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The Corroboree
powerinformation

Noob question: Contam?

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Hey guys

I innoculated my first batch of jars.

Six jars - 5 different strains.

One is colonized beautifully white ready to fruit.

One was definately contaminated - I have thrown out.

The other 4 seem to be weakly colonized.

My friend said if I innoculated at the same time and one is good the others should be as good and that there is contam.

The other 4 are definately not as white as one.

Is there logic to his argument.

Is greyish colonization acceptable as weak colonization after 2 weeks or does this sound like me justifying contam?

Any advice would be great - can try and post photos

Cheers! :worship:

Edited by powerinformation

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Could be contam. Could be any number of other factors, if its grey im leaning towards contam.

Pictures are always helpful. Ive seen a few of these threads back flip on the conclusion after a photo is posted.

A picture paints a thousand spores.

Edited by Foo

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5 different strains, can give you a variety of different growth, faster slower thicker woollier. even in the

same type of mushroom.

I would number the jars, keep notes, it may helpful selecting good strains of this mushroom again.

maybe one just got off to better start.

maybe contam, may not,

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^yeah how fast is the growth? Grey, fast growth usually ends up being cobweb mold, but usually isn't noticed until fruiting.. If your myc growth is slow and more on the grey side you could be looking at a bacterial contam.. Do you know what it smells like? Sweet? Could be a weak strain too, how did you inoculate?

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I guess photos of this nature are not allowed...

Will a contaminated 'cake' still produce shrooms that look okay but are actually toxic? Is this the risk?

Edited by powerinformation
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Some say it is a risk but its hard to believe that mushrooms grown off a substrate also being colonised by competitor molds would bioaccummulate toxins from that competitor

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Identify the contam and assess the risk yourself.

It's not ethical for anyone to tell you eating contaminated food is ok.

You should post this up on the Shroomery with pictures, it'll be answered within 10 minutes if your pictures are good.

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A bit of advice for you - stick to one strain / print and get that right then move forward from there.

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I've being doing some reading since and read that a little air flow will help I had the innoculation holes covered still, have removed the foil and letting them breathe which seems to have encouraged the mycelium to grow a bit more.

I don't think they are contam - but they are still going a bit slow.

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If you have a hole exposed and no filter on it you are in trouble - contam City...... Put a bit of micro pore tape over the hole ASAP :)

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Even though he hasn't specified, i'm pretty sure he's doing BRF cakes, the dry verm layer on the top is the filter. Providing you don't move the cake around too much thus allowing any spores that have potentially landed on the dry top layer from getting down to the moist cakey goodness underneath.

Having said that I always have micropore tape on my jars anyway... although actually last time i did it i used 'injection ports' with a 0.2mm filter for gas exchange :P

btw contams spread like wildfire, if the whole jar doesn't suddenly colonize within a few days as opposed to a month (using spores, not culture) you should be fine. maybe?

massner raises a valid point though.

Five strains?

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I innoculated my first batch of jars.

Six jars - 5 different strains.

theres a clusterfuck recipe if ever i saw one

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