The ShroomErie

AGK brother has started pressure cooking his own grain I think? Know his bought a pressure cooker anyway lol. Anyway he also is now using Agar. Thing is he still has had quite a few goes now get contaminated. Automatically I think more sterile environment is needed. Is it a case though the environment even being slightly out of sync can cause it? Temperature etc. I’m pretty clueless on it all tbh. Just enjoyed tripping a few times.

I’m gonna jump on growing my own so I don’t have to rely on my brother to sort me out. Just from what his told me and reading on here it seems Agar is the best path to go down. Then is it just a case of needing a decent heatpad and controller. How crazy can you go with the set ups for getting the environment spot on? Tbh I don’t mind forking out a few quid, if going to do something rather do it properly.

 

Contamination is 99% ofnthe time going to come from your spawn. Dirty spawn is almost always the culprit. How long is he sterilizing his grain for and what kind of grain is he using?

The fruiting stage is not a sterile process. You can't really sterilize the air. if your/his spawn is not 100% clean when he sends it to substrate, contamination will beat out the mushrooms mycelium growth pretty much every time with Cubensis. Using clean spawn is the most important part of the process. Otherwise it's failure pretty much every time.

The environment is typically irrelevant because he should be growing the mushroom in tubs/totes if he is growing any of the Psilocybe species. If he is growing gourmets or medicinals then he's going to watch a grow tent for them.

The coir we use for the substrate doesn't have a food source in it so that's how you know it's more than likely the spawn that is dirty. Tell him clean it up on Agar and re send. Don't give up it's a learning process. Took me a few months before I got successful fruits. Now it's super rare anything I do now contaminates.

Not all coirs are the same. Tell him to use the kind for reptile bedding ONLY, such as coco bliss or eco coir. The kind used for growing plants has Trichoderma added to it for the plants benefit. The reptile bedding does not have it added to it. If he is using that kind of Coir, you'll get contam every single time because it's already added to the coir by the company. Very important!.

 

Oh and yes, he is right. The best way to do this is to start the process on AGAR. Otherwise you'll fail far more than you'll succeed in this hobby. That's how you clean up your samples so other things like bacteria and viruses etc. that want to compete with the mushrooms mycelium for their food source don't end up hitchhiking their way into your grain spawn. .

 

I’ll have to chat with him over the weekend and get more info from him. He is into it a lot more than me. I’ve just enjoyed tripping and thought fuck it time I do some for myself. Be lying if I said your posts and motivated me a bit. Be nice to get everything on point and try some of the harder strains. Golden teachers blew me away and apparently that ain’t even that strong. It was like nothing I’ve ever done before lol.


Here are some photos he sent me the other day. Think he doing some more golden teachers and some Jedi mind fuck.




Environment wise is the most important thing to be in control of the temperature? Will just grab myself a heat pad and one those inkbird controllers.

 

Don't need any of that stuff. As long as they are in a room that is 60 to 85° you'll be fine. The heating is looked down upon too.

I can tell just by looking though at that photo of his spawn in the unicorn bags, they both look real bacterial.

 

What’s the solution then? His also got some in plastic tubs. If I was to get started what’s the best way for me to go about making sure I actually get some shrooms n not just waste time. Must be a proper cunt to wait weeks only for it then to fuck up.

I thought the heat pad would ensure that things are kept at a near consistent temp. Know you then want air exchange n shit don’t ya. Like I say I ain’t read shit loads into it as you can tell. Just don’t wanna have the disappointment of waiting weeks for fuck all.

 

Take spores directly to Agar, transfer plate to plate until you're 100% sure it's clean. I don't usually send a dish before I've transfered at least 3 seperate times. Once you got clean mycelium growing on Agar send it to sterile grain. Shake jars or break up bags at 30% colonization and again at 90%. It should rebound in 2 to 4 days. If it doesn't, it's dirty then you'll have to start back at step 1 again. If it's clean and rebounds, let it fully colonize the grain then send it to substrate. Pick a TEK and stick to it is the best advice I can give.

All the TEKs can be found here:
https://www.shroomery.org

 

Inside the tub is the only environment you need to worry about. Heating pads will put too much heat on the bottom of the tubs drying the substrate out faster. Your complicating it. Keep it simple and you'll have success. The more things extra you do the more you'll just be inviting contams by doing. A tub in your house isn't going to get too hot or too cold typically otherwise you'd also be too cold or too hot as well. They aren't that different from us as far as temperature requirements go. As long as it's in a room 60-85° they'll grow.

It does suck getting all the way to the fruiting stages and then catching contam and having to start all over. That's why clean spawn is so important. I've been working with APEs for months now and I keep having to start back at square one every time. It's very frustrating. It just makes me more motivated to successfully grow it. I've already grown it before but for some reason it's giving me a lot of problems this time around.

Imaging this, you start the process at the end of November 2023, get to the fruiting stage the first week of March 2024 and this happens......



It's a waste of almost 4 months of effort and time.

It happens though. Just have to chalk it up as a loss and move on or start all over again. It's like feeding a dog for 2 years just to find out they ain't got no heart and you have to cull it.

 

Cheers for the replies. Your making sense to me and like the idea of checking it rebound before waiting weeks. Remember I’m clueless so how long does plate to plate take?

Also not wanting contaminated spores, I’m guessing it’s really important where you buy your spores from? Have seen a couple places recommended online a while back. They seemed to stand out as being more lab like than just your typical online hippie shop.

I mentioned you to my brother briefly, he said to ask if you got any Nat spore prints? Don’t have a clue what that is lol hopefully makes sense to you.

 

Spores are inherently dirty because the fruiting process isn't a sterile process so hitchhikers are not unheard of. I do my swabs in front of my flow hood but you still have to always take them to Agar first just to make sure they are 100% clean. Same goes for Liquid culture, Multi spore syringes, swabs or prints. Even when gotten from legit vendors like Sporeworks, Dave Wombat or Yoshi Amano etc. Most of my spores came from Sporeworks originally but over time I started trading with other people who had genetics I wanted. Problem with doing that is you have to trust that the other person actually knows what they are doing or they can spread pathogens to your lab area from theirs like Mycogone or various other nasty contams. Agar is always the answer though when talking about what to do with spores. I do have Psilocybe Natalensis prints and swabs. It's my favorite species to grow. I just made 48 candy bars last night with 2.5 grams of it in each bar. I trip pretty good off just 1 gram of it. Feels like 2, maybe even 3 grams of P. Cubesenis feels effects wise.

P. Natalensis is about double the potency of typical P. Cubesenis ( your normal everyday shrooms) species. It doesn't have the body load feeling that Cubesenis gives many people. It's a much better trip IMO. I always have some growing at some stage of the process.

 

If your brother has Facebook tell him to join The Free Spore Initiative group and The Spore Trade group. I use both periodically to trade with others for other species or strains. Grown quite a library of spores from those 2 groups.

 

Cheers mate, will tell him when I see him.

Your advice with testing through plate to plate sounds good. Then is it worth just putting it on a small sample of grain as it’ll take 30% quicker? Break it up and if recovers fast then good to go. Would then use an Agar containing the same sample as I know it’s clean on the actual amount of grain I plan on getting some shrooms from?

Also if you find a non contaminated sample. How long can you keep the Agar? Is it bit like having a mother plant? I’m thinking you can keep the Agars and whenever planning to run that strain just cut a sample off.

 

Once I have a plate I believe to be clean, I'll send a tiny piece of it to another dish as a transfer. This is just a back up in case the grain jar contaminates. This way I'll still have a sample on Agar to keep it going forward instead of starting all the way back to step 1 again. The rest of the Agar goes into the sterilized grain.
Long term storage should be on slants. Slants are agar in a centrifuge tube that was allowed to dry at an 45° angle then stored in a refrigerator. Can last many years this way. Your dishes will slow growth too if you place them in the fridge but they'll only be good until the Agar dries out. Depending on how thick you pour your plates, they'll only last about a year before they dry out. Long term storage for me is a swab or a print. I don't bother with slants personally. Spores last indefinitely in a properly stored print or swab.

 

Thanks, given me more of an idea on how to go about things. Least I feel confident I won’t be wasting a lot of time by testing first and then keeping some samples I know are good around. Gonna get set up next month with everything I need.

You into gardening as well AGK?

 

That's one area I haven't gotten into. I've wanted to but I have a full canopy of trees in my yard. Makes growing anything fairly difficult. Have a hard time just getting my grass to grow.

 

A few projects going.
I picked up a macro and a wide angle lens. Works pretty well.















Hillbilly Pumpkin, one I got going that was sent to me labeled torque f-7 but I follow the guy who created it and it dont look anything like his. However it's a monster beast of a colonizer so I like to run it from time to time. Last is some Melmak I been working g with for a few months. A few odd ones in the final flush for that tub.

 

It's harvest day. I've come to loathe doing this. It's super tedious. My least favorite part of growing. Lol.

Two 58 quart tubs to pull. Took me just. Under 2 hours for these 2 tubs and a 6 quart shoebox tub.

These 2 are from a trade that were supposed to be Torque F-7 in strain. I've grown it enough now to know that isn't at all what it is so I've renamed it to Eli and will swab it and store it for later down the road. It's a real aggressive colonizer at every stage and always produces nice canopies.

 

My fisrt Hillbilly OG Fruits.

I love how dense they are. Pulling, swabbing and making room for the next grow. It's damn near became a 3rd full time job.

 

4 grams of Psilocybe Natalensis per bar.
There are 24 pieces per bar. I made these when I found out my tattoo artist likes to microdose psilocybin. Got work that needs done. About to barter. Lol



I tried using colored sugar topping but it didn't work out like I had envisioned in my head. The chocolate melts the colored sugar during the pour and set. Imma figure it out though.

These ones are:
150g Recees Peanut butter cups
100g Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate
100g Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate.
They're really good.



Could have done a better job tempering it. Next time.