Anybody growing mushrooms willing to talk???

7L!fTeD24

Well-Known Member
The only con i feel about the milo the red stuff, is that if you had some bacterial growth, or I guess any other contams going on also it would be kinda hard to spot early on. But i test on agar and my LC jars are clear so shouldn’t have bacterial growth getting in from the LC.

What got me going with the sorghum is i was buying the pc’d white sorghum in grain bags when I first started out. Worked killer but obviously too expensive to buy it that way. Only sorghum I can find on the shelf at the feed stores is the milo/red sorghum.
I am having some trouble spotting contams in my grain jars and LC jars. Sometimes a contaminated doesn't even look like it. At first I was always looking for discolorations but sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes I Get powdery or cobwebby looking contaminations that are white.
 

Aeroknow

Well-Known Member
I am having some trouble spotting contams in my grain jars and LC jars. Sometimes a contaminated doesn't even look like it. At first I was always looking for discolorations but sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes I Get powdery or cobwebby looking contaminations that are white.
I’ve been pretty lucky so far with the grain bags i’m making. The ones i was buying i would loose a few that would trich out but had nothing to do with my LC. Like i had said i test on agar. I’m being anal AF about it and so far so good.
 

canndo

Well-Known Member
Ya man Milo's great. Millet colonizes super fast also and gives you a ton of inoculation points because it's really small. Also, you do no soak no simmer. So that would work really well with millet also. I like the mix of the 2. Wild bird seed is really cheap That's pretty much why I buy it And just clean it out so there's only millet and milo left. Most people say you don't even have to do that with it. Because the corn and sunflower seeds colonize just fine. I wash and soak it, then spread it out to dry then into jars then PC. No simmer. I do want to try Rye berries. For substrate CVG seems to be killing it..

If you are doing well with milo or milet stick with that. Rye is annoying. I have used it for decades. Just a bit too much water or cooking time renders it a sticky clay like mess. Corn is good when you get the hang of it but it all depends on intent. If you are looking to bolster yield in less nutrient rich substrates its great because it adds substantially to your total nutrient content. The smaller grains like grass seed give more inoculation points but not very much nutrient.

No one here seems to be going straight spawn. Straight spawn gives the best yield but it can be tricky.

I found that when using coir, Corn spawn in high percentages gives a very good first and second flush. And a decent third. Straight spawn yields as many as 8 flushes if you want to risk it.

If you are ever after huge fruit. Straw is king but it won't give many flushes and gets nasty pretty quick.
 

canndo

Well-Known Member
I am having some trouble spotting contams in my grain jars and LC jars. Sometimes a contaminated doesn't even look like it. At first I was always looking for discolorations but sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes I Get powdery or cobwebby looking contaminations that are white.

The trick is to study a lot. Each contam grows a slightly different sort of mycelium and a slightly different color. Keep at it and you will develop a distinction.

Lc is tough but even then you can begin to tell. Try spinning a jar and letting some mycelium float on the surface, you can often tell just by the way those bits grow.

If it's bacterial you can quickly notice either tiny bubbles or that your mycelium quits growing.
 

7L!fTeD24

Well-Known Member
If you are doing well with milo or milet stick with that. Rye is annoying. I have used it for decades. Just a bit too much water or cooking time renders it a sticky clay like mess. Corn is good when you get the hang of it but it all depends on intent. If you are looking to bolster yield in less nutrient rich substrates its great because it adds substantially to your total nutrient content. The smaller grains like grass seed give more inoculation points but not very much nutrient.

No one here seems to be going straight spawn. Straight spawn gives the best yield but it can be tricky.

I found that when using coir, Corn spawn in high percentages gives a very good first and second flush. And a decent third. Straight spawn yields as many as 8 flushes if you want to risk it.

If you are ever after huge fruit. Straw is king but it won't give many flushes and gets nasty pretty quick.
Right, I should probably just stick with what I know And just try to figure out why I'm getting contams and go from there., I've heard Rye is pretty tricky And it does seem like a lot of people do really good with popcorn, I see sometimes it colonizes fastest for some people. I've been using CVG now for a couple months instead of just coco, I feel like the top layer colonizes a little faster.
 

7L!fTeD24

Well-Known Member
The trick is to study a lot. Each contam grows a slightly different sort of mycelium and a slightly different color. Keep at it and you will develop a distinction.

Lc is tough but even then you can begin to tell. Try spinning a jar and letting some mycelium float on the surface, can often tell just by the way those bits grow.

If it's bacterial you can quickly notice either tiny bubbles or that your mycelium quits growing.
What's really confusing is when my grain jars all look good and I spawn them and say i make 2 tubs with the same spawn and one goes bad before the 1st flush but the other tub kills it, it has me wondering if something happened in the jar, during spawn, or what. One thing That may have been a problem Is that I haven't made new jar lids in a while, And I've used them a lot, they're pretty worn out. Instead of the stick on ships, i'm switching back to. RTV, it seems to work better, maybe sometime I'll try the ones that poke through the hole in the lid.
 

Aeroknow

Well-Known Member
What's really confusing is when my grain jars all look good and I spawn them and say i make 2 tubs with the same spawn and one goes bad before the 1st flush but the other tub kills it, it has me wondering if something happened in the jar, during spawn, or what. One thing That may have been a problem Is that I haven't made new jar lids in a while, And I've used them a lot, they're pretty worn out. Instead of the stick on ships, i'm switching back to. RTV, it seems to work better, maybe sometime I'll try the ones that poke through the hole in the lid.
I’ve switched to bags. The monotubs were pissing me off. I was loosing like a 1/4 of some of the strains i was running before the first flush. Some strains didn’t contam at all. Was confusing the hell out of me. To me it’s putting allot of eggs into one basket. If i end up loosing a bag here and there oh well. But should be allot harder to get contamination compared to monotubs though. And yeah I know, coco is supposed to be really hard to get contamination. Supposedly it must come from our spawn. I say bullshit. My spawn is healthy and I got it.

i’m also fruiting in an old flower room. It was a sealed growroom and never had any pm or shit like that in there. It was a clean sealed growroom. But maybe there’s some shit in there that isn’t good? Lol i dunno. Got hepa filters going in there.
 
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7L!fTeD24

Well-Known Member
I’ve switched to bags. The monotubs were pissing me off. I was loosing like a 1/4 of some of the strains i was running before the first flush. Some strains didn’t contam at all. Was confusing the hell out of me. To me it’s putting allot of eggs into one basket. If i end up loosing a bag here and there oh well. But should be allot harder to get contamination compared to monotubs though. And yeah I know, coco is supposed to be really hard to get contamination. Supposedly it must come from our spawn. I say bullshit. My spawn is healthy and I got it.

i’m also fruiting in an old flower room. It was a sealed growroom and never had any pm or shit like that in there. It was a clean sealed growroom. But maybe there’s some shit in there that isn’t good? Lol i dunno. Got hepa filters going in there.
Right I'm liking the mini monos. It sucks losing big ones. I'm also in a grow tent. It's a 4x8, I scrubbed the whole thing out 1st though.
 

oldsilvertip55

Well-Known Member
If you are doing well with milo or milet stick with that. Rye is annoying. I have used it for decades. Just a bit too much water or cooking time renders it a sticky clay like mess. Corn is good when you get the hang of it but it all depends on intent. If you are looking to bolster yield in less nutrient rich substrates its great because it adds substantially to your total nutrient content. The smaller grains like grass seed give more inoculation points but not very much nutrient.

No one here seems to be going straight spawn. Straight spawn gives the best yield but it can be tricky.

I found that when using coir, Corn spawn in high percentages gives a very good first and second flush. And a decent third. Straight spawn yields as many as 8 flushes if you want to risk it.

If you are ever after huge fruit. Straw is king but it won't give many flushes and gets nasty pretty quick.
good things to know about shrooms!
 

Fangthane

Well-Known Member
opinions please. everything look ok so far?
You've seen enough of my posts to know I don't really know shit about this, but that doesn't really look like an especially humid environment. Not seeing condensed water droplets on the sides (although it's not the clearest pic). Did you consciously change something to initiate fruiting, or did they just start on their own?
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
You've seen enough of my posts to know I don't really know shit about this, but that doesn't really look like an especially humid environment. Not seeing condensed water droplets on the sides (although it's not the clearest pic). Did you consciously change something to initiate fruiting, or did they just start on their own?
yeah, my phone is a POS>

they tubs are in my 3x4 bloom room. i have the huey running 24/7 and the monitor i have (rh, temp, co2) shows the room is generally 80 to 99%.

i have 8 small holes in each tote covered with micropore. i have not misted the totes at all. the only thing i did about 4 days ago was take the lids off the totes and ran the huey full blast for about 4 hours. but yeah, i've never noticed any condensation inside the totes. the lids have been back on since that.

does that help at all?

this is my first go so if i get enough to trip balls one good weekend,, i'll be plenty happy. definitely have learned ALOT so far.
 

Fangthane

Well-Known Member
Ok, sounds like you're on top of your conditions. I don't see anything that looks bad. I think you may have planned your camping trip a few days too soon. Shit should probably start happening pretty quickly for you. Here are a few pics of the progression of one of my tubs: one from 4/2, then 4/4, then 4/6. I don't think my surfaces were nearly as colonized as they ideally should have been when fruiting started, but I still ended up kinda killing it with that grow.
20220402_100545.jpg20220404_101000.jpg20220406_173118.jpg
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Ok, sounds like you're on top of your conditions. I don't see anything that looks bad. I think you may have planned your camping trip a few days too soon. Shit should probably start happening pretty quickly for you. Here are a few pics of the progression of one of my tubs: one from 4/2, then 4/4, then 4/6. I don't think my surfaces were nearly as colonized as they ideally should have been when fruiting started, but I still ended up kinda killing it with that grow.
View attachment 5331004View attachment 5331001View attachment 5331000
thanks to you both

and shit man, give yourself more credit. awesome pics.

that was the one thing i kinda had in the back of mind: the substrate surface didn't look nearly as colonized as some of the tutorials iv'e been following along with.

so do you think with the micropore tape, that some of humidity from my room is getting into the totes? i'm a bit scared to keep the lids off for too long and get contamination. but then at the same time, don't want them too dry either.
 

Aeroknow

Well-Known Member
opinions please. everything look ok so far?

View attachment 5330983
Don’t you feel like a proud papa?
From spores or isolated lc? With those pins popping up like that i’m thinking from spore syringe?
and looks like you topped off with a pseudo casing layer?
I will never again do a pseudo casing layer in tubs again. All it seemed to do was slow shit down from pinning but that was also non PE strains too so i dunno about those strains in monotubs yet either.
 

Fangthane

Well-Known Member
I think without really heavy surface colonization to start, you're maybe leaving some yield on the table, since you may not start getting great coverage until the second flush. But I'm just speculating/guessing. I ended up pulling over 4 dry zips from 3 12qt tubs, even with a weak start. I went into it expecting utter failure, so I was pretty amped about producing anything at all.

You want air to enter and exit the tubs, that's 'free air exchange'. It's necessary. If you're running a humidifier, I probably wouldn't worry until you have an actual reason to. It was maybe 40% RH when I did my grow, with no humidifier. I just misted daily. Sure someone who actually knows will chime in eventually.
 

Fangthane

Well-Known Member
I will never again do a pseudo casing layer in tubs again. All it seemed to do was slow shit down from pinning but that was also non PE strains too so i dunno out those strains in monotubs yet either.
I kinda felt like that, too. After reading some more, wish I wouldn't have cased my tubs. Before I put the coco layer on top, there seemed to be pretty solid coverage; but the casing seemed to seriously stall it out for a little before the top started getting fuzzy.
 
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