New to cultivation & mycology, where to start?

[BentoSpawn]

Trich is not poisonous no, if it were then we would all be dead. Trich fungi is absolutely eeeeeverywhere, now you know about it you will start seeing it everywhere too

It will however compete for nutrients, kill off myc and genrally be a pain in the ass.

Dont open any jar containing trich anywhere in your house or preferably at all, you will fill your house and cover yiurself with spores which are next to impossible to get rid of. If you really need the jar then pressure cook the jar for an hour and a half before opening the jar to remove the contense.

Edited October 12, 2012 by BentoSpawn

[incognito]

Shroomery has all you need to know in the grow tek section. Then it's a matter of trying failing and learning. Took me two ursnofntrial and error before I harvested my first flush.

It's really about finding what works for you and developing your own technique.

A lot of teks make it sound harder than it actually is, don't let jargon put u off.

What works for me

Is starting on agar. Again agar recipes are on the Shroomery as well as techniques. Then HEAPS of

Colonied agar to grain, then grain to a tub of horsepoo and coco coir. There's a tek for the fruiting tub here in this subforum and on the Shroomery. Easy and simple.

I do everything from spawning to fruiting on a large heat mat that I can control the temperature.

[BentoSpawn]

Took me two ursnofntrial and error

Is that supposed to read two years of trial and error ?

[Bigred]

incognito you dont need to direct someone to another site when there is all that info on the sab forums its just hard to find we need a sub section for teks

Edited October 17, 2012 by bigred82

[BentoSpawn]

bigred makes a good point, there is plenty of good information here that directly applies to Australians, it can just be a bit difficult to find ! Infact i ended up joining this site because a number of my google searches about mycology pointed to good information on this site.

I also agree tek sub section would be very beneficial to the mycology forum on this site.

[incognito]

Oops yeah it took me two yrs. I find it a lot easier to find info that I'm looking for o. Shroomery. It's a great site for shroom noobs

I found the more pedantic about sterility I got, the more contams I would get.

My technique now is pretty slap and bang, but I get results everytime. Using agar eliminates probs with dirty spore, u just cut the good stuff out and put on another plate. Loading ur jars with heaps of colonized agar reduces incubation time drastically. Longer u incubate, the more probs u have with contams. Liquid culture never worked for me, to cuddly, not has spore direct to grain.

U just have to lay caution to the wind and get in there and experiment. Don't listen to to many """experts"""", go with ur intuition and learn from ur failures.

Edited October 18, 2012 by incognito

[BentoSpawn]

I know i certainly failed on my first attempt ! My second attempt went alright, but i was fighting some contams Third time was lucky !

Definitely want to give agar a go because i am 99% certain that my first two failed attempts were due to dirty spore prints.

Unlike Incog, i had success with liquid culture into grain, using 10cc per bag of karo LC.

I have heard of other people have had problems with agar added to grains, so incog is probably right there about using a heap of agar. Ill definitely keep that in mind for when i try my hand at agar

Edited October 18, 2012 by BentoSpawn

[incognito]

All comes down to experimentation and what works for u. Period

[goneski]

I made a few honey LCs from spores a little while ago.. They seem to be coming along alright, but I've found the mycelium seems to grow quite thick and doesn't stretch/grow out much.

I also had problems with honey caramelising and sediments.

I then made a Karo LC, injected with spores, and it too seems to be coming along nicely. It's perfectly clear and much easier to see the mycelium -- which appears to be stretching / growing out more than the honey.

I think the karo LC will be easier to suck up into a syringe. I have sharp shards of glass in all the LCs, but I still think I'll have difficulty breaking up the honey LC.

For my next spore syringe, I didn't bother wasting any on making a liquid culture. Instead, I used it all on jars. I'll use one jar to make a grain LC so I know it's contam free (or less likely to contain contams).

The other benefit being apparently grain LCs store for longer than sugar based LCs?

I'm really trying my hardest to move away from spores. It just takes so freaking long for them to germinate and colonise..

[Change]

My technique now is pretty slap and bang, but I get results everytime.

 

Agreed, some people take keeping things sterile way to far.

Steam worked fine for me for 2 years so to the people who think you need a pressure cooker..... your wrong

Ive never used a glove box

Never worried about flame sterilization between inoculations

Also stoped wasting my time wiping the edge of the contam barrier clean before adding the dry verm.

It seams like alot of mushrooms growing advisers like to drum fear of contams into the students kinda like the US drums fear of terror into there citizens.

[BentoSpawn]

The next time i try LC i am going to try grain LC in a half-quart jar. The advantage of this is that it easier to see contams on grain than it is to see them in water - this decreases the odds of effin up a whole batch all at once because of a contamed LC.

The idea behind this is to grow the myc out on grain how you usually would, then when colinized squirt lots of water into the jar and suck it back out. RR talks a fair bit about this and after thinking about it i personally think it makes a lot of sense, thus is worth a shot

[goneski]

What about grain LC vs grain to grain transfers?

As far a I see it, grain LCs are probably less risky as there's no open jar.. It probably doesn't matter too much in a glove box,

but still, it's seems nice not having to open jars and just being able to use a flame sterilised needle and silicone injection ports on both jars..

[Change]

grain to grain is way faster...

and its alot simpler as you dont need large amounts of fresh LC handy to get a large batch of spawn going.

once again, no need for a glove box thats just fear mongering

[goneski]

I suppose I might try both..

I'm doing a bit of everything at the moment to see what I like and what does / doesn't work for me... I'll add grain-to-grain transfers to the list.

I'll make up another spore syringe, inoculate a heap of jars.. Keep one jars for grain LC, and do more grain to grain transfers as well. I'll save the grain LC as a backup.

I'm hoping next grow, I'll be able to get a nice sample to clone from.

At the very least / worst case scenario, I want multi-spore LC to fall back on instead of having to start from scratch with a print.

Ideally, I want a cloned tissue sample LC.

Eventually, I'd love to move to agar and grow out sectors and isolate. That's a long way off though..And is probably a bit tedious as you would have to grow out each sector/isolate to see how it performs?

While a tissue sample is still technically multi-strain, it's probably a lot better and more predictable than spores.. and it's a step in the right direction toward working with agar and isolating

Edited October 18, 2012 by SYNeR

[BentoSpawn]

Actually the grain i have growing oyster myc on at the moment which is nearly colonised i did in the open air, just wearing a mask and some gloves.

I was using a self healing injection hole on the water/karo LC and self healing inoculation holes on the the 4 grain bags, all i did was clean the ports with a ethanol swab, flame sterilised the needle every time the needle was exposed to air, put the hot needle in through the injection hole and let the LC cool the needle while sucking up the or squeezing the LC inside the jars/bags.

100% success rate so far across 4 bags of WBS.

There is a lot to be said for working out ways to make your myco life easier without compromising on sterility - i hate working in glove boxes. my back usually aches afterwards.

Personally my feeling on glove boxes is that if i am going to open a jar up and expose it to air id like to do it in a glove box, the way i am doing things at the moment is that i only need to do that when making the initial spore syringe up.

As you can see everyone has different ideas Pick one that sounds good for you. I personally started on the sterile end have slowly cut back over time.

[Change]

Experiments are the best way to work out whats unnecessary.

Heres 3 conclusions ive come to.

I did batches both with and without glove boxes then came to the conclusion that i was just wasting time.

I also did LC with and without self healing injection holes, learnt that without is just as good as with.

And finally ive raced multi spore, LC and G2G. Grain to grain won hands down and because it colonized so fast there wasn't a chance for a contam to take hold.

[goneski]

Cool.. I've been thinking of ditching the glove box or at least making a larger more comfortable one.

I live in an older house and not too confident with how clean it is.

I think the more confident I become in my abilities, the more I'll look at cutting corners a little to make life easier.

I'm already getting a bit frustrated with how long things take, but my sterile technique is largely to blame for that.

[BentoSpawn]

Experiments are the best way to work out whats unnecessary.

Sacrilege ! That would be way too much like science !

[Melange]

Well I've gotten everything I think I need for a reasonably thorough first attempt: glovebox, petri dishes/agar, pressure cooker, etc. I brew a lot of beer, so I am used to processes of disinfection, though we shall see.

There is a gap in my understanding though about moving from an agar culture (hopefully), to innoculating grain. I've read about using a blender to shred the mycelium in water, then injecting that into grain, but wouldn't that introduce contamination from the blender? Is it a matter of cutting the mycellium up into small chunks and just dumping that into the grain mixture?

I have a lot of spare blunt sterile syringes from work, so I thought I could fill them with mycelium/water, to store for later use. Would that work?

[BentoSpawn]

Yes that would most definitely introduce contamination from the blender - don't do that

Maybe what you were reading is people chopping up BRF cakes to add to a bulk substrate ?

Blunt syringes work fine all they need to do is be able to puncture silicon which isn't that hard to do, just pressure cook them along side whatever else you are sterilising. Then again you can buy shard syringes off ebay for VERY cheap - the disposables work totally fine.

I highly recommend watching the RogerRabbit (RR) videos found here, if you are new to this these videos have so much great information in them. Id recommend watching all of them which should get you up to speed -

If you wanted to go from agar -> multiple syringes i guess the way i would do it would be to drop a small chunk of isolated stain on the agar into a jar of pressure cooked LC karo solution. Let this populate the water, then suck it up into syringes for short term ready to use storage. If you want long term storage then view the related RR video about that which will tell you all you need to know.

Hope that helps

Edited October 18, 2012 by BentoSpawn

[Melange]

Great, thanks! I had been watching some of RR's videos, and somehow didn't realise RR was RogerRabbit.

[BentoSpawn]

Another way which some people would argue would give you better and perhaps faster results would be to go strait from agar to a small jar of grain. When the grain has colonised then squirt lots of water in, swirl it up (making not to sure to get the filter wet), then suck the water back up into the syringes.

Im guessing RR would probably tell you to try this way.

[Change]

Well I've gotten everything I think I need for a reasonably thorough first attempt: glovebox, petri dishes/agar, pressure cooker, etc. I brew a lot of beer, so I am used to processes of disinfection, though we shall see.

There is a gap in my understanding though about moving from an agar culture (hopefully), to innoculating grain. I've read about using a blender to shred the mycelium in water, then injecting that into grain, but wouldn't that introduce contamination from the blender? Is it a matter of cutting the mycellium up into small chunks and just dumping that into the grain mixture?

I have a lot of spare blunt sterile syringes from work, so I thought I could fill them with mycelium/water, to store for later use. Would that work?

 

Blending BRF cakes works awesome for instant LC, im not sure about later use. Just make sure your blender is sterile.

And if your house is clean and you give the kitchen a good wipe down before you start you wont need a glove box.

[goneski]

More random advice -- stay well away from Terumo needles (as well as syringes as noted previously).

I just attempted to draw up boiling water to sterilise a syringe, and the needle's plastic hub softened and warped.

About to order some BD syringes and BD needles.. They seem to be a lot better quality from what I've read.

Edit: just remembered I have 16G BD needles.. Opened one up, and they're definitely much better quality. The plastic luer slip hub looks stronger, and the needle looks much stronger..

Edited October 19, 2012 by SYNeR

[Bigred]

i use B.D and terumo tips never had a problem yet with the terumo i find if it does a pc cycle it stops doing it but get B.D and let them cool slowly remember

15 psi is a lot for it to go through even my glass ones end up being brittle but yeah bd all the way

ps here is a good tip don't buy prints of jamison Schuetz they are dodgy as

peace big red