I am growing a couple strains of cubensis right now and am a little frustrated with how long the process is taking. Overall I have waited about a month now and my cakes are finally fully colonized. I have provided them with proper moisture, heat, and sanitation and there is nothing wrong with them. I will be setting up the fruiting chamber later this week (a box I have so far stored them in), anyway I came up with an idea to speed up the colonization speed.

Of course A quart sized mason jar takes much longer to colonize than a half pint mason jar. So I am relying upon this same logic in a possible TEK I would make next time I grow cubensis.

My idea is simple.. Colonize small riceballs.

Materials you will need:
Stove
Pressure cooker (or a standard pot with jar)
A baking dish that will fit into your jar
Aluminium foil
Vermiculite
Brown rice flour
A syringe of your choice

Wash hands and clean area.
Get a bowl and mix 1 part water, 2 parts vermiculite, 1 part brown rice flour (I recommend in this order)
Prepare 30 or so 4X4 inch pieces of aluminium foil
Wrap your substrate in each piece of the aluminium securely
Place them in dish
Put a few inches of water in your pot
Place dish in the pot to float
Put on jar
Cook
Cool
Inoculate
Wait 1-2 weeks



What do you guys think?

Try it out and let us know how it goes!

So how did it go????

Hahahaha!

haha

OOOooooohh yeah, they colonized so fast.. mycelium all over my ceiling.

lol I'll make a real Tek using rye seed with pictures sometime in march

a lot people prefer loose rice in a mason jar or bird seed as opposed to brown rice flour because you can shake it once a day or so and colonization happens much faster that way. Depends on the strain and other factors though. In general this speeds things up a good deal. But, one simply can't be impatient when it comes to growing shrooms. They take time. I find a good 2-3 months in general by the time they are done drying.

Ah, about drying I was thinking about using my friends dehumidifier to speed up the process, isn't this a viable option volvox?

why dont you just start with a liquid culture? This just seems sort of unnecessary when you can start a jar of culture and just innoculate the jars with that. It will speed up the colonization time vastly.

I read about liquid cultures but was not really sure what they were or how they would help with colonization speed- I'll have to use the search function Jamie~ thanks