Incubating dark is another thing in Paul Stamets 'The Mushroom Cultivator' that needs to go away. The old
advice of "incubate in total darkness" is bunk. Those words were written by Stamets in TMC 20 years ago, and
he disavows that advice today. There is no harm or benefit from keeping jars in the dark. Expose them to
normal room lighting from day one. There is no reason at all to ever have your mycelia in the dark. Darkness
will only delay pinning. If you give light from day one, your yields will go up, and you won't face overlay
problems. I've found no benefit or harm from allowing the grain jars to be exposed to light from day one. If a
few pins form in the grains, it is actually a good thing. Contrary to popular belief, a few pins in the grains can
be spawned right into the manure or straw (or used in grain to grain transfers) and they do not rot or otherwise
cause contamination.
There is evidence they actually help to give a faster, more uniform pinset in the eventual
flushes. Stamets believes it's the hormones or other chemical triggers in the pins that do this. Exposing light
from day one, one jar out of a hundred will make an early pin or two, but I simply spawn those pins right into
bulk substrate along with the grains with zero ill effects. (In other words, small pins don't contaminate when
spawned to bulk along with the grains). Twenty years ago, Stamets wrote in TMC to "incubate in total
darkness" and people stick to that as if they were the words of god. However, stamets no longer teaches
incubation in darkness, and I agree.
Paul is a pioneer and is always learning as are we and things (ideas) will change again as
we begin to really understand better what nature has given us.
