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I have yet to find a good way to pasteurize wood.  On my attempt to colonize oak dowels about 5 weeks in the myc got deep enough to find a trick spore in the wood.  Everything was green in a day:

http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae279/alt0182/lolie%20gaggin/?action=view&current=Photo_031010_002.jpg&newest=1

Sorry to hear it Helo.  Some days you keep banging your head against the wall and all you get is a flat spot on your head. 

Keep at it man.  The one thing I've learned is that the only constant is change.  It'll get better.

Yeah, the guy's name is Marc, and he is always happy to answer questions that I have for him.

The straw basket I have loaded to grow oysters has been in the incubator for 4 days and is getting really fuzzy.  Man, I hope this isn't 10 lbs of white fluffy MOLD.

Pasteurized the straw and did the oysters in-a-basket last night. 

If my neighbors didn't think I was nuts before, weed-wacking straw in a rubbermaid tub in the driveway will have an impact (that stuff gets everywhere).  It was like standing in a big golden tornado.

I didn't have quite enough straw prepped to do the Eq basket, so I did one big cubesagna baking pan (straw, popcorn, straw, popcorn, straw - like lasagna) with one qt jar, and will do the full-size basket this weekend. 

I hope to have something to turn in for the MAY photo contest.  In the meantime you're welcome to browse my photobucket:  http://s979.photobucket.com/home/alt0182

Hey Jeff.  I'm just starting my first Oyster grow as well.  I have popcorn colonized and ready to go, I will be pasteurizing straw later today and trying to grow laundry-basket-tek style.  I talked to a professional grower who says what I'm doing won't work, but I'm knee deep in it now, so we'll find out.

Almost three weeks in, fully colonized popcorn.  Ready for bulk.

When I found trich I did my best to isolate.  I didn't open the FC until I had a bag ready to carefully set the infected myc in and took bag stair
To the outside trashcan.

Later, I scrub be the FC outside, then brought it back in and washed it with water and anti bacterial soap.  Then cleaned thoroughly with rubbing alcohol.  The next batch did not get infected.

Trich is literally everywhere.  It blows around in your ventilation system all day everyday.  You bring it into your house on your coleus and shoes.  It survives most laundry cycles.  So the important thing is to keep your substrates clean.  Alcohol, fire, glovebox, pressure cooker, all that.  Trich will be everywhere in your house, but you can keep it out of your shrooms.

So far so good on both fronts.  All of the blender-teak clones (I did three separate batches) have colonized the popcorn, almost 100% and no contams yet.  One of the batches was too week to colonize, so I did a glovebox g2g from one jar to the other and now both are doing well.  I will end up tossing one jar that has only manage about 5% colonization, and not the corn is rotting.

The LC from print has also worked beyond my wildest dreams.  To test I noc'd 6 pf-teak jars, and they are showing more myc in a week than I normally see from spores in two weeks.  I have like 16 more oz of the LC, can't imagine what I'll do with so much.

All of this for me is about trying new teks, seeing what works, and learning as much as I can about the fungi.  Not trying to outdo anyone or set any records for harvest, just trying to learn more as I go.

http://www.mushroomvideos.com/   Lots of sample vids on line, I think the DVDs are for sale.

go full-screen, space out, and watch...   

http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae279/alt0182/lolie%20gaggin/?action=view&current=Video_040610_002.flv

Quick update:

On that original test run I "inoculated" two 5lb bags of pasteurized wood chips as well, literally dumping the LC on the substrate.  One bag did nothing, and there was a bit of trich (not too sure about my pasteurizing methods).  The other bag actually is about 1/4 colonized with oyster myc.  Go figure.

On my new project, while prepping the mushroom stem for the blender I put one 1/2 pint jar with H2O2 and another with purified/boiled water.  Once inside the glove-box I dropped the piece of stem into the h2o2 and immediately into the water.  As I trimmed away the outer portion of the stem I would dip fingertips and utensils into the jars to try to kill contams I had come in contact with during the trimming process.

I did this with three different pieces, all blended and inoculated into prepped popcorn separately.  Thus far, 11 days in, no contams and myc is well under way with all three. 

I think the h2o2 is a legitimate step to add to the blender-tek cloning process.  It takes some care - hydrogen peroxide will eat your entire mushie in a matter of seconds - so a QUICK dip then an immediate bath in pure water is really important.  I have no doubt that some of the mushroom matter that went into each blend was dead - but there was still plenty of living material for a successful inoculation.

If your cakes are 95%, you're probably in good shape and ready to go.  I would go ahead and dunk them,  You can rinse under rapidly flowing tap water and just wash away any uncolonized brf.  That helps ensure the brf doesn't rot or get moldy in the FC.

The last part of the 3rd video here:
http://www.mushroomvideos.com/BRF-Pf-Tek
shows rinsing under tap water before and after dunking.

yeah, some people don't believe they are "magic" if they don't have some blue on them.  did you let the veils break before picking?  the tops look really "round".

mycology is a SLOW hobby...  3 days is just a blink of the eye.

To get prints, ideally, I'd leave the cap on foil inside of the glove box.  Letting it dry a little seems to keep it in it's natural process of maturing, and spores are dropped. 

There are a handful of teks called "blender-tek".  The one I'm referring to can mostly be found here:  http://www.shroomery.org/8433/The-9er-Tek You need a pretty thick stem to be able to trim off the outside and blend the uncontaminated insides with pure water.

Basically the entire mushroom is mycelium.  In theory you can blend the whole thing and use it as LC to start the next batch.  If you haven't had any contams in your FC and in handling the mushroom, it might be worth a shot.

If all you have are fresh, non-spore-dropping fruits - this may be your last chance to keep the line going.  One of the reasons you're not getting spores may be because you're already a few generations into a clone - but if you started with a multi-spore syringe that shouldn't be the case.
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The other blender-tek I have heard of but have not tried is to take a chunk off of one of your cakes, blend it in pure water, and use that as an LC.  Again - in theory it should work fine as long as the myc in the cake is still alive.

Run up to the local cigarette store and buy an analog hydrometer like they use in cigar humidors.  Should be about $5.

The inoculation holes should not be covered while incubating.  You might want to keep your jars in your FC though, just to keep better control over what crud (in the air) is blowing around and landing on your jars.

You can also monitor and maintain temps better in the FC.

Just my own opinion.  A lot of people just put the jars on a shelf and forget about them.

too funny raj.

I did a couple of spore prints right on the lid of a 1/2 pint jar.  I still used an inoculation loop to "scrub" the spores with water.  Some of that went right into my grains - and is actually colonizing faster than stuff from my old spore syringes (almost a year in the veggie drawer). 

I let the spores hydrate for a few days then transferred to a honey and water blend and so far LC seems to be looking pretty good.


So far the blender-tek clone project looks good .  Two of the three blended chunks are generating myc in the popcorn, and no mold yet.  The third seems a little slower, but definitely some myc.

The only way I could get prints from my HIs was to pick early and let the top dry almost completely on the foil.  Some of the tops NEVER printed, I'm not sure why.

The other strain I was working with seemed to drop spores for a long period of time, allowing to get at least a light print in just a few hours.

If you've got fresh fruits you could try cloning onto agar (which I have not done) or blender-tek cloning if you have some sizable stems to work with.

That is AWESOME.  Like 5 times bigger than anything I grew on a pf cake.

I just saw the first signs of myc in my popcorn, I'm going for "laundry basket tek" with a batch of Eq and a batch of Oysters.

Maybe I'll have something that can compete in a couple months!

Well done man.