have been on hiatus for some time but figured i had something to chime in with

if anyone has any related questions or so feel free to hit me up.



that tub btw contained 8 quarts of rye spawn and 20lbs of top quality horse poo/compost and was a 64 qrt sterlite tub

This is great synchronicity as I was literally discussing starting a project such as this last night with some close friends of mine....

I have been growing mushrooms using variations of the cake technique for several years but have never really been satisfied with my overall yields vs. amount of work that I have to put into it. I have tried a few times to do what you have successfully done here but my single biggest antagonist has always been contamination.

Would you mind outlining the procedure that you used to sterilize your medium as well as the way that you add the spawn to the compost?

Your help would be greatly appreciated as I have some wonderful strains that I am currently working with...


THANKS!

Wow, so beautiful!

I have loads of questions;

1. Manure...Can you just use any horse manure, if I go to a farmer or jump over to the nearest field with horses in and steal some of their poo, can I just throw it in the mix or does it have to be cured in some way?
2. Did you spray and if so how many times a day?
3. How do you sterilise such a large amount of substrate? Or do you not need to sterilise mono tubs?
4. Was this grown at room temperature?
5. Have you got any more photos of the setup?
6. How do you use the spore syringe in this type of setup and how much do you use?
7. How long was the overall process?
8. Does the room smell like horse? I am really funny about my room and could not live with horse shit smell.

This looks like such a better way to do it than the tub in tub tek, feel like I have wasted alot of time and money.

Sorry for so many questions but I believe the universe has bought this to me, you have had great success and I am looking for direct information to someone like you to help and guide me.

This looks bloody amazing, I get quite touched when I see happy mushrooms fully birthed, I am a bit weird though. Well done man, I had my first mycellium growth this week and feel like I did when I lost my virginity!

Those 3 on the lid are on steroids.

nice tub! congrats!

Great job those mushrooms look fantastic , nothing
Is more satisfying than a successful grow

Much thxs for the good words :-)









1 i know alot of field manure comes from animals fed anti-fungal additives in their food but dont quote me on that also it needs to be properly leached for a certain amount of time before use and most importantly pasteurized not sterilized as pasteurizing keeps certain beneficial bacteria alive that not only help prevent contam when you spawn to bulk but also help break down the poo/compost further to make it easier for the shrooms to digest. there are many myco vendors online specializing in manure based composts tailored to dung loving species of mushrooms

2 a monotub when made properly shouldnt require any spraying or fanning but i made just a tad too many holes so i did find myself occasionally misting but not very often and fanning when my gut told me

3 i get all my substrate and spawn premade and pre-sterilized/pasteurized due to lack of room in this small apartment i dont even have a kitchen really to work with

4 yep although i did let the rye jars colonize at around 89-93 degrees F in a small incubator i made using 2 bins, water, and an aquarium heater (think double boiler) but otherwise room temp during late winter around 65-75

5. ill try and upload some tomorrow but its long gone so can't take anything new just have to work with what i can find :-)

6. i just gave a tiny squirt into each of the 1 quart rye jars which have self healing injector ports. i do this with my oven door open and on the rack so the hot air from the oven keeps an updraft while im injecting/inoculating and also burn my needle tip and use iso alcohol on both the needle and injector site between shots. 1 spore syringe was more than enough for 8 quarts and then some. most spore syringes have MILLIONS in each so a little can go a loooong way


7. 2 months to harvest of first flush (i got paranoid and scrapped everything after this but would have had at least 1-3 more flushes i feel)

8. the only time i could smell it slightly was when i opened the tub and it didnt go beyond the tub. properly prepared hpoo/compost has almost no smell

:-)

aside from what i said in my last post i really cant say about how the spawn was prepared tho u can find a general outline on any myco friendly site im sure srry bout that. its not much different than prepping pf jars for the spawn and the bulk substrate should be pasteurized look for the bucket tek.

as for adding spawn to compast first i clean the tub with iso then vinegar and dry then lay a layer of black plastic garbage bag down beneathe to prevent side pinning when the giant poo cake shrinks later on which can lead to a problem with rot. then i simply dump in the compost and the rye grain spawn and then mix it throughly with my hands while im wearing gloves that go to my elbows and also a surgeons mask and also make sure to do it at least 3ft off the ground as most contams are found there. also just prior to this i spray a ton of lysol in the general area up high but make sure none gets inside the tub as this can lead to mutations which arnt bad just weird. i then put the lid on and seal around it with duct tape. also i cover the polyfill holes with tape as well prior to doing all this (no polyfill in them yet either!) hope that helps some

1 i know alot of field manure comes from animals fed anti-fungal additives in their food but dont quote me on that also it needs to be properly leached for a certain amount of time before use and most importantly pasteurized not sterilized as pasteurizing keeps certain beneficial bacteria alive that not only help prevent contam when you spawn to bulk but also help break down the poo/compost further to make it easier for the shrooms to digest. there are many myco vendors online specializing in manure based composts tailored to dung loving species of mushrooms

Wow, there's me thinking I was going to put beast mode on and rob horse shit from the local horse! There seems to be alot of elements to consider so thanks for making it clear. I will have to look into an alternative if I cant find a supplier in the UK online.

2 a monotub when made properly shouldnt require any spraying or fanning but i made just a tad too many holes so i did find myself occasionally misting but not very often and fanning when my gut told me

This was one of those questions that so far has been conflict about, I understand about the gut feeling, as if they communicate with you telepathically.

3 i get all my substrate and spawn premade and pre-sterilized/pasteurized due to lack of room in this small apartment i dont even have a kitchen really to work with

OK, I am going to sound a little stupid but I am new to monotubs, I too have been using the Tit Tek you mentioned below so am stumped on how to make this work. I assumed that the manure was the substrate so am really confused now.


7. 2 months to harvest of first flush (i got paranoid and scrapped everything after this but would have had at least 1-3 more flushes i feel)

Not bad at all my friend, this makes so much more sense and your shrooms look delicious


Thanks so much for your time and energy, I hope my questions answered other peoples thoughts in some way, your a very kind person.

Woven


:-)[/quote]

well yes the substrate is the manure/compost while the spawn is just rye berries what i mean by premade in regards to the spawn, rye already washed/soaked/jarred and sterilized ready for injection and as for the substrate manure/compost i mean premade as in manure/substrate/compost from a place that sells it for growing mushrooms already pasteurized with proper water content, ph, nutrients etc :-)

That are nice and big... what race is that? Chitwan? Orissa? B+?

well yes the substrate is the manure/compost while the spawn is just rye berries what i mean by premade in regards to the spawn, rye already washed/soaked/jarred and sterilized ready for injection and as for the substrate manure/compost i mean premade as in manure/substrate/compost from a place that sells it for growing mushrooms already pasteurized with proper water content, ph, nutrients etc :-)

Thanks for the info, have done quite a bit of googling today but cant seem to find anything online. Most of what I have read tonight do not mention the important points about the poo, they just say horse poo which I find quite misleading so again thanks.

I find this link for the UK but cant see any info about the substrate contents and still am ignorant to this method. I have so much learning to do, what monotub tek did you follow?

Thanks

the species is P cubensis and the strain is PES Hawaiian aka pesh

I checked around at some of the places on the web that sell ready-made bulk mushroom substrate and I came to the conclusion that their poo prices are just a little too rich for my blood.
according to my research 20lb of substrate would run more than 60$

I think that I am going to go this route (see links below) since it's far less expensive
I'll let you all know how it goes when I'm finished:

http://www.appliedmicros...o.uk/myco-farm/coco.html


http://www.shroomery.org...r/9051129/fpart/all/vc/1

@mindash
Congrats, these are among the fattest fruits i've ever seen! They look almost intimidating. No doubt, your poo adventure has paid off...big time!

@moniker
Two pieces of advice. First, make sure to exactly measure the water, don't just pour water over the coir block! If you do, press out as much water as possible, because it is really easy to get the moisture content wrong, leading to stalling substrate. I also suggest to add some vermiculite to the coir, to make the substrate more airy. It also helps to regulate moisture content.

Thank you for the advice obliguhl, I will definitely implement your suggestion.

Have you grown successfully using the bulk coir method yourself?

here is some more advice.
Change your location in your profile to somewhere else. Preferably where growing fungi isn't punishable by incarceration.

Nice fruits, you should be proud.

Yes, of course...
I also forgot to mention, that it is very possible to crumble PF Tek cakes and spawn it to pure coir, or better coir with vermiculite. Cakes are very contamination resistant, that's what makes them great. Most cakes colonize fully and then you can be sure that they make good spawn. Seems to be a bit different with rye for instance. It all depends on how clean you are able to work. If you're in a very clean environment and are willing to be very careful, rye spawn is surely superior (and LQ). But you have to understand, that a failure could mean 2 months lost. This is what makes the PF tek so attractive, because it is basically foolproof and in 80-90% of all cases you will get some mushrooms.

Spawning to coir, possibly to several small "mini mono tub" to minimize risks is a good compromise, because coir itself does not contaminate easily. I had a huge amount of wet coir leftovers sit in a very moldy room for months with no sign of contamination....that was very impressive!

Some people like to add a bit of gypsum to their coir mixes to stabilize the Ph...while i have not tried that myself, it might be worth to look into it.

Thx all and Great info Obliguhl, also long time how goes?

i've never tried coir myself but hear it is much better at contam resistance than poof and especially more so than straw. right now im giving my first go at Pan/Cope Cyans and have 12 1qrt grain jars colonizing rather well so far and hoping the same setup with adjustment to humidity and FAE and of course a thin casing layer as is required by pans but gonna keep everything else more or less the same. any tidbits would be great if anyone has pan/cope experience! oh also yeah what Obli said about the pf tek is correct. u can handle those cakes all you want and not have to worry at least thats how it has been in my exp