Edit: They are jars of liquid culture mix with no agar. For liquid culture, it’s a similar nutrition base but does not solidify: corn sugar, malt extract and some peptone mixed with water.
I’ll start making agar plates and slants for cloning or starting from spores. (Germination of spores in agar is ideal as I can spot and separate contamination much easier. Spore collection and use, by nature, is not sterile. Since I am growing in a controlled environment where pasteurization or sterilization is used, rando spores that are floating around in the air could easily destroy my cultures.)
OK wow, I’m going to have to do some reading on liquid cultures, that’s not something I’ve heard of before!
I’ve been attempting to grow blue and pink oysters – I started with a tiny sample from ebay, grew that out in rye and popcorn jars, then transferred to fruiting bags with pasteurized straw. The mycelium has grown out well in the bags, but in three attempts I have never gotten an oyster clump larger than about 4" tall before they stopped growing and started drying out. I’ve been spraying with water 3-4 times a day so I have no idea why they seem to abort. I think for the next round I’ll put them in the still-air box near a fan so they get a combination of airflow with higher humidity, otherwise I just have no idea what’s going wrong.
Oysters are notorious for needing tons of fresh air. The humidity is just to keep the caps from drying and cracking, and not an absolute hard requirement for development. If they are stunted, it’s the air. (I personally wouldn’t go without spraying or using a fogger, but it’s possible, is what I am saying.)
LC is the way to go if you feel like making the investment, especially for small growers like us. You need some jars and the proper lids. That is about it. I am doing a well rounded LC mix, but you can get away with just using corn syrup and water. You will probably need a pressure canner to sterilize the solution as pasteurization will not cut it. (I am sure there are methods out there that don’t use pressure canners, but I haven’t looked.)
For LC videos, there are tons of them out there. YouTube search for “Super Liquid Culture” or look through the videos by Mossy Creek Mushrooms for his formulas. At the end of the day, as long as the solution is clean and has sugar, the mycelium should eat it up. Malt and peptone are just helpful. In some cases, increased nutrients increase the risk of contam taking hold.
Well I have a decent canner, that’s what I used to prep the grain jars, so no issues there. Hell I even managed to start some button mushrooms off of stems from the grocery store, using nothing but boiled cardboard, and it was growing fine until I transferred it to a couple grain jars and got contamination in both of them… Funny thing was the cardboard mixture was prepped in open air and was clean, but by the time I had the grain jars I had built the still-air box so that transfer shouldn’t have had any problems. Ah well, it happens, but at least I know I CAN start things from stems.
When I tried fruiting my blues they didn’t do anything until I moved them over near a fan, then they took off a day later… and then stopped growing after about three days and dried out. That’s why I’m thinking maybe if I used my still-air box which has the large hand holes, they’d get the airflow but be able to retain some humidity in the box – or maybe not, it’s all guesswork at this point. I could certainly try putting a bag more directly in front of the fan but we only get about 30% humidity here. I’ve also considered setting a bag outside, I know the blues like it colder and we’re getting down near 50F at night (but then it comes back up to 90F in the day) and we have a lot of squirrels around so I think they’ll wipe out anything I grow before I get my share. There’s just not really a lot of options for me to try.
Experiment and keep trying! That is the only way to go, me thinks. There are a ton of things I read or see online that just don’t work for me. The basics never change, but everything else seems to. Hell, my current grow of “fun” mushrooms started to turn into blobs (a mutation where caps don’t form) because of CO2 levels that never bothered any of my other mushrooms. I fixed it by fanning them once a day.
Sound like you are in my part of the world, honestly. I am in Colorado and you are describing my conditions almost exactly. I am going to try some winecap mushrooms next March outside, but the squirrels will destroy them just like everything else. Sigh.
However, I do have a couple of grow tents in my basement that will allow me to control the environment really well. Also having access to a CO2 meter and a good humidity switch helps. (That stuff is expensive but I already had it for a couple of cannabis grows that I did a while ago.)
Well howdy, neighbor (Longmont)! And yeah, the fun mushrooms are on the agenda – if I can get the oysters to produce well then I was going to move on to buttons and lion’s mane, both of which seem to need conditions closer to the psychadelics (manure or fuel pellet tech). Everything has been on hold for the last few weeks because I had a doctor visit coming up that required a heavy fasting. Got that done on Tuesday so I’m ready to pop another oyster bag this weekend. I currently have two bags of blue and two of pink just sitting there expanding like crazy, but I also have two quart jars of blue and one jar of pink mycelium ready to transfer. The jar of blue on rye berries has gotten to the point that there’s about 3/8" of water in the bottom of the jar now so it’s well past time to be transferred to a fruiting bag, but the other two jars are popcorn kernels and they look happy as hell. So I have plenty to work with, I just gotta figure out HOW to work it.
Rock on and howdy neighbor to you as well! (Brighton) It seems this mushroom thing is getting popular here in Colorado. Not just the fun strains, but gourmet as well.
Heavy fasting sucks. Colonoscopys suck. I feel your pain.
I am up in Longmont every so often, so if you ever want to trade some strains, let me know. Once the strains in the pic gets fully cultured (in about 3 weeks), I’ll need to test them on a dish for contam and that takes another week or so. I would be totally down to share it after that and I have a few dozen spare syringes. My gourmet strains come from North Spore and my psychedelics from Denver Spore Company. (DSC rocks, btw!)
Cheers! Hit me up anytime, for sure. Once the JMF colonizes the grain, I have waaay to much of it. It’s taking it’s sweet time, so I give it another 3 weeks or so.
Haha so you know exactly where I was going with that… yeah it’s been a rough week but getting back to normal.
I appreciate the offers but I don’t have the time to spare right now, we definitely need to keep in touch though!. Wife is sick and I have a new (used) server coming in tomorrow to try and set up over the weekend while getting my own shrooms fruiting. Maybe I’ll get a bit more aggressive with the fan this time, I have plenty of places I can set that up.
I’m guessing some fruiting bags and jars of agar?
Yep yep!
Edit: They are jars of liquid culture mix with no agar. For liquid culture, it’s a similar nutrition base but does not solidify: corn sugar, malt extract and some peptone mixed with water.
I’ll start making agar plates and slants for cloning or starting from spores. (Germination of spores in agar is ideal as I can spot and separate contamination much easier. Spore collection and use, by nature, is not sterile. Since I am growing in a controlled environment where pasteurization or sterilization is used, rando spores that are floating around in the air could easily destroy my cultures.)
OK wow, I’m going to have to do some reading on liquid cultures, that’s not something I’ve heard of before!
I’ve been attempting to grow blue and pink oysters – I started with a tiny sample from ebay, grew that out in rye and popcorn jars, then transferred to fruiting bags with pasteurized straw. The mycelium has grown out well in the bags, but in three attempts I have never gotten an oyster clump larger than about 4" tall before they stopped growing and started drying out. I’ve been spraying with water 3-4 times a day so I have no idea why they seem to abort. I think for the next round I’ll put them in the still-air box near a fan so they get a combination of airflow with higher humidity, otherwise I just have no idea what’s going wrong.
Oysters are notorious for needing tons of fresh air. The humidity is just to keep the caps from drying and cracking, and not an absolute hard requirement for development. If they are stunted, it’s the air. (I personally wouldn’t go without spraying or using a fogger, but it’s possible, is what I am saying.)
LC is the way to go if you feel like making the investment, especially for small growers like us. You need some jars and the proper lids. That is about it. I am doing a well rounded LC mix, but you can get away with just using corn syrup and water. You will probably need a pressure canner to sterilize the solution as pasteurization will not cut it. (I am sure there are methods out there that don’t use pressure canners, but I haven’t looked.)
For LC videos, there are tons of them out there. YouTube search for “Super Liquid Culture” or look through the videos by Mossy Creek Mushrooms for his formulas. At the end of the day, as long as the solution is clean and has sugar, the mycelium should eat it up. Malt and peptone are just helpful. In some cases, increased nutrients increase the risk of contam taking hold.
Well I have a decent canner, that’s what I used to prep the grain jars, so no issues there. Hell I even managed to start some button mushrooms off of stems from the grocery store, using nothing but boiled cardboard, and it was growing fine until I transferred it to a couple grain jars and got contamination in both of them… Funny thing was the cardboard mixture was prepped in open air and was clean, but by the time I had the grain jars I had built the still-air box so that transfer shouldn’t have had any problems. Ah well, it happens, but at least I know I CAN start things from stems.
When I tried fruiting my blues they didn’t do anything until I moved them over near a fan, then they took off a day later… and then stopped growing after about three days and dried out. That’s why I’m thinking maybe if I used my still-air box which has the large hand holes, they’d get the airflow but be able to retain some humidity in the box – or maybe not, it’s all guesswork at this point. I could certainly try putting a bag more directly in front of the fan but we only get about 30% humidity here. I’ve also considered setting a bag outside, I know the blues like it colder and we’re getting down near 50F at night (but then it comes back up to 90F in the day) and we have a lot of squirrels around so I think they’ll wipe out anything I grow before I get my share. There’s just not really a lot of options for me to try.
Experiment and keep trying! That is the only way to go, me thinks. There are a ton of things I read or see online that just don’t work for me. The basics never change, but everything else seems to. Hell, my current grow of “fun” mushrooms started to turn into blobs (a mutation where caps don’t form) because of CO2 levels that never bothered any of my other mushrooms. I fixed it by fanning them once a day.
Sound like you are in my part of the world, honestly. I am in Colorado and you are describing my conditions almost exactly. I am going to try some winecap mushrooms next March outside, but the squirrels will destroy them just like everything else. Sigh.
However, I do have a couple of grow tents in my basement that will allow me to control the environment really well. Also having access to a CO2 meter and a good humidity switch helps. (That stuff is expensive but I already had it for a couple of cannabis grows that I did a while ago.)
Well howdy, neighbor (Longmont)! And yeah, the fun mushrooms are on the agenda – if I can get the oysters to produce well then I was going to move on to buttons and lion’s mane, both of which seem to need conditions closer to the psychadelics (manure or fuel pellet tech). Everything has been on hold for the last few weeks because I had a doctor visit coming up that required a heavy fasting. Got that done on Tuesday so I’m ready to pop another oyster bag this weekend. I currently have two bags of blue and two of pink just sitting there expanding like crazy, but I also have two quart jars of blue and one jar of pink mycelium ready to transfer. The jar of blue on rye berries has gotten to the point that there’s about 3/8" of water in the bottom of the jar now so it’s well past time to be transferred to a fruiting bag, but the other two jars are popcorn kernels and they look happy as hell. So I have plenty to work with, I just gotta figure out HOW to work it.
Rock on and howdy neighbor to you as well! (Brighton) It seems this mushroom thing is getting popular here in Colorado. Not just the fun strains, but gourmet as well.
Heavy fasting sucks. Colonoscopys suck. I feel your pain.
I am up in Longmont every so often, so if you ever want to trade some strains, let me know. Once the strains in the pic gets fully cultured (in about 3 weeks), I’ll need to test them on a dish for contam and that takes another week or so. I would be totally down to share it after that and I have a few dozen spare syringes. My gourmet strains come from North Spore and my psychedelics from Denver Spore Company. (DSC rocks, btw!)
Cheers! Hit me up anytime, for sure. Once the JMF colonizes the grain, I have waaay to much of it. It’s taking it’s sweet time, so I give it another 3 weeks or so.
Haha so you know exactly where I was going with that… yeah it’s been a rough week but getting back to normal.
I appreciate the offers but I don’t have the time to spare right now, we definitely need to keep in touch though!. Wife is sick and I have a new (used) server coming in tomorrow to try and set up over the weekend while getting my own shrooms fruiting. Maybe I’ll get a bit more aggressive with the fan this time, I have plenty of places I can set that up.