I started growing mushrooms about two years ago, and recently started working on gourmet mushrooms to eat/give away, and eventually when my yields stabilize, sell. I had my first oyster pins on Monday

I work in an SAB in my carpetted office which also has a server rack stirring up air. The carpet and server so far haven't caused me any issues. My contamination rate is 0% on jars with gasketted lids, and over time non-gasketted lids contaminate in a month if I don't use them, or after a shake if I have inoculated them. Do not use lids without gaskets!

At my last place everything I did would contaminate with a yellow mold that looks like aspergillus flavus (produces deadly mycotoxins) . I thought I was just bad at sterile processes, but it turns out the problem was more likely the apartments I was in. Our neighbor had a nasty house and tons of pets and I'm fairly sure that was coming over in to our apartment. Anyway, I didn't change anything about my process but now I almost never contaminate. It's crazy how much your environment effects your outcomes, even when everything seems sealed.

Happy to see more people cultivating

Thank you for this!

I think I will use my room for now until I get this other closet cleaned out. While it still has carpet, it's much smaller so easier to maintain as a still air environment.



Would you mind sharing your process in how you set up your still air environment.

And I am already kinda neurotic with mild paranoia, so I'm very concerned about contaminants. So much so that I have to convince myself there aren't any when none are actually present. Such as in the pics inside the monotub below. The blue is bruising, the blue is bruising, the blue is bruising...

These are some Hillbillies I plucked after my meditation.

Enjoy.

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carpets may be bad news to be honest, but i have not noticed problems from them. i probably haven't used enough different spaces to be all that knowledgeable to be honest.
it makes sense that you would have more contamination sitting in a carpet than you would a hard floor, but as long as it stays in the carpet it is not hurting the process. i guess it is one of those things where the only way to know for sure is to try it and see how it goes. everybody's situation is going to be slightly different.
the closet sounds perfect though, there is probably minimal air movement in there (just be slow opening and closing the door) and i would guess it is easy to clean down. definitely worth trying.

happy to play the tennis game, i am just happy to be able to help out others, particularly here where others have helped me so much! hopefully the information proves useful to you.

i know that feeling. there were a couple of mushrooms i had doubts about with my first couple of grows. i was reassured that it will be obvious if a mushroom is bad enough to not eat, but i take the stance of "i have multiple ounces, why cling on to the questionable looking one and cause paranoia during a trip"?
your mushrooms look beautiful to me, i think your process is working amazingly. and just remember, magic is blue, so blue is a good sign but if in doubt just throw it out.

Thank you for the reassurance! I have a few friends that have been doing this longer than I that I bug somewhat regularly about contaminants.

And I'll be sure to let everyone know how the closet works once I can start working in there. It's used as a bit of a storage closet presently so I need to figure out where to relocate everything before doing a deep clean and making a work room/fruiting room.

In our first pic we have some Trichoderma found on my Cambodian cakes. Those have all been disposed of. On a better note however, I am soaking my monotub cakes presently. There was one that was "off" smelling and had me worried that I might have to toss it (even though it's still producing beautiful and clean looking fruits). It was a sweet smell, and not much like the mushroom smell that I'm used to. However, in placing in its soaking tub, the smell is much much milder. However, in my haste, I still may have messed up in a few ways: I forgot to wash my hands, forgot to turn off the air conditioner in my room, and I placed all of the cakes in the same tub to soak. Fortunately, these cakes are already inoculated and producing fruits and this is only the first flush, so I'm hopeful that the mycelium will be able to effectively fight off any contaminants that my neglect may have introduced.

Second pic is of some bags almost ready for a tub!



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Great to se your photos Voidmatrix! I'm about to grow my first P. cubensis and got a bag inoculated by a friend. Not I'm about to make a grow box for fruiting. I'm looking at your I wonder what the small tubes are in the middle of the perlite?

I'm browsing this at the moment and will probably have a lot more questions.

Oh! Wonderful! Do you know what variety of cubes you'll be fruiting?

So, that particular kind of tub will obsolete for me shortly. The book I initially used called it a "shotgun terrarium" and that particular kind of tub is for BRF (brown rice flour) cakes specifically. The holes are for FAE (fresh air exchange). If I understand correctly, in a monotub, it's more about gas exchange (covered holes)

And thank you for the link! I'm always trying to learn more and more.

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Aha! I understand. Thank you!



No It's from a friend. He said he took a clone of a particularly large and potent strain. We'll se

Well feel free to share your pics here if you'd like! I'd love to see them.

I think I didn't soak my large monotub cakes long enough because the tubs aren't fruiting quite as much as I'd expected.

I also need to monitor the temperature in my room better. It may also be a contributing factor as it was really hot all week and in an effort to save power, turned off the AC in my room while at work.

The bin with the dark pins requires confirmation on both of these theories, as I've never seen this before. They were growing fine one day and then stopped the next and began to take on the darker coloration.

All part of the learning process.

I have 10 bags of grain soaking to be pressure cooked tomorrow and inoculated Monday after work. It'll be my first attempt with the SAB.

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Heyhey Void, the pins that turned dark are aborts. Don't worry they will be eaten up by the mycelium again. As to why they aborted it's not easy to say. They usually don't mind a swing in temperature. Generally speaking, one doesn't need to be always on point when it comes to temperature, even though 23 degree Celsius is preferable. As long as you are comfy in a t-shirt your shrooms are comfy too. A bit colder and growth slows down, a bit warmer it speeds up. But the closer you get to 30 degrees Celsius the higher the possibility that for example bacterial colonies thrive.

As for soaking time, I soak my cakes only ones they starting to look dry. Usually after the first flush a heavy misting will be enough. Just make sure there will be no water pooling on the substrate as that promotes bacterial growth.
If it's really dry, I soak 1 hour per inch of substrate depth.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the genetics you work with are a limiting factor when it comes to its potential. Some cultures provide you with a huge first flush and subsequent flushes are poor. Others flush more evenly.
If you work with your cultures over several generations, you'll get awesome results (don't get me wrong your work looks already awesome). I usually clone the best looking fruits. My criteria for choosing clone candidates are: solid stem, grows in a cluster and preferably was one of the first pins to show up.

I hope it's ok if I post a result of a project that doesn't need work anymore and a project I am currently working on.

The first pic is of a tub of a variety called TAT, which is a cubensis variety. This one doesn't need work anymore.
The second one is of a tub of Psilocybe Natalensis, which is a clone culture. I am not happy with the canopy, so I try to improve this trait.

Wouldn't you get crossbreeds if you mix the mycelium of different strains? I think that could maybe be a way to improve the quality of your harvests over time, just like with cannabis.

Thank you so much, for the feedback and the kudos!

Those aborts are the biggest I've seen which lead me down the path of wondering about temp (as well as the other tubs not fruiting as well).

I think that if they don't start fruiting a little more soon I'll resoak. I definitely didn't do it long enough due to time constraints. So really I have a lot of notes to take. There's a lot of factors to consider. I'm hoping that this genetic has the potential to give me higher yielding subsequent flushes provided it has the proper environment to thrive. In the case, more moisture and less heat.

And yes. Please share your mushroom pics. I started drooling over those TATs



This is something I need to do more research on. I have friends that do this in a way, but I don't particularly have the best understanding of the mechanisms of action.

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i don't consider myself an expert, but as far as i know you can not cross genetics by mixing mycelium, i think they will either fruit different strains in different spots or the mycelium will fight each other for space and one will win.
crossing strains is much more complicated for mushrooms. i do not know how it works but i know it is a process in itself that is unlikely to happen by accident.

I don't want to derail Void's thread and actually wanted to make an own thread regarding the topic of crossing varieties.

It is actually relatively easy to create crosses within a species. So for example everything coming from the species psilocybe cubensis can be crossed by streaking two different spores of cubensis varieties onto one plate or simply just mix the grain jars. With a bit of luck you'll create your own cubensis variety to play around with. That variety needs a lot of work to get stabilized though. Or you just clone a fruit.

It's becoming much more complicated when trying to make a cross between two species. I haven't read up on that a lot, because you need special equipment like a good microscope and also snake venom. At least that's what I can remember and it's a while since I did some research on that. Maybe there are better ways by now.

Anyway I recently had two grain jars left over from two different varieties (TAT and PE7). I didn't know what to do with them, as my mini monos need two quarts of spawn. So I thought why not mix it and see what'll happen. I got lucky and some fruits grew that took on traits of both varieties. So besides the TAT fruits, I got fruits that expressed characteristics of TAT and PE7.
I swabbed one of these fruits and also cloned it. A friend will help me to stabilize it. I will make a thread with pictures as I think it's quite fascinating and might be of interest for some members.

I would actually like it if this weren't a concern. I'm very grateful for all of the information that has been shared in this thread and would like it to be somewhat free and without constraints So Speak freely.

And now I have some research to do as well as some new experiments.

White Teachers. I inoculated popcorn for this tub.

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These are beautiful, isn't harvest a bitter sweet moment? I always get a sense of accomplishment, but at the same time it's a bit sad, because it's the end of a growth cycle. It's a cycle of life though .

I like this thread and it's great everyone can chime in! I will certainly continue to do so in future.

I will make my other thread regarding the little cross-project though, as it's going to be quite a lot, and finally a chance to contribute to contribute to this forum other than my drawings.

I find this activity (picking and cleaning up the fruits) to be highly therapeutic... and very necessary and sufficient in this moment...

White Teachers from two tubs

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that's interesting, i find that part to be the part i hate the most
for me, i think inoculation is my favourite stage, apart from those days when you see an obvious change in your tub, that is still an amazing feeling

Ya know, at first I found it tedious and tried to rush through it. But I've discovered that it's actually a good activity to help me slow down. My mind is on fire all the time, and it's been that way since I was younger. So I find it nice to turn on a movie or documentary and take my time cleaning up my mushroom babies.

I do enjoy inoculating, but I tend to be a little anxious about it, obsessing and worrying over a good work-flow and preventing contamination. I'm neurotic

And daily peering into my tubs is a bit of a ritual now

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maybe i have been looking at it the wrong way. what you describe sounds a lot like me. in recent years i have been working on trying to slow down, maybe your mindset will help me too. i will try to think of it differently and use it like a chance to meditate. thank you