light/darkness needs for fruiting cakes

[user1]

the weather's getting colder and I'm trying to keep my FC at a decent temp. I'm using light to keep the temp up, but that doesn't really help if the cakes need darkness for 12 hours a day or whatever.

so that's the question, we know that they need a certain amount of light every day, but do they also need a minimum amount of darkness as well? i'll just leave the light on the whole time if not and my temp problems will be solved. i'm really wondering what's going on here it's been about 10 days since birthing and nada so far...

[ENtiTY]

Cakes or case?

In my experience with cakes, if they haven't pinned in 7 days its a moisture problem. I had 3 cakes, #1 and #2 were birthed about 7 days apart and #3 2 days after #2. #1 pinned by day 7 and completed fruiting in about 7 days and no pins showed on #2 & 3. #1 was dunked over night and reintroduced into the FC where it proceeded to pin again in only 1 day.

At first I thought it was a temp issue as well as at the time of birthing #2 the climate had cooled considerably compared to what it was at birthing of #1. However the fact that it continued to its second flush I have concluded that it was a moisture issue. I was tossing up whether to dunk #2 & 3 or crumble and case. As this particular variety produced rather large fruits I decided to case to give it a larger moisture resivour to draw from and hopefully crop better. While crumbling I noticed that the cakes were bone dry! Deffinatly a moisture issue.

Its been 4 days in incu and the myc is starting to show through the casing so they have been moved to the FC and we'll see how well they crop.

Try dunking or casing and you should see results.

Edited April 6, 2007 by Harry

[Korky]

woooops a little wozzy... hehe

happy fruiting

me

Edited April 6, 2007 by endogenous

[user1]

Cakes or case?

In my experience with cakes, if they haven't pinned in 7 days its a moisture problem. I had 3 cakes, #1 and #2 were birthed about 7 days apart and #3 2 days after #2. #1 pinned by day 7 and completed fruiting in about 7 days and no pins showed on #2 & 3. #1 was dunked over night and reintroduced into the FC where it proceeded to pin again in only 1 day.

At first I thought it was a temp issue as well as at the time of birthing #2 the climate had cooled considerably compared to what it was at birthing of #1. However the fact that it continued to its second flush I have concluded that it was a moisture issue. I was tossing up whether to dunk #2 & 3 or crumble and case. As this particular variety produced rather large fruits I decided to case to give it a larger moisture resivour to draw from and hopefully crop better. While crumbling I noticed that the cakes were bone dry! Deffinatly a moisture issue.

Its been 4 days in incu and the myc is starting to show through the casing so they have been moved to the FC and we'll see how well they crop.

Try dunking or casing and you should see results.

thanks for the detailed response harry, given me some food for for thought. they're just standard PF cakes modeled on klue's modified PF thread. i just re-watched that neat little doco 'mushroom growing made easy' and they reckon pinning starts around 2 weeks after birthing, but who knows. your situation seems to suggest otherwise, i dunno why there would be a moisture problem, the RH is at a constant 98% and the water added to the substrate jars initially was the standard amount. i'll give a few more days and then i'll definitely do a dunk or some casing methinks.

meanwhile the question on whether myc cakes need darkness in the fruiting stage still stands, at the very least it'd be interesting to know as trivia :D

[user1]

oh and endo, i can relate atm

rock on brother

[ENtiTY]

Not sure about the darkness/light issue.

As for your cakes being dry, they tend to get that way if the colonisation went on for an extended period of time and/or the mix was a little dry to start with. Even if the cakes has enough moisture to fruit straight out of the jar its a good idea to dunk any way, this will bring on bigger fruits and more pins.

[Korky]

ok im back, and hopefully a little more constructive than my last visit here

no to sure on the darkness although im thinking you may get away with the light on 24/7. if you test this with results please pass on.

as for the pinning, (IMO) i wouldnt get to worried within the first 2 weeks, theres a few variables that can effect the speed of this process so give them atleast 2 weeks. ive heard of longer.

but dunking rocks so no hesitations there.

what kind of temps do you get without the light? im not to strict on temp at that stage but im getting low 20C days so not a big issue. (and getting results) Maybe the lights not needed?

"oh and endo, i can relate atm

rock on brother"

Nice one!

[AndyAmine.]

IMO its a good idea to wait until you see some pinning in the jars before you birth them, then they are ready to go from the start.

The closer they are to pinning the less the chnace of contamination problems,...

[user1]

yeah i'm getting low 20s days here as well endo, it's the nights that are the problem, the temp in the FC drops to late teens, unless i have a light under it. i'm not sure about how touchy the cakes are about constant temperature.

andy isn't one of the things that initiates the pinning process exposing the cakes to more oxygen? i would have thought there would be bugger all oxygen inside sealed jars.

[ENtiTY]

One thing you can do and I do is once the cake is ready to birth or if it stalls is to slide the cake half way out of the jar and then back in. Fresh air in their seems to kick it into gear again if its stalled and also starts it pinning in a few days. Prolly best done if the cake is almost completely colonised but that is usually where my cakes hit the go slow button anyway.

I found this photo on my phone this mourning, nice Orissa fruit from a second flush apparently

And this one I found a couple of minutes ago.

Thought you all might like me to share them. You find the strangest things on your phone sometimes...

[Jonny Deformed]

the weather's getting colder and I'm trying to keep my FC at a decent temp. I'm using light to keep the temp up, but that doesn't really help if the cakes need darkness for 12 hours a day or whatever.

so that's the question, we know that they need a certain amount of light every day, but do they also need a minimum amount of darkness as well? i'll just leave the light on the whole time if not and my temp problems will be solved. i'm really wondering what's going on here it's been about 10 days since birthing and nada so far...

What temps are you experiencing?

Keep up the fresh and they'll be pinning within two weeks IME, cakes or casings.

Also they only need a fraction of a second of light to trigger pinning but the main triggers are fresh air increase, full colonization and temp drop.

The light simply directs the mushrooms, they grow towards it.

[chilli]

IMO its a good idea to wait until you see some pinning in the jars before you birth them, then they are ready to go from the start.

The closer they are to pinning the less the chnace of contamination problems,...

Agree with this, and would also add that I don't think its a good idea to dunk before your first flush, and it shouldnt be necessary if you've got your water ratios right... maybe in an extreme case where a cake is forgotten about and dries out completely... I've actually done this

One thing to keep in mind tho, keep the cakes moist... nanook reckons most people err on the side of dryness rather than wetness, but pf caked need heaps of moisture... As far as darkness/light it shouldnt really make any difference, as long as they're getting some light and good temps and nice and moist.

[user1]

ah ok thanks JD, i assume what you're implying is that it doesn't really matter if they're exposed to light 24/7.

jeez harry, thanks for showing me what i'm missing, lol. but seriously thanks for the pics, those orissa fruits are beautiful what is all that verm doing around the sides of your cake there?

that's a really good idea re 'half birthing' the cakes. i'll definitely do that in the future. one thing i was wondering harry is if this is a moisture problem then short of dunking would putting some damp verm on top of the cakes help with moisture? i saw klue doing that in his grow thread.

EDIT: thanks for that brain, not sure how to get a cake moist if not dunking, perhaps the verm on top of the cake as mentioned above?

Edited April 7, 2007 by user1

[chilli]

ah ok thanks JD, i assume what you're implying is that it doesn't really matter if they're exposed to light 24/7.

jeez harry, thanks for showing me what i'm missing, lol. but seriously thanks for the pics, those orissa fruits are beautiful what is all that verm doing around the sides of your cake there?

that's a really good idea re 'half birthing' the cakes. i'll definitely do that in the future. one thing i was wondering harry is if this is a moisture problem then short of dunking would putting some damp verm on top of the cakes help with moisture? i saw klue doing that in his grow thread.

EDIT: thanks for that brain, not sure how to get a cake moist if not dunking, perhaps the verm on top of the cake as mentioned above?

Yeah, sorry I forgot to mention, I totally support that idea... I made little trays out of the lids, put wet verm in it, then carefully spooned wet verm on the top, and I'd just keep soaking the verm everyday, I mean don't go crazy, but don't be scared to get it too wet... since you would ideally wait for pinning before birthing, you wouldn't dunk, but if you've got no pins after a couple weeks of birthing, it can't hurt I guess, but it will greatly increase chance of infections, go for the cake casing idea definitely IMO.

Something to keep in mind next time you try it is a higher water ration than the usual PF tek uses... there's another recipe somewhere that outlines it, but its like twice as much water... especially good if you're using aluminum foil for your lids and you're in a hot environment.

[ENtiTY]

jeez harry, thanks for showing me what i'm missing, lol. but seriously thanks for the pics, those orissa fruits are beautiful what is all that verm doing around the sides of your cake there?

that's a really good idea re 'half birthing' the cakes. i'll definitely do that in the future. one thing i was wondering harry is if this is a moisture problem then short of dunking would putting some damp verm on top of the cakes help with moisture? i saw klue doing that in his grow thread.

Thought you might like some pics to see what your in for, and they just happened to be on my phone, go figure .

When birthing to the FC I make a little plato of water soaked verm for it to sit on as a bit of a moisture resivour much like a casing, seems to work quite well.

Not sure if you know this but myc doesn't just grow around the outside of a cake but all the way through it as well. If you break or cut one in half you'll see it looks kinda like a nougat bar thats chocka block full of nuts. The myc totally consumes the BRF and covers the verm. I'm not sure how well water penetrates during a dunk so I have started to leave cakes submersed for 24 hours to give the water plenty of time to get in there and be soaked up by the verm.

As for the wet verm on top 'm not real sure if it helps or not... As you can see the one in the pic has had this done and also was rolled in verm after dunking. Prolly won't bother in the future though.

Hope she sprouts for you soon

Edited April 7, 2007 by Harry

[Jonny Deformed]

Personally don't think waiting till pinage in the jars is a good idea.

You'll get a far better pin set if introduced to fruiting conditions once the jar is 100% colonized but before visible pins.

Wet verm is good on top.

You could even use 50/50 Verm peat moss.

Or you could just case. Its really not hard.

Unless you like the look of cakes obviously.

Edited April 7, 2007 by JD.

[ENtiTY]

Personally don't think waiting till pinage in the jars is a good idea.

You'll get a far better pin set if introduced to fruiting conditions once the jar is 100% colonized but before visible pins.

Not sure, might depend upon the variety maybe.

SWIM had a cake that pinned before colonisation finished and it pinned heavy! 30 to 40 pins on one cake. It was 95% finished so the uncolonised bit was sliced off, cake dunked and put in the FC.

I personally don't want lots of pins on a cake. End up with a heap of aborts and the pins that do grow out only produce small fruits any way, just not enough moisture in a cake to support them all. I'd rather 8 nice juicy fruits than a heap of half grown and small fruits.

[user1]

thanks for all the feedback peoples, much appreciated. i'm definitely gonna case the rest of the glasses, i just want to get these stubborn 3 fruiting as cakes so i can get a few prints to play around with before i start experimenting.

another thought that came to me for moistening the cakes would be to just inject some water derictly into them via syringe. reckon this'd do any good?

[ENtiTY]

Thought about it a couple of times never tried it though. Verm takes a lil while to properly soak up the water so I don't think it would be as effective as a dunk but it would be better than nothing. Can't hurt to try As long as you follow normal sterility procedures that is.

[user1]

ok so i just soaked some verm straight out of the bag in water/H2O2 (just a tiny bit of peroxide added) and put some beneath and on top of one of the cakes. hopefully no contams will come out of it. some pics may help.

[ENtiTY]

Looks good, just watch the temps in the cupboard there. Might cook the cakes, wrong type of cake for cooking

Don't forget to fan.

[user1]

Might cook the cakes, wrong type of cake for cooking

lol, don't i know it. they're flouro bulbs now, the incandescents are murder

[chilli]

another thought that came to me for moistening the cakes would be to just inject some water derictly into them via syringe. reckon this'd do any good?

The only way this is really possible is if you create a kind of vermiculite reservoir inside the cake before it colonizes... there's a bunch of teks for it, but basically you put a syringe with the tip cut off filled with plain verm inside the jar before you put the verm mix in around it, then syringe the verm out as you pull it out if you get that... then, when its colonized, you're left with a reservoir of verm that you can syringe with clean water through the top of the cake... it wont work without the verm though, because the mycelium is so rubbery it wont absorb water fast enough.

[Jonny Deformed]

Lovely and white.

They look spot on.

GL