My first class with the golden teacher

canndo said:

You WANT it to grow through the casing, to just below the surface - all long before you have altered your co2 content or applied light or changed your temperature.

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canndo said:

I have wondered how you and a few others kept mistaking casing or misusing the term. I posted several large sections on casing and why one should case and how to do it, I can't find it now, I've got to go but it makes a hell of a difference, regardless of what some may say, and I can back it up with numbers and pictures.

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Javadog said:

Well, you've got some great flushes there, to be sure.

I will leave the topic on this: your opinions on this matter are just that,
your opinions....and clearly they work well for you. There are other,
most excellent, cultivators who swear that casing layers are not needed
for cubes, and their yields equal yours.

For my part, I have never gone for huge harvests, and so cannot say
definitively where I fall on the matter. I have done both cased and uncased
with success.

I do suggest that the OP use one because it makes the effort more forgiving, IMO.

I tend to avoid definitive statements regarding this hobby, but then
my approach seems to be continually trying new species, and so I am
always lost. :0)

I am getting my first G. lutefolius pins and purpuratus is right after it. (only
got juronus and dilepsis before). I even have the unusual-active C. smithii
on agar, and the bleeding Pluteus as well.

Check out this furry Volvariella....it busts out of an egg like the Alien!
View attachment 2569993

So, good luck OP, I am sure that you will rock!

JD

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canndo said:

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.

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Thundercat said:

How I set up my lasagna pans.
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp301/thundercat_420/Picture016.jpg

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