I just upgraded my fruiting Chamber but I am for some reason not getting any pinning. They've been in there for about 3 weeks. I will be posting pictures tomorrow morning. Basically, I have 2 heaters that stick to the tub, one on the bottom outside one on the side inside, and perlite on the bottom. The bottom heater is to help evaporate the water and keep the chamber humid. The average temperature in the chamber is 72 F. I also have many holes on 3 sides of the chamber, because one side is kept discreet. An air pump with 2 tubes, one for each tray of mycelium, is turned on 3 times a day for a couple minutes to add fresh air. I also mist and add water to the perlite to keep the humidity at around 85%. The strain I am growing is golden teacher, psilocybin cubensis. I used BRF and then a peat moss/verm bulk sub. Both trays were colonized and white for a week before fruiting. I also had a light on for 12/12hr. The mycelium are looking less and less white and shrinking. I know that no one can know exactly what is occurring here, but maybe you guys think I'm missing something?

Thanks, like I said pics will be up tomorrow!

T

Hard to tell exactly , shrinking usually means too dry.
I abandoned indoor grows a long time ago opting for
Grow containers outside in fresh air during warm months .
I understand that's not always practical. It sounds like you have everything covered
but there's something they're not liking . Double check everything, start with
more fresh air.

Did you soak them for 12-24hrs after birthing? Had they consolidated before birthing?

Follow these instructions:
Get a glass of water and pour it on the surface of your trays. Use judgement as to how much to pour on, but you want to get it pretty wet cover the whole surface with wanted.

Then keep those air pumps running full time 24 7. If you are worried about this air drying things out, insert the hoses into a water bottle taped to the side of your fc.

Your lacking adequate moisture to induce pinning and growing of fruits also a few minutes with those pumps is not nearly enough. No need to turn them off leave them on.

Once you take these steps you will achieve pinnage. And don't worry if the myc looks a little funny after the water, it will recover and thank you

Thanks Guys! Will do, and I'll post my pins if I get any

This would be my bet as to why you are getting no pins.

You spawned brf cakes to a non-nutritive mix. Coco-coir, straw, or various types of dung are used for bulk sub for cubes. Peat is used for casing layers. I would not expect the mycelium to be able to have enough nutrition from this mix to fruit, even if it did initially colonize this mix.

From your pics, it looks like there's plenty of moisture on the walls of your fruiting chamber, so I would not think that was the culprit.

Just my $.02

Then there is scarification - wipe a fork with rubbing alcohol, to sterilise it, then scratch the surface of the cake.

The counteracts the condition known as 'overlay' which sometimes occurs, a tough crust of mycelium that prevents pin formation.

I'll also go with Snozz on the nutrition thing. You could make a nutritious tea using horse dung or similar and inject this into the cakes using a syringe and needle (turkey baster and football pump needle at a push). Make sure everything's sterile of course!!

I second this.

Grab some bricks of coca-coir from your local grow shop or plant store. Should only run about $2 a brick. You'll get much better results with coca-coir vs peat moss which has been stripped of nutes.

birthing cakes and or jars to non-nutritional substrate is known as the rez effect tech, usually done with just vermiculite. THe idea is you use a high spawn to sub ratio, and vermiculite supplies plenty of water for large fast flushes, the cakes and or jars supply the nutrients, it is known to work and be kind of a short cut between pf and bulk

I've done similar things with perlite, I believe. I would not call the inert material in what you call the "rez effect tech" substrate, as it serves a qualitatively different purpose.

The key difference between the method you mention and what appears to be the case here, is that you don't treat it like bulk sub, afaik, you essentially crumble and case. This allows the mycelium to re-knit throughout the nutrient-laden brf or grain layer and then grow up through the inert moisture-containing layer. Imo, this is significantly different than creating a homogenized mixture of spawn and inert materal, as appears to be the case in this thread.

For the most part I'd say Snozz is on the money - the mycelium could have expended a lot of it's energy just to colonise those trays and possibly didn't have enough nutrients to produce fruit.

I can see that you have deep sided trays that will trap gases, to promote fruiting you have to have good air exchange. Try to fill your trays/dishes or whatever you use to the top so you don't create a C02 pocket on top of the tray. Air emanating from an air pump below most likely won't clear that pocket of C02. A small fan in the room can help a lot to get rid of that stale air, just make sure it isn't constantly blowing directly on them. A fan set on low and oscillating is perfect, it doesn't even have to blow directly at them as long as there is air movement in the room.

All that being said it appears that there could be a few knots forming in a few areas, did anything come from that grow ?

Perlite is almost never a good additive for mushroom growing. Mycelium does not colonize perlite well also attracts a lot of contaminants And substrate is any growing medium you use to grow mushrooms. The bulk substrate. People use non nutritional sub's quite often for example some people swear by coco coir. Rez effect is exactly like bulk you just use a much higher spawn ratio. About the only think perlite is good for is lining the bottom of an fc to maintain humidity.

Afaik, coir does contain nutrients...that's precisely why it's not an ideal casing material. It's not as nutrient-rich as manure, but it does contain some nutrients.

As to your comments on perlite..."almost never" seems like an awfully strong statement to make, as probably no one could claim such widespread knowledge to speak in such absolutes. But hey, that's just my opinion. I certainly would not advise it (nor did I), nor would I claim that it outperforms anything (nor did I). That said, I have attached a picture from my early days of experimentation...make of it what you will

Your correct the coir contains smalla mounts of nutrients. Not as rich as manure indeed. In The Mushroom Cultivator coir is reffered to as a non-nutritional substrate, just because it contains significantly less nutrients than the nutritional ones. It really is a matter of perspective. A twinkie contains nutrients but i wouldnt call it nutritional.

About perlite, i didnt mean to come off as making absolute statements. my bad, but i stand by the message, maybe not the wording. A simple goolge search or small amount of research will tell you how well perlite works out for people. Im not making it up it is factual information perlite is not "good" anywhere in a mushroom grow. Can it be used? clearly it can the results are just not optimal, and often it will actually halt your grow altogether. WHat i said was true IMO it almost never makes a good additive. Not trying to make "absolute statements" I think an absolute statement would be if i said, "coir cannont be used to grow mushrooms period! it cannont be done!" i did say it almost never makes a GOOD additive, but heck i feel like that is true! at least going by my definition of the word "good"

Your picture proves it is possible to use perlite, it also proves the results are not optimal. and i mean no offense, that is a decent yield i suppose but could have been 10 times as good. I know its not a contest.