Non sterile indoor teks?

[ZooL]

After several attempts to cultivate mushrooms it has become clear i am just too grotty to maintain a sterile environment for a culture to survive with no competition, but mushrooms often grow naturally in an environment of rotting material and fecal matter.

Are there any indoor (just humidity/temp controlled) teks aimed at giving wood loving mushrooms a slightly better than average environment but not an ideal one that requires no competition?

[wachumacallit]

I saw an interesting YouTube (some award-winning cultivator based out of San Francisco, iirc) showing DIY approaches to laminar flow, which could make all the difference? 

[TheMooseZeus]

What methods have you tried so far? 

 

In laboratories, it's very common to do all sterile work under a Bunsen burner flame. You could achieve the same thing with a camping stove.

Its even sterile enough to pour agar.

 

Rotting material and faecal matter are entire ecosystems in their own right, the reason people don't tend to cultivate in these conditions are because of thousands of variables that go into controlling how, when, where a mushroom will grow and its unreliable and unpredictable (and smelly). Being able to control these variables to basically one biotic and maybe three abiotic factors is how you get results!

 

Don't give up! Look into working under a Bunsen burner and the "sterile cone of air" if a SAB hasn't worked for you. I personally use a SAB even though I have a DIY flow hood 

[ZooL]

Ive only really tried pftek properly, my main issue at least the last couple times(the times before that were 100% fail) i think seems to be making a clean print to spore syringe or just the inoculation step. last time i left 1 jar un touched after pc and it was fine but the the jars i inoculated all were quickly contaminated when in box.

[TheMooseZeus]

6 hours ago, ZooL said:

Ive only really tried pftek properly, my main issue at least the last couple times(the times before that were 100% fail) i think seems to be making a clean print to spore syringe or just the inoculation step. last time i left 1 jar un touched after pc and it was fine but the the jars i inoculated all were quickly contaminated when in box.

I don't bother with spore syringes for that reason, you can't see contamination well enough.

 

If you have healthy growth on a contaminated agar plate, section that bit out and grow it onto a new plate and repeat until you have a clean and fully inoculated plate. Once a plate is completely covered in mycelium it becomes hard for contamination to take hold.

 

Then you cut this up and add it to your grain. Do you use a 15psi PC? If not you might have to adjust your run time quite significantly 

[rottenjonny]

i mean there is always the option of going to someone like a mushy supply mob and buying sterilised grain bags and then finding someone to sell you a sterile LC syringe or plate and then you've cut down a considerable amount of the risk factors through outsourcing.

 

Wouldn't be woodlovers though unless maybe also buy a masters mix bag aswell?

[withdrawl clinic]

i often have thought of alternative (non sterile teks) but what i saw a few weeks ago, totaly surprised me and i had never heard of anything similar before.

 

at a plant swap meet, this lady showed a medium sized zip lock bag, which was full of healthy looking myzelium (sorry i'm mildly dyslexic) of a wood lover.

and all she did was, when cooking she took the stems off each mushroom, and put it into the bag.

i don't know for how long and how often she did that, but the bag was uncontaminated, all though none of the steps taken were sterile.

 

would be nice to find out if that would work as well for manure lovers.

[El Boso]

On 10/18/2025 at 1:26 PM, ZooL said:

After several attempts to cultivate mushrooms it has become clear i am just too grotty to maintain a sterile environment for a culture to survive with no competition, but mushrooms often grow naturally in an environment of rotting material and fecal matter.

Are there any indoor (just humidity/temp controlled) teks aimed at giving wood loving mushrooms a slightly better than average environment but not an ideal one that requires no competition?

 

You're being to hard on yourself for starters. I have spoken to grotts that grow canopies. 

 

Mushrooms grow naturally outdoors in environments that are favorable for them. Unfortunately sometimes this is not the case with a person's environment. 

 

Wood lovers are notorious for not fruiting indoors, they also don't like agar and grain as much as cubensis.

The problem with being out of practice or having little practice using sanitary environments like an SAB is that it is the most important skill you need for growing selecting and maintaining cultures.

 

A lot of the outcome depends on your ability to find and grow good mycelium on agar. Agar is beautiful because it provides a 2D medium so you can select for good mycelium and remove contamination and it's cheap.

 

Problem with PF tek is it doesn't help with mould. Beautiful for bacterial but if you lack experience with sanitary techniques in an SAB chances are you will get contamination especially with a spore syringe.

 

TLDR: practice makes perfect