How long does wbs take to colonize

It also gives the grains sort of a pre-sterilization prior to the PC cycle. Don't skip the gypsum. It's worth a trip to the nursery. It really doesn't make much difference. The grains are only going to absorb so much, so you'll never over-hydrate by boiling. After a few hours to overnight soak, I let the pot boil for five to ten minutes, then drain into the colander. The steam that evaporates off the grains will dry the outside while the water runs down the drain. If you'll toss the colander around with the grains a few times to make them steam off, they're ready to load in twenty minutes.

Gypsum serves two purposes. It adds calcium and sulfur, both essential mushroom nutrients, and helps prevent the grains from sticking and clumping up. Long a soak as possible, so long as WBS doesn't ferment smell very badly , sprout, or rot is best. No simmer needed. You will get bigger better - everything. Rinse before the soak, not after. Once you've soaked in water or weak coffee, bring the soak water to a boil with the rye in it. It's all described in the tek posted above, and also on the video.

I've used coffee grinds in grains, but there's little benefit. It's better as a substrate ingredient. One, you want the bacterial endospores to germinate and grow during the soak, so the pressure cooker can kill them. Two, peroxide breaks down very fast in the presence of organic materials, so it would likely do nothing at all anyway.

It would be long gone by the time you boil. Use no more than a teaspoon for 2 gallons of soak water. If you're soaking in plain water, skip the lime. Use one tablespoon of gypsum per gallon of soak water, regardless of how much grains are in it. Mix it weak. About half or less the normal drinking strength. Add it hot. Use hot water for the rinse and add hot coffee later. The heat prevents the grains from germinating during the soak. I add coffee to grains, partly to lower the pH. Mushroom mycelium grows fastest at pH about 5.

It seems I used 1 tablespoon of Banrot 40WP per five gallons of soak water, but that could probably be reduced. Banrot will prevent fungi spores from germinating, but doesn't affect mycelium. It also seems to prevent bacteria.

I once left a freshly sterilized jar of rye berries exposed to the open air for half an hour or so, then closed it up and a month later, it was still contaminant free.

However, good sterile procedure renders it unnecessary for grains, and while soaking casing material in it will prevent trich and cobweb, proper pasteurization and good air exchange will also prevent mold on casing layers. I prefer growing without chemicals and am generally an organic gardener. The Banrot experiments were simply experiments. Dried and crushed Rhododendron leaves will also help prevent trichoderma and cobweb in casing layers.

Then mixed the two? That gives you two different grains with different levels of hydration. Draining for an hour does nothing.

All the water that will drain out from a batch of rye does so within 1 minute. The water that is stuck to the surface of the grains, will make them too wet later.

You need to drain after the simmer while the grains are still boiling hot, so you can let the steam dry on the surface. Avoid busted kernels at all costs. None is best. If you have more than just a few, do the batch over. If you've soaked, beginning in HOT tap water, there should be no busted kernels after boiling because they will have softened up.

Did you leave the stove on high during the process? If so, your jars probably puked out all the moisture that was in the grains. You're supposed to turn down the stove as soon as the weight rattles. Turn it down so the weight either doesn't rattle at all, or rattles once every few minutes at most.

Every time the weight rattles, moisture leaves the PC, and a corresponding amount of moisture leaves each jar of grains. That is basic physics. All grains get packaged with a lot of chaff and grain dust that if not rinsed out will cause the grains to stick together later and cause that sticky goo. Put your dry grains in a large kettle and fill with water as you stir it around.

You'll see all the dust and other crap come floating up. Slowly dump out the water to get rid of the junk and repeat two more times or until the water pours off clear.

Adding gypsum is also a great idea. It will take anyone a few tries to get the moisture content right, regardless of which grain or which tek you follow. If it's too wet this time, make adjustments next time, and so on until you work out your system.

Rinse the dry grains so the dry chaff and dust and other debris can rise to the top and be poured off. Give two or three rinses and your grains will be clean and free of the dust that behaves like glue later.

The second biggest reason for clumping is failure to use gypsum. If the grains are properly rinsed, and gypsum is added, they will NOT stick together later, even if you let them sit in the pc until they reach room temperature.

If you have excess moisture, it will soak it up. If you have the correct moisture, it will screw it up by making the grains too dry. The trick is to learn to get the right moisture content. Grains should be totally dry on the surface before loading jars. That's all. It's simple. The moisture inside the grains is what you want. Either use a towel to dry after draining, or drain the grains after a simmer, and toss them around in the strainer so the steam can dry the surface.

GRAINS - Make sure if you get rye from a feed store that it hasn't been treated with fungicides if you plan direct inoculation with spores. Many times, feed grain is treated with fungicides to prolong storage life in damp barns. If you inoculate with agar wedges or LC, the fungicides won't hurt because they only stop spores from germinating. Personally, I only use certified organic rye berries, obtained from a health food bulk supplier.

That's a bogus tek to help beginners get away with being sloppy. In addition, because the vermiculite soaks up the excess water, you never learn to prepare grains properly. It's sort of like never taking the training wheels off your bike.

They'd look pretty silly on a Harley someday. They should not smell earthy; they should smell like fresh mushrooms. The earthy smell in grains indicates trichoderma or other molds, so there's always the possibility they were already contaminated. The grains aren't really dry when properly prepared, they just 'look' dry. That allows the most amount of air in the spaces around the grains, thus favoring the mushroom mycelium over bacteria, which prefer a wetter, more anaerobic environment.

If that's all it is, they're good to go. Also, sometimes there's foreign material in the grains, so you might even be looking at a small rock or something. The main reason for that is to kill off the live bacteria in the soak water before you pour it down your drain. The soak water can make for a pretty stinky kitchen sink drain if you don't boil it before pouring off. GRAINS - Also, dumping grains into already boiling water as shown there is a mistake that often leads to burst kernels.

Grains should be placed in cold water and slowly brought to a boil, or preferably soaked 24 hours to hydrate. CASING - A casing should be a non-nutritious top layer that is placed over a colonized substrate to help induce pinning and to supply moisture to the substrate and the developing fruits.

You can use others with nutrition but it's best not to as this will cause overlay if your not careful. This is fine but once again you have to watch it or it can colonize the casing for being nutrition and what's the point of a casing if it fully colonizes?

With uncased substrate, wait for full colonization, and then place in the fruiting chamber. Remember, when using a casing layer, we keep the humidity a bit lower to allow some evaporation from the casing, which is replaced by daily misting.

A piece of wax paper layed loosely over the uncased substrate will help produce a micro-climate conducive to fruiting, but remember that even though it helps, wax paper is no substitute for a genuine casing layer. Incubate until you see mycelium coming up through about 20 to 30 percent of the casing layer. Sprinkle fresh casing material over that mycelium which is showing That's what we call patching and place in the FC.

Mix the dry ingredients very well, then slowly bring to field moisture level and pasteurize. Sunshine Mix 3 also works though. The reason we use lime is to raise the pH and to make the casing layer inhospitable to competitor fungi, which are less tolerant of a high pH than established mushroom mycelium.

Gypsum is not used to change pH. Gypsum contains both calcium carbonate and sulfur, thus it tends to keep the pH near neutral, preventing swings as the metabolites try to push the pH down.

Calcium carbonate or hydrated lime is not used to counter the effect of the metabolites. As said above, that's what the gypsum does.

Use gypsum on substrates such as compost or horse manure, but don't use lime. Save the lime for the casing mix, where you should use gypsum and lime together. Gypsum is added to help keep the kernels separated after sterilization and to provide calcium and sulfur, basic elements promoting mushroom metabolism. Using both these will keep contaminants at bay. What you want is a short term Hydrated Lime because the life of a casing is measured in weeks instead of months or years.

Use hydrated lime to get the ph right at the start, and use gypsum at a rate of ten percent to the peat in your casing to prevent ph swings later. Pickling lime is hydrated lime. It's my favorite, and many commercial grow operations DO use it. Don't use limestone; limestone is for long-term use, such as in a garden.

Casings, which flush for a month or so, do not need long-term ph adjustment. They need short term, therefore hydrated lime is what you would want to use. The most critical time for contaminants to enter a casing is during the initial colonization and first flush stages. Once the layer is fully colonized, it's very contaminant resistant. A common contaminant that occurs in casings is the 'Cobweb Mold' which isn't toxic just very annoying that thrives in old stale air.

It will not hurt the casing one bit; it's just annoying because you have to keep on it. Don't go easy spray as much as you can. Not in the one spot! Spray the entire casing. Bacteria in a bulk substrate are not a contaminant. Commercial mushroom farms toss out any fruits that have bacterial blotch growing on the fruits themselves.

However, having bacteria present in the substrate is not a cause for concern, and in fact many agaricus species won't fruit at all from sterilized substrates.

Casing layers are not pasteurized in commercial mushroom production in order for the casing to have a high microbe count. NEVER keep a terrarium or other grow tub sitting on the floor. Get a table or shelf to put it on.

You can tell when your casing needs a mist by looking carefully at the cakes or casing layer. Allow them to dry slightly, then mist lightly. After a few grows, you'll be able to instantly tell when a project needs to be misted. You don't want them to dry completely out, or get waterlogged.

Rhizos on top are a good sign. Let them grow. Knots form later. We using 'Perlite' in our casings because perlite works not by holding water, but by preventing clumping and providing lots of air pockets in the layer itself, which stimulates primordia.

By mixing perlite with vermiculite, you get the best of both worlds Ph balancing isn't necessary unless you add peat, which isn't absolutely required for cubes. Just don't try to grow agaricus or other edibles without peat in the mix, because they won't pin. Too high a humidity is a major cause of weak or no pinsets on cased substrates. Just rinse, and then drain well.

Leave no standing water. There is nothing sterile about a fruiting chamber. FC Having a slightly acidic casing layer PH will not cause side pinning. Sure, you can mist with a bit of baking soda or hydrated lime in the water if you failed to balance the casing layer PH first, but as I said, that isn't the problem.

An acidic casing layer will favor trichoderma and other molds, while mushroom mycelium is more tolerant of basic PH. This is the reason we use lime. As the mycelium colonizes the substrate, the metabolic byproducts produced begin to swing the PH lower. By the time pinning starts, you have a near neutral substrate, which is what you want.

Casing layers pin on the sides for several reasons, but most important to remember, they pin there when that's the best environment for them to form primordia. The crease between substrate and tray is a perfect microclimate. It's nice and humid down there and there is plenty of moisture for the substrate to work with. It's also protected from the spray from the mister, which will damage developing primordia if they get sprayed and are allowed to remain wet.

A sheet of wax paper can be layed on top to hold in the microclimate you're looking for. It helps to wrinkle it up into a ball, and then spread it out again before laying on top of the casing. These wrinkles will ensure there is plenty of air circulating under the wax paper, while at the same time holding a high humidity level in your mini-environment under the wax paper.

It's normal for the substrate to shrink. It's more than loss of water because the mycelium is actually eating the substrate; therefore it naturally gets smaller over time. At this point, I do not recommend liming the casing layer. You're trying to make it pin, not suppress trichoderma or other molds.

If it only pins on the sides, you can be assured they'll grow into monsters. I doubt your total yield will be very much less, although it doesn't look as cool as a wild flush that hides the entire casing layer beneath a forest of mushrooms. Peat based casing layers should be pasteurized, not sterilized. It does no good to say something doesn't perform well if you don't follow proper procedure in making it. As I've said many times, the commercial growers have invested millions of dollars into research on ways to maximize crops.

We can learn a great deal from them, and then expand on that knowledge. Edible and medicinal mushrooms with few exceptions are exponentially harder to grow then cubensis, so learn from those who are already at the next level. Growing cubes can be looked at as a way to learn mycology and then move on, or it can be looked at as a way to get some cheap drugs. Those who follow the latter are here today, freaked out by a trip and gone tomorrow. That's why there is such a huge turnover on this and other boards.

Look at growing cubes as a way to 'learn the ropes' and then move to harder and more rewarding species.

When you do that, the small things such as casing layer composition become much more important to get just right. Many species won't even fruit at all on a sterilized casing layer. Cubes will fruit, but poorly compared to how they fruit on a properly balanced, pasteurized casing layer, applied over a properly balanced, pasteurized bulk substrate.

The members can help answer what you don't understand AFTER study, but this isn't a place to learn everything. Commercial growers use buffered peat and NO vermiculite as casing. Their income depends on growing as many mushrooms as they can for the money they spend to grow them. Do you really think a multi-billion dollar industry is just throwing money away? Read, search and study. ALL the questions you're starting these threads lately for are already answered in detail, and available by a simple search, which is faster than typing a question.

Those who know these answers are sick and tired of typing the same stuff hundreds of times, over and over again, and aren't going to do it anymore. Those who don't know the answer will make something up just to take a wild guess, and the disinformation continues Layering will give faster colonization with less damage to your spawn than mixing. You'll have more success with thinner substrate layers. Don't even attempt a six or seven inch thick horse manure substrate.

They will heat up, and also have the tendency to go anaerobic in the core, leading to contamination. You'll get far more bang for the buck with two trays of 3 inch substrate layers than one tray with 6 inches. Horse manure fruits very well uncased. Remember, when using a casing layer, we keep the humidity a bit lower to allow some evaporation from the casing, which is replaced by daily mistings. However, with less than upper 90's percent humidity, the casing layer dries out fast at the recommended level of air exchanges, defeating the purpose unless you mist heavily a few times daily.

It's wrong. Lysol doesn't cause mutations. Your new homework assignment is to spray Lysol near not on one of your fruiting cakes and report the results.

Lysol is mostly alcohol and isn't good for mushrooms, but using it in the room isn't going to cause mutations. I spray the face of my flow hood with Lysol prior to transfers, so it's always blowing on something.

Upon full colonization and a reduction in CO 2 levels brought about by increased FAE, light becomes an important pinning trigger, and must be bright enough to penetrate the casing layer so that hyphal knots can form from deep within the casing instead of just on top.

Dim light will produce 'some' pins, but if you want one of those wall-to-wall flushes, use bright light. I hope this helps clear up any confusion. CASING - Agaricus farmers use peat without the vermiculite, while people growing cubes tend to mix peat and vermiculite. There's a reason for this. Agaricus fruits at ten to twenty degrees cooler than cubensis in very low light.

There is far less evaporation of moisture from the casing layer at lower temperatures, thus the reservoir effect of vermiculite is not as necessary. For a given volume, vermiculite holds more moisture than peat, thus combining the two results in a compromise that favors fruiting in warmer conditions. The easiest way to re-hydrate a bulk substrate that is dry is to pour water around the edges of the tray so that the substrate floats a bit.

Leave it overnight and pour off the excess water. Mist the casing layer well. Never pick the pins because it's common with many species to set pins for the first few flushes at the time of first flush.

These pins remain dormant until their turn comes. If you pick them, you ruin future harvests. For example, if you have to leave for work every day for 10 hours or more, a casing layer will protect your substrate while you can't be there to mist. If you can hang around and babysit your crop, it makes little to no difference. Note this applies to cubes only. Other species fruit poorly or not at all without a casing layer, and many edibles won't even fruit on a pasteurized casing, it must be untreated.

You don't need to leave them attached to the casing until you have a black mess everywhere in order to make prints. Pick them as the caps flatten out, but before they go crazy dropping spores. I have several totally sporeless strains. They're the way to go. Culture slants last for years in the refrigerator, making prints unnecessary. By layering, the mycelium on the grains recovers and knits together, and then rapidly takes off and colonizes the rest of the substrate.

In addition, since mixing 'can' damage the kernels, and a broken kernel is a prime site for contaminant spores to germinate, layering has the added benefit of less trauma to the spawn medium.

The more you lift that lid and fan the better. There should be no dust. Wipe it off the top first, and of course, NEVER keep a terrarium or other grow tub sitting on the floor. The mycelium only cares about A and B mating types, not the name somebody wrote on the syringe or print.

You may end up with separate zones of each 'strain' or you may end up with a cross, or somewhere in between, but it won't be a hybrid since they're the same species anyway.

Either way, it looks like not a half bad pinset you have started there CASING - A 'casing' is simply a non-nutritious top layer that is applied over a substrate in order to supply moisture and an environment that is conducive to primordia formation. It should not be used as a synonym for a tray, substrate, or total project. The purpose of a casing soil is to provide moisture and also to provide lots of little air pockets with high humidity to stimulate primordia formation.

It really doesn't matter with hobby grows anyway, but in the commercial field where yield per square foot makes the difference between profit and going out of business, it counts. If the grains dry out and the mushroom mycelium weakens, they become the perfect place for molds to start. Many growers get away with it, but the contamination rate will be higher over time.

Grains should be covered with at least a very light layer of substrate, imo. It can't be used well in pf cakes, but in casing layers it helps to break up the peat and provide lots of O 2 in casing layer, which stimulates pins.

Of course, peat moss can be used without any vermiculite or perlite at all. Just lime to balance Ph, and use gypsum at ten percent by volume of the amount of peat. I recommend against it. Some beginning growers do it so that if they over mist, the vermiculite soaks it up. However, if you fail to overwater, the vermiculite draws moisture from your substrate.

The vermiculite on bottom can also cause the mycelium to pin there instead of on the top where you want it to. CASING - It's very common for the mycelium to try to colonize the sides of the tray above the substrate line, especially if condensation is present, which I'm sure it is with your heater. Your fruiting chamber should be kept at normal room temperature, not heated. If it's too cold in your house, run a small space heater in the room, not the terrarium itself.

Overlay is matted, overgrown mycelium that makes the casing layer impervious to water absorption. A bit of rhizomorphic mycelium on the surface is ok. It's what produces primordia.

Patch if you want to, but if you have primordia showing, don't. For LC make sure you use a sugar that does not caramelize. For gas exchange I always used several layers of protection - you want the jar to be able to breathe but you don't want dirt or bacterias etc. I used tyvek envelopes cut up to fit below the lid of my jars as the first and most fine-layer.

In the lid there would be at least one hole filled with polyfill through which you can inject or use a self-healing injection port made of silicone I've used bathroom silicone and it worked just fine for one round of PC, the second time I'd use it it would start to deteriorate, so renew every time you re-use the jar. Over the lid I put a coffee filter to keep out dust and stuff falling onto it. It's a bit overkill, but I'm rather safe than sorry with this kind of stuff.

RR says tyvek should be on the outside of the metal lid using two piece lids of mason jars but I've had good results with one-piece lids and putting the tyvek on the inside and the polyfill etc. Hope you have fun with your grows! That's good, there's a beer brewing store just down the street from me! I think my problem is I have been trying with corn syrup. I think I'll also rig up my own stir plate, too. Thanks for the good advice and links, Enoon! Normal Threaded.

The Nexian. WBS failure Trying again soon. Posts: Joined: Jul Last visit: Oct There are teks out there that advise growing mycelium in fully closed jars without any gas exchange mechanism, and it seems to work I am actually in the middle of an experiment with this What I was thinking about was the light from the lamp. Also - are you sure about the content of your syringes? Do they come from a reliable source? They Cubensis, right? This shouldn't matter I routinely colonize jars out in the open.

Even light from a full spectrum CMH bulb does not impede colonization to any meaningful degree. This has also been observed by reliable individuals on several mycology boards. Depending on the type of pressure cooker used, pressure cooking jars for hours on end could have dried out the spawn.

Good to know - thanks for the info. Yes, several hours seems to be unnecessary. Parshvik Chintan. Did you noc some BRF, or grains? Not a lot of solution is needed for either. Checking on them every day shouldn't make much of a difference, however, this hobby takes patience and you really dont need to check more than every days.

Some pics would also be useful Keep us posted! MoGrow made a good point with 3. If you are using BRF, you dont want to move that shit around too much. That verm layer is a barrier against contam. Some expensive brands are coated with a fungicide. For use as spawn material, treated WBS is not advisable.

Simply place whatever quantity you intend to use in a plastic pot, tub or bucket. A 8 to 12 hour soak is fine. Seed soaked longer will begin to ferment. But, is still usable after soaking 24 to 36 hours. There is no need to remove any floating husks, or sunflower seeds. It is all going to get thoroughly sterilized - anyway.

Once soaked, simply rinse the seed very thoroughly in a colander, or strainer. Then allow it to drain - WELL. As in 30 or more minutes. If it is drips - one drop. It is not drained - WELL. Place the jars in the PC. PC at 15 pounds for a full 60 minutes. The paper coffee filters will dry almost instantly, when the PC is opened. Tighten lids if necessary , shake jars to insure there are no clumps of seed inside. Place jars inside the oven on a rack, to cool, overnight. External coffee filters simply add another layer of protection to the jars content.

Once cooled to room temperature, store in a clean cardboard box - until used. Using them sooner than later is preferable. Simply remove the tinfoil when you remove the jars from the PC. Voodoo Replies: 1. OK I am using finch seed that has a few whole sunflower seeds. I was wondering what effect if any the had in the colonization or nutrition?

They are easy to remove due to them floating. Just add alot a water and swirl the glass around and they float to the top leaving the rest at the bottom. All you need now is a spoon to remove them. I was wondering if anyone had done a comparison with and without? It works both ways I know, but I was wondering what everybodies preferences were?

Whole sunflower seed is harder to get sterile. I use pemmington spelling? Now to get to your question. I find that leaving whole sunflower seeds makes the seed more sticky after it is pc'd.

Leaving the bird-kote coating on the seed will also cause it to become too sticky. As for colonization times, I do not notice a difference between jars with and jars without whole sunflower seed as long it is not the main ingrediant.

I only removed about half of the sunflower seeds from the wild bird feed that I have. It does not seem to be a problem, the jars a colonizing just fine. I also use Penningtons.

Anybody know about black thistle seeds? I got a huge bag for the bird feeder, and am curious if cubies would grow on it? I'll probably give it a try anyway whether you tell me it'll work or not I've got more spores than brains, I guess BTW, If you read this, Ion, you were right about the peanuts I oughta make a list of subs that don't work.

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