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Messages - veda_sticks

#1
Cultivation / Re: Perlite
June 07, 2009, 07:44:09 PM
boiling or baking both work to clean perlite. it doesnt really harbour anything though so rinsing well is usally enough when its new and unused. Perlite that has been most though i would prefer to boil it.

Miracle grow perlite is fine, just make sure to rinse it extra well as it tends to grow algea
#2
your kidding me right.

Just because im a new member here doesnt mean i have just started.

Ive just started back after being out for a year and a bit.

#3
PF - Tek / Re: Mushrooms Got SOAKED with Water
June 07, 2009, 07:32:04 PM
yes i know, but an explanation to why those were growing that way is helfpull, so to avoid it in the future.
#4
PF - Tek / Re: Contamination
June 07, 2009, 07:27:36 PM
Quote from: Baph on June 06, 2009, 06:43:46 PM
I smell troll

lol

anyway

follow the pf tek vids  on that website, follow it exactly and you wont get hit with contaminatino.

I live in a flat with damp walls with bad mould problems, and i dont have neer the contam rates tat you do, infact the only contam i had so far in this flat is bacteria in a straight brwwn rice jar
#5
PF - Tek / Re: Improving ont he pf tek
June 07, 2009, 07:24:18 PM
well i certianly didnt say you have to use it.

If your not interested or dont have anything usefull to say, dont post.

Coffee IME and many others who also use it with grain notice an increase in colinisation speed. and if you want to move onto scleritia producing species it will seriously reduce the time it takes for sclerotia to appear, often down to 6 weeks.

gypsum has its benfits and it wouldnt be used if it didnt. Its used in bulk, also in grain so why not the pf tek.

Its certainly not pointless.

Theres more to cultivation than just getting yourself some shrooms to get fucked up, ive been there and past that, been 2 yeras since i dosed.

#6
PF - Tek / Re: Pinning on a contaminated cake
June 07, 2009, 07:15:34 PM
i should have mentioned also that to be sure that you are not confusing brusing with mold. Some strains will bruise more green than blue.

mould looks like coloured sand ontop of the mycelium.

Brusiing is the colour of the mycelium itself
#7
PF - Tek / Re: Extending cake life...
June 07, 2009, 07:14:02 PM
experimentation is fine.

If you want to try extending cake life, the only safer method i see of doing it is crumbling and spawning to bulk substrate which isnt so cntam prone is BRF. But i have seen it tried before and its hit or miss, it usually coliniss very slow and if it does fruit it fruits poorly. or it jjust ends up contaimated. So in a sense ues you could add food, but it has no real benifit since mushroom mycelium (cubensis does other speices may live much longer) will age and slow down and performance becomes poor.

Its the same reason why its not a good idea to continually clone the same genitc cell lines, and is also why cultures that need to be stored for periods of time must be refriderator.

#8
Cultivation / Re: sources for spores?
June 06, 2009, 05:55:05 AM
avoid sporestore and sporebank, which from all the bad reports ive seen, seem to be scams.

sporeworks
ralphsters
thehawkseye
Earthtongue

are all good vendors. Personaly i recomend earths tongue, 20CC syringes, growth by day 2 and fast colinisation. ive never had such good results from other vendors.
#9
Cultivation / Re: Another great tub
June 06, 2009, 05:52:16 AM
very nice. Coir is a great substrate.
#10
Cultivation / Re: Growing Shrooms, a stinky affair?
June 06, 2009, 05:50:52 AM
No, they dont really produce much odour, not unless your filling an entire closet packed full of mushrooms and even thne, its nothing like if you were growing weed.

1 10CC syringe will do 10 pf cakes fine. 1cc per jar, though it can sometimes be a bit tricky doing 1/4cc per hole. Earths tongue sell 20CC syringes and they are the shit!

First signs of growth by day 2, fast colinisatoin and i have very strng rhyzo growth in every 1 of my jars.
#11
PF - Tek / Re: fc question
June 06, 2009, 05:28:56 AM
yea i agree experimenting is fine, if its working then i see no reason to change unless it goes downhill
#12
Quote from: shroomzer on May 28, 2009, 07:52:19 PM
LOL JR's in a mood tonight~!! hee heee ...

Yes ive got 16 jars colinising right now, burma, hawaii, amazon, golden teacher plus i have 2 jars that were inoculated with 2 strains.

First signs of mycelium at day 2 for the hawaii jars, the rest days 3 and days 4.

Oh, im going to be crumbling and casing them just incase you think i havnt actually tried it. But im not crumbling and casing because of yeild, yeild is roughly the same, crumbled and cased just puts out more in the first few flushes. Cakes fruiting in proper conditions just put out smaller flushes but more flushes.

Im not using perlite fruiting chambers, im using douible tubs which will be using BRF cakes spawned to coffee newspapers, and other spawned to manure.

Once i get rye, ill be doing that too.

#13
PF - Tek / Re: Contamination
June 06, 2009, 05:15:41 AM
providing your sterilisation methods are good, contamination in your jar usually only means 2 things.

Dirty inoculation
Dirty inoculant.

If your not using a glovebox, that will certianly introduce contamination.

www.mushroomvideos.com

watch the 4 pf tek videos

also make sure that you are sterilising correctly. if your steaming you must make sure that its done correctly. Steam in a tight pot with a tight fitting light. 90 minutes after steam escapes the lid. I steam for 2 hours after the water starts to boil and that works great for me.

Also, tape up your inoc holes with micropore or masking tape and use foil over the lid so that water doest get in during sterilisation. breathable tape is important so as your dry verm doesnt collect moisture during sterilisation.

If your leaving your foil on the jar after inoculation, not nly will it slow colinisation, but your dry verm layer will get damp and contams will colinise right through it.

Since you live in a high mould spore count area, maybe you could also try taping the holes up with micropore,, its not nessesary but it may help.
#14
PF - Tek / Re: Extending cake life...
June 06, 2009, 05:10:20 AM
pretty close.

trying to add more food is just a contamination risk. Brown rice flour will contaminate very quickly, often in just a mater of days,

Also, as stated mycelium has a life cycle, its ages, theres only so long the cell lines can go on dividing before it slows down. its not just a case of food.
#15
PF - Tek / Re: Pinning on a contaminated cake
June 06, 2009, 05:08:04 AM
cover it with a salt paste, cutting it out just spreads the spoes. salt the area and an inch beyond. it should slow it enough that you get a flush then you can dump if it shows up agian.

Increase air exchange. Fresh air exchange is your number 1 defense against contamination during fruiting
#16
PF - Tek / Re: Curious about Casing Ingrediants
June 06, 2009, 05:06:27 AM
peat/verm is used because its non nuitritious, it supplies a microclimate benificial to pinning and also as a moisture reserve. Its more benificial when fruiting straight grains that perform poorly without a casing layer, due to moisture content, and also because mycelium will tend to grow densly in a highly nuitritious substrate like greats (which isnt great for pinning) the casing layer allows the mycelium to mycelium to spread out through the casing layer less dense.

Casing with cubensis is optional. Striaght casing crumbled cakes doesnt really have much benifit. What you may see is that it puts out almost everything on the first flush, rather than over several flushes if you jsut left it as a cake.

Casing is more important which other species of mushrooms, not sure about the glowing mushroom though
#17
PF - Tek / Re: Improving ont he pf tek
June 06, 2009, 05:02:01 AM
No, lime is for PH balancing casing layers to ward of contamination. Gypsum doesnt PH balance, gypsum provides calclium and sulfer, both benificial to fruit body growth and development. So its not interchangable.

Yes, not used coffee grounds, but half strength drinking coffee.
#18
PF - Tek / Re: Mushrooms Got SOAKED with Water
June 06, 2009, 04:59:49 AM
Give your  terrarium a good fanning out to dry any moisture off your musrooms, leaving them wet can cause bacterial blotch.

You also need to increase air exchange anyway, thats why your mushrooms are growing tall and skiny.
#19
PF - Tek / Improving ont he pf tek
May 28, 2009, 04:59:12 AM
Heres a few things that you can do to your cakes to give them a bost.

1- moisture content.

Since the dunk and roll, moisture content for fruiting isnt an issue, so you dont need a max fruiting formula in cakes anymore. Its been proven many times over that making your pf mix slightly on the dry side will colinise much faster. Faster coplinisation also means less risk for contaminaton.

When i make up a pfmix, i use less than the recipie. and if it needs more i add more till i get it right. Usually with the 2:1:1 mixture if you squeeze your verm a small stream will flow for a second which is fine. But i will use less so that when i scqueese onlyu a couple of drops come out, then i mix my verm in

2. Coffee
In bulk, cffee is added as a nice additive to boost nitrogen content, it will speed colinisatoin. With cakes you can hydrate  your verm with half strentgh coffee water for a nice boost.

3. Gypsum
Gypsum is most comenly found as an additive to grain jars and it bulk substartes. But it can also be used to boost the pf tek also. Gypsum provides calcium and sulfur, both benificial in growth and fruit body development. A small pinch per cake is more than enough.

With these small changes, you can increase yourperformance. with a good cake mix you should see full colinisation in 2-3 weeks, though most usually just over 2 weeks.

#20
Cultivation / Re: Casing Grains
May 27, 2009, 07:33:01 PM
i wouldnt be to worried about identifying the orange goup which is bacteria. its a contaminant so ditch that.

Make sure that your grains are dry on the outside before loading into the pressure cooker, wet grains will make it hard to seprete them plus it can encourage bacterial growth, usualy wet spot.
Also be sure to sterilise for 90 minutes at 15 psi, ensure your inoculation procedures are steriile and your inoculant is sterile.

For the rez effect i believe you mix grains with and verm 50/50.
pf cakes are a good learning tool, and if there done right you can get some great results, plus you can even spawn to bulk with them.

I do agree that grains though require more steps os much easier when working with larger amunts, for the simple fact you can use quart jars. easier to prepare than lots of 1/ pints. Plus you can shake your grain.