Any mushroom growers doing PF Tek? Got a question.

Hi everyone,

Got a question if anyone knows. I'm in the middle of my first PF Tek grow, I inoculated on 3/29 (six weeks). Right now the cakes are nearing fully colonized, except it seems like in several of my jars they very top half inch of the vermiculite/rice flour cakes are not being colonized. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance to take some updated ones, but was curious if anyone had a problem similar to this? Should I go ahead with the next step? I mean it has been 6 weeks... doesn't it usually take approximately 3 weeks?

Thanks all =)

Could take as long as 8 weeks to be 100%. Do you have a layer of plain verm on top of the cake?

Yup... got the plain verm on top. Yeah, except for that last little amount on the top they seem to be getting a pretty solid white.

I'm so glad, 10 jars and no contaminates yet! Haha... was afraid because I didn't realize how green mold spores spread in the kitchen and was careless before I started this project. Then I read about them somewhere and I'm like... those spores gotta be everywhere! But as of right now, I'm good... I was thinking if they were contaminated they were more likely to have done so by now.

I'm just excited because I've never had shrooms before and I can't wait till they are done! Got about 40 some days left on my first ever weed grow and my shroom grow should be right around the corner too... gonna be a fun summer! Haha

You want FULL colonisation before birthing.

> Yup... got the plain verm on top. Yeah, except for that last little amount on the top they seem to be getting a pretty solid white.

Not sure is you mean the cover verm (no BRF, just verm) or the top area of BRF under the cover verm.

The reason is that any left over uncolonised medium is ripe for contams.

Actually, you want to wait a few days after full colonisation to make sure the internal cake is consumed as well, since that is a pin trigger when the nutrients start to run out (as well as light and temps).

Note: I ALWAYS have double the BRF jars that I "need" for a given run, assuming I will lose some to contams, accidents, etc. The real issue is the effort of doing a run, not the incremental expense of the individual materials, so I want to maxiumise what I get from the effort.

Here are some pics....









As can be seen, the white stops a little bit below the lid. This is the verm/flour mix. The dry verm top is higher up (I might not have gone deep enough with the dry verm.

You may be psyching yourself out. I also have inoculated 1/2 pints. As long as everything else has been colonized, and you've waited a few days. Then the top is more than likely colonized. It just looks like the top protective verm layer hasn't been colonized, or at least bits there of. Give them a real good shake. If there's room to shake em so that they unstick from the bottom then do it. Then wait a day or two if you're still shakey about it.

Okay, I got them in the fruiting chamber, been about 4 days now, I shook the jars a little and they unstuck from the bottom. The colonized fully to the dry layer of verm, the just compacted a little so that was the dry verm that I was seeing that didn't get colonized.

When in the fruiting chamber should you be misting often? After the dunk and roll, I misted a few times to get the vermiculite wet. I wasn't sure if you should keep misting occasionally. Right now they are getting a white fuzz on them. Didn't get the pictures uploaded yet. Will do that soon.

Seems interesting. Lets see what happens next.

Okay... so here are a couple pics... they are in fruiting chamber (terrarium) and this is what it is at so far... is this normal?





Just getting a lil fuzzy around them, does this normally happen? Just takes time from now on?

Thanks!