FAE(fresh air exchange) and damp perilite on the bottom for humidity and medium. I also plan on placing a seedling heating mat under the tote to help encourage that 100% RH?? is this a bad idea? once i start fruiting my first batchim prob going to start the inoculation process on my next. keeping it simple and just running the 8 jars to a time. im hoping that at least 6 make it for the first time but i am eventually hoping for 100% sucess on no contams. i figure that contams are always going to be there so a jar here or there is inevitable but with the procedure i outlined i should be fairly sterile.

anyways heres some pics of the supplies i bought yesterday, once my spores come in ill have some more pics and i will get to inoculating. im going to have a friend come over and take pics for me so i can show off my process using the glove box. i may also get a video recorder and do a vid. im not sure yet.

View attachment 2525910View attachment 2525916View attachment 2525930View attachment 2525933View attachment 2525921View attachment 2525926View attachment 2525918View attachment 2525912


and there we have it. hope to get some subscriber here along for the ride. Hoping to get some newbies as well as veteran mycologists. feel free to ask any questions and feel free to answer any questions. please if you dont know the answer dont give the "i think" answers. i would like to keep this thread without any bad info.

also please tell me what you think, anything i can do better or anything im missing.

 

[aCiDjEsUs]

Matt, here and subbed up everything looks very yummy yummy, can't wait to see some action.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

glad to have ya as always Acid

cant wait till these spores get here and i can start this process.

 

[canndo]

You have a pressure cooker - don't bother with the brown rice flour and vermiculite - go with whole grain.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

You have a pressure cooker - don't bother with the brown rice flour and vermiculite - go with whole grain.

care to explain why you suggest this? im all ears but with no explanation i cant simply take your advice just because you gave it

i would like to eventually use a substrate that dosent "cake" anyways but my first run i think this is going to be the easiest way for me to go. if all is sucessfull i will be using live culture on my 3rd run to innoc my jars, thus needing a medium such as whole grain or corn.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

on a side not i will be putting up a small DIY tutorial on how to make a fairly inexpensive glove box that is fairly sterile, and should last for a long time. stay tuned!!

 

[canndo]

you have the mistaken impression that a "cake" is "easier". This comes from (and I have said it so many times) a campaign by Fanticus to sell syringes - it worked well but the company left an imprint that lingers today. If you have a pressure cooker you can use whole grain. If you use whole grain then you can finish your colonizing in short order - you can also pour the now coated grain into a flat container yielding more surface area. You could also spawn any number of bulk materials should you so chose. You can also go directly to casing, more properly allying yourself with the way the mushroom grows in the first place. Mushrooms grow in spite of and not because of PF tek, which is essentially what you are doing. Your crop will be larger, and your knowlege of the organism far greater if you go about it in the fashion I describe.

 

[canndo]

I see this conception over and over and over and over again. What it leads to is misunderstanding or low understanding of the organism. I have seen people ramp up PF tek to dozens or even hundreds of "cakes" demonstrating that they never really understood what the mushroom does, how it grows and what it likes - it is not their fault, it is because they got off on a wrong track - I'd hate to see you do that.

I have been growing mushrooms for over 40 years - all sorts, my current project is shaggy manes - tougher than I had thought but still worth while. I grew every sort of hallucinogenic mushroom and appreicate the organism greatly, it no longer presents a challenge to me and I am forbidden by the mushroom to sell it or to make money from it in any way, shaggy manes have made no such argument (of course they can't, being mute) - the one you wish to grow has much to teach, and not only in the eating of it but in the growing of it as well.


oh, and I am not nuts - you will find that there is a sort of communication between you and the mushroom - yield to that communication and you will do well.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

sounds good. what kind of whole grain would be a easily obtainable and simplest to use. I was in no way doubting your advice, i have just been on these boards long enough to know that you dont just follow any advice thrown at you as it will lead to disaster.

i totaly understand what your saying about surface area where you can "shake" the grains over instead of just having one cake, will this work with the perilite as well? i ask because im about at my limits on funding.

the reason i decided to go with the vermiculite and rice flour cakes is because it looked simple, and easy for a beginer like me. simply inoculate, let colonize and then tap out into the fruiting chamber. i dont plan on using live cultures my first go around because i would like to get one grow and some more knowledge under my belt before i try that, plus i should still have around 12 ml left after my first run, i figue i can use another 8 ml and store the remaining 4 in case anything goes wrong with using live cultures. I really dont plan on selling any of these Im just doing it so i can experience them and i personaly wont buy them because i need to know what im getting. by growing my own i know 100% where and how these mushroom came to be.

Im really glad to have someone with your experience on board (if your sticking around) and if i come off as argumentive please dont take it that way. I simply like to state my reasoning as to why im doing what im doing and if you do the same we can all learn and change for the better good.

i will look more into using whoole grains and theres a good chance ill use them in a side by side with the cakes to sort of "learn by doing" and to give the comunity a side by side so if someone like me wishes to start on thier own adventure they will have photo documentation and get off to a better start. I dont doubt that the whole grain medium is by far better as i have no experience and if you say it is with 40 years experience i have no choice but to assume you are correct.

on a side not i purchased a digital camcorder so i will be taking some video soon. just need a tripod. i wont video the actual growing process but my glovebox tutorial will get taped.

again thanks for stopping in appreciate you taking the time to explain in more details.

 

[canndo]

sounds good. what kind of whole grain would be a easily obtainable and simplest to use. I was in no way doubting your advice, i have just been on these boards long enough to know that you dont just follow any advice thrown at you as it will lead to disaster.

i totaly understand what your saying about surface area where you can "shake" the grains over instead of just having one cake, will this work with the perilite as well? i ask because im about at my limits on funding.

the reason i decided to go with the vermiculite and rice flour cakes is because it looked simple, and easy for a beginer like me. simply inoculate, let colonize and then tap out into the fruiting chamber. i dont plan on using live cultures my first go around because i would like to get one grow and some more knowledge under my belt before i try that, plus i should still have around 12 ml left after my first run, i figue i can use another 8 ml and store the remaining 4 in case anything goes wrong with using live cultures. I really dont plan on selling any of these Im just doing it so i can experience them and i personaly wont buy them because i need to know what im getting. by growing my own i know 100% where and how these mushroom came to be.

Im really glad to have someone with your experience on board (if your sticking around) and if i come off as argumentive please dont take it that way. I simply like to state my reasoning as to why im doing what im doing and if you do the same we can all learn and change for the better good.

i will look more into using whoole grains and theres a good chance ill use them in a side by side with the cakes to sort of "learn by doing" and to give the comunity a side by side so if someone like me wishes to start on thier own adventure they will have photo documentation and get off to a better start. I dont doubt that the whole grain medium is by far better as i have no experience and if you say it is with 40 years experience i have no choice but to assume you are correct.

on a side not i purchased a digital camcorder so i will be taking some video soon. just need a tripod. i wont video the actual growing process but my glovebox tutorial will get taped.

again thanks for stopping in appreciate you taking the time to explain in more details.

Do some searches on this site and you will find all sorts of tidbits of info (from me), and a few pictures that should establish my street creds.

but I don't mind spending the time in order to turn folks away from the dark side - PF tek. As I said, the man who invented it was a genius at marketing and he made millions, he died last year I believe from hepititis. Those of us who had been growing for decades before he came along appreciated his work and we all quitely spanked ourselves for not having thought of the whole scheme before he did. Of course, in the end, he got a case of hubris, began sending instructions on the use of his spore syringes with each purchase and that made him an accomplice in the manufacture of a controled substance - and he went away for a few years and his empire crumbled but his PF Tek lived on. None of my compatriots thought much of that until we began to see what damage it does to people's notions of the organism and so you see my campaign.

The only reason to employ the PF tek is if you don't have a pressure cooker - but as you know, pressure cookers are cheap and everyone who does mycological work should have one just as anyone who does hydroponics should have a good PH meter.


My first suggestion is that you explore popcorn as a substrate - popcorn is forgiving where rye berries - the preference of all mycologists, is not. Too much water and you get mush, too little and you get poor growing characteristics, there are ways to help yourself with gypsum but it should not be necessary.


Simply boil your popcorn until you see just a few kernels with split coatings, then drain, rinse, rinse again and let the kernels dry - over night would be best.

Really, that is all you have to worry about. Use full quarts if your pressure cooker can manage them but if not, whatever fits. Sterilize your corn for 45 minutes to an hour at 15 lbs. When it cools, innoculate - if you want to use your holes, and your innoculation ports and your tyvek fine, but it really isn't necessary.

you see, mycelium uses little oxygen and loves CO2 - it creates it's own and thrives in atmospheres with CO2 in the tens of thousands of parts per million, so you can colonize a half quart of corn without ever needing to let it breath. I have done it thousands of times (literaly).


but fine, so you are unsure and you give your corn some fresh air. You will innoculate your corn with any amount of spore solution you wish - ANY amount is enough - 1 cc if you can manage it, half a cc is even better. Let your corn sit until you see white bits growing - if you can manage a room with 84 - 86 degrees then you will see white after about three days. Wait a day after you see your mycelium being and then shake that jar - that is the point. Wait until you see white again - maybe two or three days, wait another day and shake again - it usually only takes another two days, maybe three until you see full colonization. If not, shake it up one last time. I have seen full colonization in 8 or 9 days. PF tek? weeks.

Now, give your corn an extra day or so, you don't have to worry about internal colonization because you shook each individual kernel, remember? get yourself some sort of flat container, one that will allow you to pour your grain into it to a depth of no less than one inch, preverably two or three, you can use more than one jar if you wish. Put that in your fruiting chamber for a few days, you want the mycelium to "knit" or become like one great hunk of cheese with embeded kernels of corn. Your fruiting chamber has the humidity you want for this to occur - never mind the particulars now, I will tell you all about them later.


After you see healthy mycelium like pure white cotton growing all over every part of your grain in that bed, case it. Casing is the act of putting half an inch or more depending upon the depth of your substrate, of reduced nutrient material on the top of your high nutrient substrate. You are signaling to the mycelium that it is running out of food. do your research on casing, there are many good methods - I generaly use 80/20 - non or low nutrient to higher nutrient, in this case, sifted coir 20 percent, coarse vermiculite 80 percent - bring it to field moisture content - where you can squeeze a handful and a few drops of water run out of your hand.

Pasteurize this stuff, 160 - 180 for an hour or so, let it cool and spread a layer on your substrate. Let that colonize and then the fun begins.


The primary fruiting trigger is light. So you want to incubate your corn in darkness but that is not essential as your mycelium is too young to fruit widely, after you have cased however, you want that thing in the DARK. Even a fraction of a second of light will trigger fruiting - but don't worry about it your first time.



The next trigger is CO2 - high CO2 for colonization, low Co2 for fruiting - this is why you will see fresh air exchanges talked about over and over again - the point is that you want low Co2, high humidity in your fruiting chamber. The third trigger is temperature. You don't have to worry about temperature with this species because it will fruit eventualy anyway.


Once you have fully colonized substrate, have signaled the mycelium that it is running out of nutrient, given it light, and reduced yor co2 concentration you will see pins in a few days. All you have to do is maintain conditions and you cannot fail.


Next time I will tell you about PH.

I hope I didn't make this sound harder than it is - it is the concepts that are important, once you have them down you can grow all sorts of mushrooms and you can grow cubensis on just about anything.

I perfected a one container method that works quite well - it is all a mater of timing.


About live culture? i you are looking for monocultures - the path toward truely huge yields then you want to get good at live culture and cloning otherwise, don't bother.


However, if you are looking to work with the entire range of mycological methods - think about using agar - you will have a glove box after all.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

wow lots of info there to take in. ok so let me see if i can break this down to laymans terms and you can tell me if i have it right (sorry im a viual learner not a book or reading guy, videos and diagrams are my niche)

get some popcorn kernels and lots of them. boil them untill you see some splitting in the kernels occur...rinse them a couple times and then set in a colender over night to dry.

i have a 8 quart pressure cooker, it fits 8 1/2 pint jars pretty good. i already bought them and if its not a big deal would like to use them.

fill my jars with the popcorn substrate i had just let dry overnight, leave a small amount of room so when i shake them the kernels can move around.

dont bother putting any holes in the lids??

after sterilized and cooled inoculate, shake every time i see small while mycelium untill jar is fully colonized.

once jar is colonized pour them onto the bottom of my tote and cover them with more popcorn? prepared in the same manner as the popcorn in the jars minus the sterilization process? or should i sterilize them for safe measure.

once all that popcorn is colonized in my tote add a layer of my vermiculite and coir at a 20/80 ratio coir/vermiculite. sterilize this substrate????

keep in complete darkeness untill the coir/vermiculite bedding is colonized and then allow fas/light/temps to become ideal for fruiting...

sit back and watch them grow.

in a nutshell is that about it?

i will research casing a bit more. thanks for all the info. i though i had this all figured out lol i guess there is much to learn. but if i can increase my yeild without having to buy too much more (will have to get popcorn and some cocoa coir) im all ears, and im here to learn so turning down solid advice is not my style. appreciate you taking time to help me understand this a bit more.

i do have a question. why did PF tek guy make so much money with that method? is it because he was able to sell spore syringes when they werent otherwise needed? should i buy prints next time instead? will prints last much longer thansyringes, i know they are way more expensive.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

found this on the web, seems about right. is this info pretty correct?

http://www.earthstongue.com/site/388422/page/933739/site

you said light for even a fraction of a second will cause the mushrooms to start fruiting. how do you check on the caseing to make sure that it is evenly covered with mycelium if you cant let any light in?

 

[canndo]

wow lots of info there to take in. ok so let me see if i can break this down to laymans terms and you can tell me if i have it right (sorry im a viual learner not a book or reading guy, videos and diagrams are my niche)

get some popcorn kernels and lots of them. boil them untill you see some splitting in the kernels occur...rinse them a couple times and then set in a colender over night to dry.

i have a 8 quart pressure cooker, it fits 8 1/2 pint jars pretty good. i already bought them and if its not a big deal would like to use them.

fill my jars with the popcorn substrate i had just let dry overnight, leave a small amount of room so when i shake them the kernels can move around.

dont bother putting any holes in the lids??

after sterilized and cooled inoculate, shake every time i see small while mycelium untill jar is fully colonized.

once jar is colonized pour them onto the bottom of my tote and cover them with more popcorn? prepared in the same manner as the popcorn in the jars minus the sterilization process? or should i sterilize them for safe measure.

once all that popcorn is colonized in my tote add a layer of my vermiculite and coir at a 20/80 ratio coir/vermiculite. sterilize this substrate????

keep in complete darkeness untill the coir/vermiculite bedding is colonized and then allow fas/light/temps to become ideal for fruiting...

sit back and watch them grow.

in a nutshell is that about it?

i will research casing a bit more. thanks for all the info. i though i had this all figured out lol i guess there is much to learn. but if i can increase my yeild without having to buy too much more (will have to get popcorn and some cocoa coir) im all ears, and im here to learn so turning down solid advice is not my style. appreciate you taking time to help me understand this a bit more.

i do have a question. why did PF tek guy make so much money with that method? is it because he was able to sell spore syringes when they werent otherwise needed? should i buy prints next time instead? will prints last much longer thansyringes, i know they are way more expensive.

First, the mycelium needs some oxygen, if you fill your half quarts up there won't be room for that oxygen so your grow will fail. Just go ahead and use one of the "lid" teks.

find yourself some sort of plastic container - like a plastic shoe box and pour your colonized corn into that. You might be wise to drill a hole or two in the bottom - in the event your mycelium gets too hot (it will produce it's own heat - be aware of that), it might go over the threshhold, if that happens it will begin to exude liquid. If that liquid stays in the bottom of your container too long it will drown the mycelium - best however not to let your temp go too high. At a depth of 3 inches or so you don't much have to worry about generated heat.

No, you don't want to cover with more popcorn - remember that you are looking to leave high nutrient substrates behind as quickly as you can - your high nutrient substrates HAVE to be sterile, pouring more grain on top of your colonized grain will guarantee contamination.


About contamination - first, as I say, you will get contamination on high nutrient material, your mycelium is very contamination resistant so if it has colonized anything it is unlikely that contamination will attack it so long as your PH remains basic. Your mycelium exudes substances that help it consume food, and these substances are acidic so your ph will change as things progress, eventually, the ph will come into contaminate range and you WILL get contamination. The point here is to keep your substrates as basic as your mycelium will allow and to throw youir spent substrate out before you get to the dangerous zone.

The point of all this is to return your organism to something as close as possible to optimum natural conditions. What you are doing is eliminating all competition first, then letting the mycelium do what it does naturaly. you want to pasteurize your casing so that you are being selective as well, the pasteurization will kill all competition but leave the beneficial organisms behind - that gives you about a two week window before the bad things come knocking.

The PF tek guy pretty much invented the syringe. He had people believe that one needed a syringe per jar (or something like that). So he would collect 10 bucks for each PF half pint someone was growing - that adds up. In reality you don't ever need more than one syringe - ever, for eternity, for each "strain".


No, don't use prints - maybe later but syringes last many months and they are very easy to work with - although prints WILL last for many years (the longest I have seen was 10 years, but I needed to do some fancy things in order to get any of them to germinate. Spores tend to dry out, when they do they will only germinate after they are rehydrated - this presents a problem - how do you force water back into them? 10 mm of vacuum on submerged spores for a day seemed to get me the few percentages of still viable spores I needed to continue the strain.

You see the entire point here is to let your mycelium do your work for you - this is absolutely contrary to PF tek.


the mycelium will prevent itself from getting contaminated,the mycelium will sense when it is time to fruit, the mycelium will grow where it is invited to grow and it is always better to just let it do what it has done for millions of years, you are step by step returning the mycelium to its natural state - an environment that is filled with competition - just like in nature. The ultimate test if you are ever up for it is to return your species intirely back to nature - put a plug of mycelium back into the earth - that that is simply a test to see how well you understand your organism and not necessary at all.

 

[canndo]

found this on the web, seems about right. is this info pretty correct?

http://www.earthstongue.com/site/388422/page/933739/site

you said light for even a fraction of a second will cause the mushrooms to start fruiting. how do you check on the caseing to make sure that it is evenly covered with mycelium if you cant let any light in?

That is where experience comes it -= there is no way to tell you for sure but you can do something about it. What happens is that if the mycelium has not yet reached the surface of the casing, and the container is transparent, the light will hit the side and you will have what is known as border breaks, where the pins will come up from the side rather than from the top. If you cover the sides of your container or use a very black tote, you don't have to worry about that. Of course, if you do not, you will still have mushrooms and your second flush will likely be from the top of the casing.

 

[canndo]

• The earth's tongue method is a hybrid between "spawning" and casing and I don't recomend it. Think layers, the bottom layer is the one that is first colonized and has the most nutrient the top layer is the casing layer, you want your mycelium to grow upward into that top layer - the flatter the better only because you would rather not have some myelium beat others to the top (or more properly, just a tiny tiny bit below the surface)​
  
  
  
  

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

ok so i have another question. say i do everything perfectly, have a perfect mycilium casing and nice even fruits. is it a one time deal where they grow out, i harvest and then have to start over from scratch? or do they continue to produce more mushrooms as i harvest the ones that are complete?

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

oh and i have read through some of your micropropogation journal you have in your sig a while back and found it pretty interesting, nothing i would ever do but a pretty cool experiment.

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

That is where experience comes it -= there is no way to tell you for sure but you can do something about it. What happens is that if the mycelium has not yet reached the surface of the casing, and the container is transparent, the light will hit the side and you will have what is known as border breaks, where the pins will come up from the side rather than from the top. If you cover the sides of your container or use a very black tote, you don't have to worry about that. Of course, if you do not, you will still have mushrooms and your second flush will likely be from the top of the casing.

so best off to just wait it out a full 2 weeks and then hope for the best?

 

[canndo]

oh and i have read through some of your micropropogation journal you have in your sig a while back and found it pretty interesting, nothing i would ever do but a pretty cool experiment.

I discovered a series of protocols in the micropropagation of marijuana that I am looking to patent, beyond that I managed to perfect artificial seed technology that I am attempting to sell on an industrial scale though currently state and federal laws inhibit my being able to make a finacial go of it - I figured I would be wise to not give away any of those now secret methods. These methods do let me keep libraries of pure genetics - my biggest problem is the one you started out with - a lack of a green thumb - I have a brown thumb - i.e. I am fairly skilled at working with the other side of nature - the dark side, the decomposers, the part of nature that most don't concern themselves with except to limit - fungi, bacteria and the like.

 

[canndo]

so best off to just wait it out a full 2 weeks and then hope for the best?

No, as you won't learn as much that way and it will be hit or miss. If your casing is shallow, you will get breakthrough early, deeper and it will be late. What you don't want is what is called overlay - that is where the mycelium no longer grows upward but reaches the top and begins to grow along the surface - if you do that your yield will be greatly diminished and you will get a mat of fiber on the top that will shed water. With PF tek that is ALL you get on the entire surface of your cake.

Best if you keep your container light proof, wait a week or so and then check in on it. When you do, keep the light levels low - you would be surprised at how much even a dark tote will allow light to enter.