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Looks like spreading myc To me.

I've done it both ways.  "washing" away the uncolonized substrate before or after dunking AND putting cakes in the FC when only 90% or so colonized.  The uncolonized portion was small and I put it at the bottom, so it wasn't too exposed.  The cakes did fine either way.

If your having trouble getting that last little bit to colonize, a couple things I've found to be helpful:  one is making sure the cakes are in the dark, and if the bottom of the jar is not colonizing turn the jar upside down and tap it, then let it sit upside down for a couple of days.  Both of those were suggestions I picked here on the forum. 

End tally:

   3 Eq LC cakes w/verm:  19 fruits @ 18g  
   3 Eq LC cakes w/poo:     66 fruits @ 95g

The three original poo cakes kept growing at a much higher rate, even after the second dunking - when all six cakes were rolled in poo.  No idea why, just that they got such a good headstart after the first roll.

From the original blender-tek cloning attempt...  Two months later, the pile of dead leaves and moldy substrate kicks out over a pound of oysters.  I guess nature finds it's way.

Sliced Ed 'em up and ate them in some chicken broth with green onions. 


The laundry basket tech got pretty bad trich before I could get to full colonizAtion. Tossed the whole basket.

There are people out there selling shrooms for far cheaper than you can grow.

I've never tried this particular tek myself, but vie heard you can do the same thing just buy adding pure water, shaking the jar, then pulling the excess water out with a syringe.  The water will have bits of myc in it, which you can use for another set of jars. 

Dub is right on for real lab-type isolation.  You can blender-tek your freakiest fruit into an LC, but you'll likely get poor spore production from the clones.  The spores will also be working against the isolate, trying to bring the variety back to the strain.

Nature wins out over nurture most of the time.  Otherwise I'd blend my Ecuadore and Garden Giant myc and grow the worlds biggest magic fruit...  Imagine 5 pound Eqs growing in your back yard!

Chuck that straw into a rubbermaid tub, about 2/3 full, dribble a little water on it from the hose, then go at it with your weed eater.  Makes fast work of cutting the straw down to size.  That little bit of water will help keep the chaff down, but you will still make a ridiculous mess.

I hate to revive a post this old, but I have not been successful in my storage efforts and thought someone might have some additional input.

I get my fruits completely dried out, about 36 to 48 hours of room temp moving air.  They are literally cracker-dry and crunchy. 

I've tried putting them in a jar with silica gel, a jar without, jar with inoculation holes in the lid, and jar with a poly-fill hole in the lid.

After a couple of days the fruits are shriveled and mushy.  Really soggy and smell bad.

I don't have a vacuum sealer.  I was thinking of suspending them in honey the way the Aztecs used to do (but don't want to ruin the whole crop). 

Any additional suggestions are much appreciated.

Awesome.

HA!  I'd like to see shitakes growing on that log too!  Its been about three months, i might wait around for a year just to learn that ill get nothing.  If it works it will be awesome (and my wife will quit bugging me to grow something she can eat), if it doesn't...  ...maybe I'll learn something.

I don't know why the poo cakes are working, but they are producing beyond my wildest dreams.  More, bigger, and faster than the verm cakes that came out of the same LC inoculation process.

The verm cakes are doing OK, just a little better than my other batches which didn't colonize nearly as well or as quickly.  The poo cakes look like porcupines.  I'm looking at one right now with 40 to 50 pins, and mushrooms that should be ready to pick tomorrow or so.

I'm keeping track, and so far have double the weight from the poo cakes as the verm cakes.  I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow, and will let you know what the end tally is.

Outproducing everything though is the laundry basket.  Fat-stemmed odd shaped fruit, tops look like butts with a weird "crack" on one side.  Growing right out of the straw with no casing or anything.

Wow, some really great stuff in this post, I hope it ends up as a permanent helpful hints post some day.

I would also add that making liquid culture is not some super secret tek that only the ancients know about.  You pour boiling water into a jar (about a pint) and add a tablespoon of honey, put the lid on.  When the liquid cools (preferably in a glove box, but you can take your chances), either scrub a couple of spore prints or squirt directly from a spore syringe into the liquid.

In a week to 10 days you'll have enough LC to inoculate a b'zillion pf jars, or maybe half a b'zillion jars of grain.  You'll have more active culture than you know what to do with.  Later, you can keep it in the fridge so it doesn't grow too fast and eat up all the honey.

LC will have your initial substrates colonizing way faster than spores alone. 

Are you doing shitake plugs in a hardwood log?  I have one of those going now, but it could still be another 3 to 6 months before I know if it worked.

Everything Ive read on these is that they can not be produced in lab conditions.  Pretty sure they need to grow in part of a LIVE evergreen tree, like on the root or something.  Though it happens in nature on it's own, damn near impossible to MAKE happen.

vandal, Got that envelope today -thanks man, I'm looking forward to giving these a shot.

To sterilize the poo, since it was steer manure compost mix (with bits of wood and lots of other stuff in it) I put it in a half gallon jar, put plastic wrap over the top and nuked it for SIX minutes.  So far, so good.

Nice pins forming on verm and poo cakes already.  Pins on the cubesagna, and finally some pins on the big "laundry basket" (woo! Hoo!).  I'll get pics up as soon as I can.

this is a cake rolled in poo, 3 days in the FC:
http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae279/alt0182/lolie%20gaggin/?action=view&current=taylorscamera011.jpg

this is a cake from the same batch, all the same techs, but rolled in verm, 3 days in the FC:
http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae279/alt0182/lolie%20gaggin/?action=view&current=taylorscamera009.jpg

The verm-rolled cake is STILL better colonized and moving faster than any pf batches I've ever done, but the poo-rolled cake looks like a friggin snowball on crack. 

The three poo cakes - you can hardly see them against the white perlite base:  http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae279/alt0182/lolie%20gaggin/?action=view&current=taylorscamera016.jpg

The three verm cakes - on the opposite side of the FC:  http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae279/alt0182/lolie%20gaggin/?action=view&current=taylorscamera017.jpg

Feel free to look around the whole photo bucket, there are several other pics just uploaded today.  [sorry, tried to put the pics in the post, but couldn't figure it out]

Seems like things have been really quiet on the forum lately, I guess the weather got nice and everyone is out enjoying the sunshine.  I thought I would throw this out and see what ideas are out there. 

For instance, on my most recent batch I inoculated with LC from a spore print.  Instead of using pure water, I diced and boiled some potatoes and used the potato water with the rice flour and verm mix.  It only took SEVENTEEN DAYS for complete colonization - way faster than any other batch of pf cakes I've done.

I boiled some water and added honey and let it cool with the lid on.  Then when I birthed my cakes I dunked them for about 20 hours in the honey water.  Just for kicks I rolled half of he cakes in verm and half of the cakes in sterilized steer manure compost.

Now, three days later, I already have PINS on the (lovingly dubbed) poo cakes.  The verm cakes look good, but are running way behind those with the poo.

These tweaks combined have gotten me to pinning in less than half the time of my previous batches.

What tek tweaks are working for you?

I've also had very reliable and even FAST service from sporeworks.com, they were referred by Marc, the "let's grow mushrooms" guy and I just received a package from them today.  I also submitted a request for some growing info on my new garden giants kit, and they responded within an hour or two with full instructions.

If the other supplier is screwing you over, definitely feel free to let the forum know who they are.  If they don't want their name dragged through the mud they will take care of you.  None of are easy to trust an online order, so if there are some bad players out there we'd all like to know.

Quick thought though, are spores legal in your state?  That might be why the order is being held...

go down to your local discount cigarette store.  they should have a hydrometer that is used for cigar humidors, about $5.