THE INNER RESERVOIR TEK update - June 2 2002 - Hawaiian spore race shrooms - bottom of page

Mazatec fruiting - PF style - 1/2 pint with the inner reservoir tek. The shrooms are all growing from the lower vermiculite layer (upper contaminant barrier when invitro).

Mazatec fruiting - the cake is still bright white with this first flush. Without the innver reservoir, the cake would be blueish (natural drying process - caused by water transpiration from the fungi).

Mazatec cakes fruiting in a plastic storage tub ("Sterilite" - "Rubber Maid" - Walmart - Kmart - Home Depot - ect). Vermiculite was used on the bottom - moistened for humidity. PF uses seperate caps for the bottom layers, but this a bit bigger. Vermiculite might be better than perlite - period. One can conceivable become "perlite free" as so many now are "peat moss free".

PF CLASSIC

Overhead view of a Sterilite container with PF CLASSICS

The Inner reservoir tek

The cakes are regular 1/2 pint low form canning jar size. The shrooms are the Mazatec, Treasure Coast (see below) and PF Classic spore races from PF.

To do this is extremely easy. Everything is done standard PF TEK and when the substrate is loaded into the jar, use the end of a pen (a "sharpie" ink pen is perfect) and insert it into the middle of the substrate and make a hole all the way to the bottom. Any rod no more than 1/2 inch around is good for making the hole. A proper sized wooden dowel can be bought at any hardware store for cheap. If the substrate collapses around the hole or if the hole doesn't keep its shape, that means the substrate is to dry. Properly wet substrate works easy and the hole does not collapse.

Fill the jar with dry verm, proceed as usual and inoculate as usual. When the cake is birthed, inject 10cc of sterile water into the inner reservoir through the top (previously the bottom of the cake invitro).

This is more proof, that casing PF style cakes is not what makes a great PF style fruiting, but the water that is made available to the mycelium. Many beginner cultivators that experience great success with casing cakes, usually credit the casing mixture. But here is a fruiting that equals any cased cake, without a casing. It is the water that does it in conjunction with the potent fruiting potential of PF substrate.

Treasure Coast shrooms - PF style with inner reservoir tek. The cakes are sitting on moist regular potting soil (peat moss - perlite and vermiculite mixtures).