First Time Mushroom Grow B+. Am i doing anything wrong?

Hello all, this is my first time attempting to grow some B+ mushrooms. the spores were purchased from ralphsters spores a few months back. I inoculated them and all 3 jars colonized with no contams. 2 of the jars took about 4 weeks to colonize and the other one took even longer at about 5 and a half weeks. Fearing that my first 2 would dry out and stall, i birthed all 3 without giving the slower jar time for the 1 week after 100% colonization. After birthing, i let them sit in cool water for 24 hours then covered them in verm like i have read to do so.

SO currently, they have been in my shotgun fruiting chamber since Wednesday afternoon so its been 3 days. To make my fruiting chamber i just stacked 2 small totes on each and put oles on every side and thought it would suffice because i saw someone else do it like this with great success. The SGFC is located inside of a small closet in the basement. Temperature is around 70 degrees. I just calibrated my hygrometer earlier today using the salt method to 75% RH and put it back it my chamber. Lat time i checked it it was way off the dial reading well over 100% RH so ill do it again soon. I have been misting 3-4 times a day as well as fanning every time. i have a 6500k 26w cfl at the top on a 12/12 schedule. There's about 3 and a half inches of perlite at the bottom. Since this is my first time i was just looking for guidance or advice on anything to change.

I also have a few questions, first should i be opening the closet door occasionally to allow more fresh air in and does anyone have an estimate of how long until i see pins based on the info i have supplied. here are some pictures of my setup and thanks to everyone who helps me out in advance!

The cakes do appear to have needed more time to colonize fully but it does appear u did everything right otherwise. Last time I did B+ I use quart bags and actually let the bags sit nearly 6 months before I fruited them. Although mine appeared dried or somewhat dry, the did just fine after a careful 12 hour dunking for each fruiting period. Pinning took a while, maybe close to 3 weeks or so. Personally I would raise the temps some, maybe closer to 75 degrees for fruiting and yes, they will need a bit of fresh air occasionally in fruiting. They don't need 12 full hours of light to pin and fruit, some say 6-8 hours is just fine, but I used 12/12 too. You are on your way buddy!

Yeah, you're doing PF Tek . Make some compost, pasteurize, crumble cakes into compost, cover incubate for a month then fruit.

Thanks a lot for your response SSHZ, its very reassuring to know im on a good track. 2 of the cakes had reached 100% colonization and then had over a week after that before i birthed them. it was only one that i birthed maybe a little too soon. And i really hope they dont take 3 weeks to pin, that seems like a very long time. Im thinking about getting a heating pad or something like that to put in the closet to raise temps a bit but for now theyre fine at 70 degrees. Also, ill open the closet door for a few hours a day to get some fresh air to the cakes.

Kervork said:

Yeah, you're doing PF Tek . Make some compost, pasteurize, crumble cakes into compost, cover incubate for a month then fruit.

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I concur - your first mistake was employing a fundamentaly defective method that violates the growth cycle of the organism. Mushrooms grow in spite of PF tek and not because of it.

Well, since for the moment, i am stuck with the PF tek method so do any of you have any advice?

richerdrocks said:

Well, since for the moment, i am stuck with the PF tek method so do any of you have any advice?

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Carry on - and have patience, if you keep your cakes or pucks at a decent humidity - in the mid 90's, you manage to have the environment relatively low in CO2 (which is the point of the fresh air) and they get even a small amount of light, ambient or otherwise, you will see something growing in good time. As I have said, the difference between PF and other proceedures is that with PF and related teks, you are forced to wait, for colonization, for pinning. You are subect to the mushroom's own time table rather than being able to command changes when and as you wish.

richerdrocks said:

Well, since for the moment, i am stuck with the PF tek method so do any of you have any advice?

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You got any spores left?
Noc up a bunch of corn jars and do a damion5050 coir tek layout.
10 jars for 2 tubs, 1 cased 1 not so you know if it makes a difference for future grows.
Or go for some straw as per canndo and always case, your choice.

Use a clear plastic bin, do NOT kill yourself with an automated fruiting chamber. Sure, you'll post some lovely pictures and get all kinds of kudos, but when done, you will blow a bunch of money and time and effort when you could instead have simply bought a $10 tub. And the tub is better.

I have so much time and money invested in the perfect FC. It was GREAT. And it only take 1 night of vaporizer failure and blowing hard dry air to fuck up your grow.

These are the methods that most of us swear by, having ALREADY done the PF Tek. PF Tek is NOT training wheels for growing in a substrate, people are not required to do it 1st, it was created to sell spores to people without pressure cookers (PC). Get a PC is you don't have it already, and go for a bulk grow in a tub.

You'll have a decent crop in a month or 2. Other than that, sorry dude, I hate cakes. Spent about 6 months fucking around with them before I realized what a huge waste of time, uncontrollable and failure prone since that myc can grow so f'ing slow in a PF jar. Months. And I DID get a bunch of shrooms, just not nearly worth the effort.

That same myc might colonize a quart of corn in 7 days. Or 10 quarts of corn in the same 7 days.

testtime said:

You got any spores left?
Noc up a bunch of corn jars and do a damion5050 coir tek layout.
10 jars for 2 tubs, 1 cased 1 not so you know if it makes a difference for future grows.
Or go for some straw as per canndo and always case, your choice.

Use a clear plastic bin, do NOT kill yourself with an automated fruiting chamber. Sure, you'll post some lovely pictures and get all kinds of kudos, but when done, you will blow a bunch of money and time and effort when you could instead have simply bought a $10 tub. And the tub is better.

I have so much time and money invested in the perfect FC. It was GREAT. And it only take 1 night of vaporizer failure and blowing hard dry air to fuck up your grow.

These are the methods that most of us swear by, having ALREADY done the PF Tek. PF Tek is NOT training wheels for growing in a substrate, people are not required to do it 1st, it was created to sell spores to people without pressure cookers (PC). Get a PC is you don't have it already, and go for a bulk grow in a tub.

You'll have a decent crop in a month or 2. Other than that, sorry dude, I hate cakes. Spent about 6 months fucking around with them before I realized what a huge waste of time, uncontrollable and failure prone since that myc can grow so f'ing slow in a PF jar. Months. And I DID get a bunch of shrooms, just not nearly worth the effort.

That same myc might colonize a quart of corn in 7 days. Or 10 quarts of corn in the same 7 days.

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Or.... 100 quarts of corn in.... 7 days, or 40 bags of corn.... in 7 days. You then, should you chose, use the spare time to spawn manure or straw and still have a week or maybe two left over in order to send that mycelium through 3/4 inch of casing. Not talking to you Test - you know this stuff, I'm talking to the PF folk, Test, you are absolutely right, PF is not a set of training wheels, you really don't know much more than you did before after you have been sucessful with a pf tek. I've seen people who have scaled up their PF to huge numbers of cakes and "birth" days and the like, that's nuts.

And the guy who invented it not only wanted a way to circumvent no PC but he wanted to sell lots of spore syringes. He claimed that you should use one syringe per cake. Nothing wrong with that- (or maybe two or three at most). but you were permanently his customer - early on at least he only sold one strain - a form of amazonian but he called it PF strain, it may still be being sold out there as some special sort of organism. you want to make 20 cakes? buy 10 syringes at the price of $9.99 each I believe he charged. Otherwise, why would anyone ever purchase more than one syringe - especially if there were no "strain" options. That is why PF tek became what it is. When someone went back and rediscovered LC, he had to vend different strains because one syringe would innoculate virtualy an unlimited number of cakes.


Don't cast too much disgust his way though - he brought mushroom growing to the masses, he envigorated a mycological hobbiest industry, got people interested in other sorts of mushrooms and helpt a hell of a lot of people get their first real psychadelic experience - in the process most likely saving lives - he absolutely deserved the millions he made off of the entire scheme - he didn't deserve the hepititis that finally killed him a few years ago but he might have deserved the jail time he served when he got too cocky and started sending directions with his syringes leading to intent and conspiracy to manufacture charges - if he had simply put the PF tek instructions on ann unrelated web site and sent no papers with his product he would have stayed out of jail.

to this day, when you purchase spores you will find nothing related to germination or growth either on the website or in your package.

Yes, i do agree with you both. This method really has been a lot of waiting around and in the end ill probably end up with maybe 5 or 10 grams dry if that. I have about 4 CC's of spores left in my syringe and after this i do want to try some sort of bulk substrate grow but for the time being i dont know much about it. thank you very much for your time and experience. Rep to you both.

canndo said:

Not talking to you Test - you know this stuff, I'm talking to the PF folk, Test,

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Yeah, I know. We don't have to agree with each other's exact methods to have a large amount of respect for the other's choices.

I'm just seeing my 1st pins of GT in straw. Yay!

As well as KS. But that fucking KS seems to attract fruit flies like crazy. Both my KS tubs (1 coir, 1 straw) have them living in them. I have yellow sticky cards in all my open tubs, and they catch a few, but not all.

When I see a fly in coir, I squish on the substrate (if possible). Yeah, bad, I can't f'ing help myself. I then spray the spot with h202. It seems to work. But in the straw? No f'ing way. Those bastards have a huge amount of tunnel space to wander around, protected from my evil actions.

I need to hang a cup of wine in there for them to drown in.

Also, when you decide to get back to this, order a few different needles.
At $10-$20 apiece (depending on strain/sub-strain and vendor) is is CHEAP insurance.
It is very possible that you will get WILDLY different growth and pinning rates.
Do them at the same time, throw the slow ones away, and generate new tubs from the fast ones.
Do NOT create an emotional attachment with any particular tub, if it is going to take a month when another takes just a week, make more jars of the weekly and empty/re-use the tub (unless you have infinite tubs, space, and time).

PE is a known as a pain in the ass to grow, but worth it. I NEVER got more than a few grams from some serious sized trays in my FC, while the rest of my choices were kick ass. Maybe it was the FC, maybe it was that particular myc, either way, it sucked.

A year later, a different set of needles, tubs instead of FC, the PE is outperforming ALL other choices (GT,KS,EQ) on every measure, by a factor of 4 or so. I'm blown away. I only grew PE because I wanted it badly, not because I thought I'd get much.

So try it.

testtime said:

Yeah, I know. We don't have to agree with each other's exact methods to have a large amount of respect for the other's choices.

I'm just seeing my 1st pins of GT in straw. Yay!

As well as KS. But that fucking KS seems to attract fruit flies like crazy. Both my KS tubs (1 coir, 1 straw) have them living in them. I have yellow sticky cards in all my open tubs, and they catch a few, but not all.

When I see a fly in coir, I squish on the substrate (if possible). Yeah, bad, I can't f'ing help myself. I then spray the spot with h202. It seems to work. But in the straw? No f'ing way. Those bastards have a huge amount of tunnel space to wander around, protected from my evil actions.

I need to hang a cup of wine in there for them to drown in.

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I was having all kind of trouble with fruit flies during the warmer months. Even had maggots infest one coir tub. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.

sonar said:

I was having all kind of trouble with fruit flies during the warmer months. Even had maggots infest one coir tub. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.

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Shell no pest strips or their current equivelent works quite well - just don't spend too much time in the room while it is up but it will not contaminate your mycelium or mushooms - Everything will be dead in a few days.

canndo said:

Shell no pest strips or their current equivelent works quite well - just don't spend too much time in the room while it is up but it will not contaminate your mycelium or mushooms - Everything will be dead in a few days.

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Nope, won't use them. Way too poisonous for my liking. Well, maybe, but that was my holy shit no way default. I've done a bit of research on that class of chems, I'm surprised they still sell it to the public.

So, how are you sure the myc doesn't absorb it?

testtime said:

Nope, won't use them. Way too poisonous for my liking. Well, maybe, but that was my holy shit no way default. I've done a bit of research on that class of chems, I'm surprised they still sell it to the public.

So, how are you sure the myc doesn't absorb it?

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We are talking about exposure for a matter of a day or three. Beyond that what is in the air is quite minor. One of the interesting things about mushroom mycelium is that petrochemicals tend to show up as a series of deformations of the fruit - rosecomb or inverted stems or exposed gills are a result of such exposure. I have never seen such things in situations were I was forced to use those strips - they have some usefulness in fighting mites as well.


It is up to you of course but your exposure is limited and I would not nor have I ever use them when fruiting or pinning was imminent.

Think for a moment - you are talking - if the mycelium did take up some of your chemical through the air - , about a few parts per million in the mycelial mass - and then figure a dilution rate far greater when the mushroom fruit is growing. Now consider that you are not on a steady diet of that fruit. The whole of your life may have you eat what? a total of a pound or so dri. I ed or 100 lbs wet and you will never expose your entire grow perpetualy to this chemical. Now there is a chance that the mushroom will tend to concentrate the chemical - but as I said I believe you would see evidence if it did to any degree. Stamets uses a bioremediation system for cleaning petrochemicals and even weaponized neurotoxins from contaminated earth with oyster mushrooms so there is some evidence of concentration - I can't see much of a problem with limited use.

Well what happened was I got busy harvesting and trimming my outdoor crop come late september into october so my mushrooms sort of took a back seat. I was shut down for almost a month. I think that was enough time to kill them off since I haven't seen a single one in my house for awhile now.

The last tub I did, I moved to a sealed room and made every effort to keep a fly from landing in as I was spawning. Somehow after ten days when I checked it, it was still infested. Everything was sealed and covered with black garbage bags. Still confounds me. Only way I can think is a female somehow snuck in while I was spawning.

Sorry for kinda jacking your thread here richerdrocks.

canndo said:

We are talking about exposure for a matter of a day or three. Beyond that what is in the air is quite minor. One of the interesting things about mushroom mycelium is that petrochemicals tend to show up as a series of deformations of the fruit - rosecomb or inverted stems or exposed gills are a result of such exposure. I have never seen such things in situations were I was forced to use those strips - they have some usefulness in fighting mites as well.


It is up to you of course but your exposure is limited and I would not nor have I ever use them when fruiting or pinning was imminent.

Think for a moment - you are talking - if the mycelium did take up some of your chemical through the air - , about a few parts per million in the mycelial mass - and then figure a dilution rate far greater when the mushroom fruit is growing. Now consider that you are not on a steady diet of that fruit. The whole of your life may have you eat what? a total of a pound or so dri. I ed or 100 lbs wet and you will never expose your entire grow perpetualy to this chemical. Now there is a chance that the mushroom will tend to concentrate the chemical - but as I said I believe you would see evidence if it did to any degree. Stamets uses a bioremediation system for cleaning petrochemicals and even weaponized neurotoxins from contaminated earth with oyster mushrooms so there is some evidence of concentration - I can't see much of a problem with limited use.

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Ok, I'm used to thinking of myc and mushrooms used for bioremediation of toxic ground, and since they can concentrate the poison, it is a bad situation. But in this case, the limited exposure time and via the air and blah blah does truly limit as compared to merely breathing in a bit of the vapor myself.

Years ago I had a decent sized (4-5 feet, wide, muscular) boa constrictor that was infested with mites. You ever try to bathe a pissed off snake that did NOT want to be? I was covered with bite marks. Every time I grabbed him he'd coil around and nail me, hanging on by his mouth.

So anyway, a no pest strip in the room, 10 feet away from his tank, for 2 days, killed everything.

testtime said:

Ok, I'm used to thinking of myc and mushrooms used for bioremediation of toxic ground, and since they can concentrate the poison, it is a bad situation. But in this case, the limited exposure time and via the air and blah blah does truly limit as compared to merely breathing in a bit of the vapor myself.

Years ago I had a decent sized (4-5 feet, wide, muscular) boa constrictor that was infested with mites. You ever try to bathe a pissed off snake that did NOT want to be? I was covered with bite marks. Every time I grabbed him he'd coil around and nail me, hanging on by his mouth.

So anyway, a no pest strip in the room, 10 feet away from his tank, for 2 days, killed everything.

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There is a reason they don't sell those strips widely any more. I don't know what is in the strip but I see them being used in places were animals and people do not frequent with some sucess. I first used them for dust fungus mites for which there is no other cure - and, once you have them you can pretty much kiss your growing area - and perhaps the house itself goodbye. These mites love to eat mycelium and their population explodes. You can barely see them but for a low power microscope. There is another mite that is drawn to sugar and tends to carry trich on it's body - this one is hell on micropropagation facilities - you can even see their little tracks as the trich takes hold in tiny patches, in lines circling around the medium. Best defense is sticky matts - the kind you use for your feet as you enter clean rooms - and, last resort is the pest strips - on for one day, off for 6, on for one off for 6 - catches the eggs as they hatch.

Yesterday, i saw this forming on one of my cakes. its like fuzzy white mycelium i think that is like growing off the side of the cake. I read somewhere that it is a sign that I should see pins fairly shortly. Is that correct. Im sorry I cant really describe it much better so just look at the pics and try to identify it.



I have no problem with you guys replying on my thread. So you can continue haha . It has been nice seeing you alls advanced conversations, well at least advanced to a noob.

I am already planning my next grow which I will start it with PF tek cakes and then spawn them into some sort of bulk grow, I havent decided yet and still need to learn much more about bulk growing. Thanks!