Efficacy of casing

[phronima]

Hi, does any one know of scholarly articles on this topic? I am wondering if there are stats that supports casing and justifies its application

Alternatively if you have had positive experience with casing I'd be interested to know as well

Thanks

[waterboy 2.0]

Depends on species....some reallly do need some form of casing others do not. Sort of open ended question.

Also depends on the substrate used., but generally casing is used to prevent the substrate drying out and provide a water store/humidity , a more stable temperature at the pinning surface and evaporative surface at the pinning initiation surface. This greatly initiates fruiting in some species.

Paul Stamets book - The Mushroom Cultivator gives a good run down on casing IMO. Some of the info can be viewed as a little dated but.

Sometimes just vermiculite does the trick I avoid peat based ones where I can.

Edited October 3, 2014 by waterboy

[ace1928]

You definitely can avoid casing if you have a really sophisticated set up but it is far far far easier to just case

If you had monitored humidity, proper air flow, moisture detection on the substrate surface and a microprocessor to keep all of those things perfectly in check then you could get away without casing any species.
But that's just a ludicrously overkill method in comparison to casing

[waterboy 2.0]

Casing is required for optimum production for some species....but some will produce- just not to the optimum

Casing is a simple, but prettty complex way of manipulating biological processes.

I am not convinced Ace you'll get technology to do the job of a good and well applied casing.

[Zen Peddler]

Agaricus species, king stropharia indoors and possibly Lepista nuda rely on the bacterial load of peat casing to stimulate fruiting.

others like agrocybe aegerita are aided by casing but its not necessary.

many species dont need to be and often arent

[Hyphal]

Ive seen someone who used to use it for cubensis, and got lazy once and left it off. The flush was as good if not better, so they stopped using casing altogether from then on, and is perfectly happy. This is in a small, enclosed fruiting environment with high humidity levels.

[Zen Peddler]

True. I doubt it would do much for cubes bar providing a moisture reservoir and protective layer?