Hillbilly32

No, I have had 3 attempts from 2 different prints.

Another (cutching at straws here) possibility is density. How tightly were the jars packed? I left it as aerated as possible as thats what the PF Tek said to do. I just let all of the mix to fall into the cup, lightly tapped it and then put on the vermiculite layer. Are you using a vermiculite barrier, if so is your sharp longer than the depth of the barrier? Yes, about 1cm deep at the top. And yes, the needle I used to innoculate the jar was pushed in as far as it would go and i was able to see the liquid slide down the jar. How and where are you measuring temperature? I'd expect an electric blanket to have a lot of dead-band (ie temp between switch-on and switch-off). Again, general idea as to your location would help in this regard. I have a thermometer in the 50lt container which stays around 28, and the garage it is in is constantly 24. The electric blanket also never turns off, it is constantly on setting 1. Don't worry about it catching alight, there is nothing around it which is flammable and it is on a concrete floor. Have you tried Harry's suggestion of starting a small liquid culture? This would verify the integrity of the spores. I have no idea how to make a liquid culture

Haha, sorry Harry, I know I came off a little blunt and rude there. I was just implying that it's not through improper technique that this is not working as I have taken extra pre-cautions compared to videos and tutorials, and the only real thing you have to worry about is sterilization and hydration of spores, everything else is pretty simple. I will give this a shot in the next few days again and will keep you posted. Brown Rice Flour appears to not work so I might give wild bird seed a go, or just sheep manure, whichever.

Its not that I'm incapable of performing the PF-Tek Harry, I have followed this to the 'letter' and have now tried it 3 times without success. I believe it is just something to do with my substrate, ie, as someone said before, the Sun Rice having anti-fungal in it of some sort. There is no other reason I can really come up with that would explain the lack of growth. There are no contaminations, I used up to half a syringe on one jar on my 3rd attempt out of desperation, and have constantly kept it dark and at 28°C. It's not my method thats the problem, it has to be something else.

Any alternative to brown rice flour then? I have read up on wild bird seed, rye and manure, wild bird seed being the easiest to buy in bulk yet have read mixed reports on success. A member here also highly recommended rye seed, but I rung around and no-one supplies it. Might have to look at the local homebrew shop? I have a huge abundance of sheep manure where I am, I am wondering whether I can substitute that for horse manure?

I have them in glass jars, covered with foil, which is all inside a 50lt plastic container. I have underneath that an electric blanket constantly on level 1 which keeps it at around 27-28°C. It is in a room in a corner with a window along the same wall so it does not get any direct light at all, though I have read that mycelium prefers absolute darkness so this may be my problem, the little light getting in.

BUMP I transported the plant from its 70mm pot to a plastic container which had about 2cm of wet perlite in the bottom. The plant with its soil was transplanted, and a little of the surrounding space was filled again with perlite and water. Mulch from outside gardens was then added as a filler to the top and I have placed the top of a coke bottle on the top to act as a humidifier, without the cap. Hopefully this is the correct thing to do?

My latest batch have been going for 6 days now and those jars 'were' cooled overnight, so that wasn't the problem. They also do not show any mycelium growth.

No, I sterilised the jars, then left them to cool for about an hour till I reckon they were around 30°? And then innoculated the jars with the syringe which had been rehydrating the spores for 2 days in a container in the fridge. I just don't get why it's not working, I mean, it definetly sucked up SOME of the spores that were in the water, so why aren't they growing? It's silly. Sorry, should have added that the mixture was 140ml vermiculite, 70ml brown rice flour and 50ml of water

This is my third attempt at innoculating cakes and for some reason there has never been any mycelium growth whatsoever. The second attempt has been in a container for about 2 1/2 weeks now and has shown no signs of growth at all. A spore syringe was made from half a print, mixed with sterile water and then sucked back into the syrgine. One thing I have noticed though is there is hardly any spores in the syringe when I have a look, if at all. Are they normally visible in the syringe? And if they are not in the syringe, then where could they have gone? I scraped them into a little shot glass and could definetly notice a few large clumps of black, yet when in the syringe, it was not noticeable at all, and I think this is where my problem lies. EDIT: Thought my substrate might help a bit. I use Sun Rice Brown Rice which I have had through a blender on high for 5 or so minutes so that every bit of rice has turned to a powder. I am also using this in a mix with vermiculite in a ratio of 2 parts vermiculite to 1 part brown rice flour, to about 50ml of water. These are then sterilised for 2 hours. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is extremely frustrating Thankyou -Hillbilly

Not really what you were after Vertmorpheus, but I am sterilizing as we speak and I have just found that some string coiled around the lid and handles tightly does the job.

Just sterilised 3 jars for 140 minutes and injected the "oyster mushroom" spores *wink wink* into 2 of the jars while they were still warm, and the other I am waiting for it to cool down and then will do the same. A couple of problems though. I only have a 1ml syringe without a needle, so I used Kirof Vodka as a dis-infectant (37% alcohol) which I don't think was strong enough, but everything else was relatively tidy and clean, and when it came to injecting the spores, I used a sowing needle which was also dunked in the alcohol and flame sterilized with a small blow torch to create the first puncture hole. Now, because of this, I have a few quick questions: 1) Would some of alcohol that got left behind in the syringe have made a difference to the spores or the substrate? 2) Did it matter whether I let the jars cool down after sterilization or not? ie, does the heat destroy the spores? 3) Is methylated spirits ideal for cleaning? It is 95% alcohol so I don't see why not, yet no-one seems to use it? Thanks

Wow, thanks a lot guys, I really wasn't expecting you to go out of your way and into so much detail for a newbie like me I actually ended up buying some soft plastic containers to hold the mixture in to sterilise, however, I now know that that was a mistake. I've got a bunch of really really strong glass jars that have a volume of about 750ml, but the neck is narrower than the body, so 'cakes' are out of the question unless I buy some new jars. I have seen them grown in 2 different ways. In cakes, and in a pan. Now, I reckon a pan would be a lot easier to maintain and take care of, but I'm sure there are some disadvantages to it.

Yes sorry, you are right, it was pasturising. What is the difference? I know that doing it this way it does not kill 'all' the bacteria, though he also notes that its only good bacteria left over which kill off any other bad bacteria. Isn't that better than killing 'all' bacteria?

In this thread: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...showtopic=14230 Hyphalknot just puts boiling water into an Eski with his jars in it to perform the sterilization. I was thinking, what is wrong with just plunking them in the oven on low for half an hour or so? It would definetly kill the bacteria as the temperature will be up around 160° C?