I had 12 cakes, 7 of them overnight got infected with green mold right at the end of the colonization process. 3 of the 5 left are not covered in green, but have a greenish tint underneath after birthing them.

I put them in the chamber to fruit anyway, I separated the greenish background tint ones from the others, but are still in the same chamber ultimately.


Is this a good idea, or should I just toss them?

They are so ready to fruit I would hate to waste them, but if I have to, then I have to....


Love and Light!

Trash the green cakes, unfortunately. Do you have any pictures?



Leaving them in the same chamber can not only contaminate the other cakes, but the whole chamber itself and possibly the surrounding area. I know it sucks but those contaminated cakes need to go!

You can put the moldy ones in a makeshift fruiting chamber (any container with perlite or vermiculite (wet) in them). Chances are some will fruit once. Perhaps just one weird mushroom....but what would father say after breaking the quesedilas? Better than nothing.

I have made the mistake of fruiting moldy cakes. Learn from my mistake and don't get food poisoning while tripping balls.

I was very careful to cut off the mold. The mold would grow back in places and I would again carfuly cut it off. I did this a few times during fruiting and the mycelium finally overtook the mold. I was confident that I had beat the mold until I ate 3.5g.

As I felt the trip coming on I suddenly got very nauseous and stomach cramps set in. At around T+45, I went to puke in the toilet. The puking and dry heaving went on for the next hour and a half, right through an intense peak while I was hugging the toilet. It was possibly the worst trip I've ever had (of many) with continual thoughts of suicide, apathy, and self hatred. When I started sobering up, I noticed that my skin was yellow and I had muscle cramps all over my body.

Fungus absorbs toxins out of it's environment. You can cut the mold off but the mycelium has already absorbed the toxins. I consider myself lucky in that experience. It's just not worth the risk. Toss them and try again. Work on your sterile technique.

If you really want to get some value out of them, let them fruit and let the caps fully mature so that you can take spore prints. You have to be very careful with this because it's easy to contaminate the prints. Just don't eat them or let anyone else.

Yeah, a toss for sure. I experienced a similar issue recently during spawning and green mold growth. Ain't no sunshine in those caps.

!

tseuq

Thanks for sharing this with us, very valuable info
I think i'll just follow your lead should i ever grow mushrooms again...

I also warn of the use of aluminum cases, better use glass/ceramic for fruiting. Once, the mycilium (P.Cubensis) just ate itself through the aluminum tray!

tseuq

For casing trays, I've had great luck with plastic dishwashing pans. As long as it's in good condition and nothing that would break down plastic is introduced, the mycelium will not pull anything from the plastic. UV light would be the most common violator, but of course any significant amount of UV would be bad for the shrooms as well.

Thanks, you have inspired me to toss them. 12 whole jars ruined at the end. I even used the oven technique while injecting, oh well, maybe a little harder than I thought.

If you don't already incorporate this, give it a shot next time;

Turn off any sources of circulating air including central air or heating systems.
On top of sterilizing all containers and implements involved, any time spores are open to the air sacrifice an entire full size can of unscented lysol or equivalent. This is one of the reasons I always get a little choked up when birthing cakes.

It won't give you clean room conditions, but will increase your odds tremendously.

I think I might just buy them next time haha. I was excited to grow them, but I hate the length of time it takes, 2-3 months. Makes me too nervous the whole time, that's a shame, because mushrooms are my new favorite and I like to grow or extract my own whatever. I would only extract my own D for example. Maybe in the future who knows, or, just buy a bag from a friend haha.

2-3 months? I grew woodlovers once and was delighted with results 6 years later. This was from a tiny fragment of mushroom tissue that I nearly left for dead.

Btw, with woodlovers there's much less of a worry about contamination - they need the dirt for success - at least, if you're not starting from spores, that is. Even with spores there are workarounds although I've been lucky and always had ready mycelium to work with, ergo, I shouldn't really comment as my attempts to work with woodlover spores were unsuccessful.

Then again, that was a long while ago and I've worked successfully with spores under sterile conditions since.


Glad you tossed the mouldy cakes, it's so not worth the risk. You might as well be eating datura otherwise!