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solarity
mm... my favourite food



Registered: 03/31/09
Posts: 1,590
Loc: UK
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Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa 1
#14192657 - 03/27/11 02:35 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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First the credits! - Thanks to Buckeye's write up on his King Oyster production and Houdinihar and Badman for the cultures
Boiled and then sterilised 7 quarts jars of wheat grain, inoculated 4 with Eryngii and 3 with Nebrodensis, 2 of the Nebro jars contaminated within a couple of days. The rest grew out just fine - the Eryngii was especially thick and luxuriant! The Nebro jar that survived had 1 gr of activated carbon added - you can see the blackness in the right jar.

I broke up the compressed straw logs,

soaked them and the Alfalfa blocks in warm water (40C ish) and mixed them together. (20% Alfalfa by dry weight.)

Put the mix in a fine mesh bag (used in brewing) and dumped in my "small quantity " pasteuriser (a hot water urn), 65-70C for 1.5hrs

Drained, squeezed and cooled, mixed in spawn and placed in 18" tube bags in plastic veg trays. The reasons for this are: 1) I am interested in the potential tray culture of Eryngii 2) Buckeye mentioned it was important to keep the substrate cool during colonisation so the thick slab shape ought to help with that (the trays underneath are empty)
The first batch was 3 x Eryngii, each tray about 3.5kg, spawned with a quart jar of 350gr of spawn (labelled 1,2 & 3)

For the second batch a week later I made up an Eryngi tray with half the straw replaced with compressed hardwood briquettes. Again 3.5Kg/350g spawn. I also made up a Straw/alfalfa mix for the Nebro, same ratio and spawn rate. Each tray was punched with 6 X holes
Everything colonised well (thought the tray with wood seemed slower) and I left the second batch to allow the first to catch up.

Today - 12/19 days later I lowered the temp to 11-12C, gave then 12 on 12 off fluorescent light upped the humidity from 90% to 95%. Planning on doing that for 4-5 days then back up to 14c ish and 80%
-------------------- Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!
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ModularMind
M.P.F.



Registered: 02/09/10
Posts: 7,902
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: solarity]
#14195062 - 03/27/11 10:25 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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This looks great. Can't wait to see your progress.
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solarity
mm... my favourite food



Registered: 03/31/09
Posts: 1,590
Loc: UK
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: ModularMind]
#14234787 - 04/04/11 04:31 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Hmm well a week later of 11C for initiation and not much in the way of pins, there are 6 small X cuts in two rows of 3 on the top:

One looks promising

Nothing from the Nebro at all - though I am winging it with that anway.
Any suggestions - too cold, too warm, too impatient? Cut fresh holes? Or put into fruiting conditions 15-18C 85%?
-------------------- Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!
Edited by solarity (04/04/11 04:52 AM)
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FractalXplora
Grainiack




Registered: 02/11/06
Posts: 2,494
Loc: UK
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: solarity]
#14234832 - 04/04/11 05:03 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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looks great man, looking forward to updates.
--------------------

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badman


Registered: 06/14/06
Posts: 4,039
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: solarity]
#14235076 - 04/04/11 07:45 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
solarity said: Any suggestions - too cold, too warm, too impatient? Cut fresh holes? Or put into fruiting conditions 15-18C 85%?
All of the above? 
Ive have only fruited the nebro outdoors and the block sat there for ages in long vegetation before fruited towards the end of summer. I have tried indoors but failed both times.
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BlueGrower
Stranger



Registered: 01/14/11
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: badman]
#14236808 - 04/04/11 03:21 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I´m a total newbie so i can´t give you advice but just a thought:
i would try to take of the plastic in one of the boxes and see if plenty of fresh air makes them fruit
This are some photos from yesterday of my first eryngii try, they seem to be happy out of the bags 



anyway, maybe you just have to wait. good luck!
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solarity
mm... my favourite food



Registered: 03/31/09
Posts: 1,590
Loc: UK
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: BlueGrower]
#14237189 - 04/04/11 04:37 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Thanks BG. They certainly look happy! I am not looking to get so many pins as I am aiming for large fruit bodies. Might be worth an experiment on one block as you say. What sort of temps are you fruiting at?
-------------------- Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: solarity]
#14237706 - 04/04/11 06:29 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Eryngii likes to fruit within the bag. I pull the sides up as high as possible and get nice fat fruits with decent sized caps. You can strip the bags but you'll get more fruit with smaller stems. Nothing wrong with that just personal taste.
I can't help with nebro. I tried it once but it was the dead of winter. I believe they like it kind of warm.
Eryngii I've found has a wide temperature range.
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BlueGrower
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
#14240056 - 04/05/11 02:52 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Mine are fruiting at the same temp as they where at incubation, about 19ºC
Monkey, i was thinking in pruning most of the primordia and leave onlye the bigger ones ¿do you think i should do it at this point or wait a little bit?
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Mycelio
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
#14240386 - 04/05/11 06:16 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I would also not recommend removing the bags. With eryngii that would be asking for trouble.
Regarding nebrodensis, I'd incubate them for another month, then try lower temps again. If nothing works, opening the top and applying a shallow casing layer (verm for example) usually works for lazy eryngii blocks. Should be the same for the nebro.
Carsten
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: Mycelio]
#14241087 - 04/05/11 10:35 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I wouldn't trim anything off the blocks ever. If you want fewer larger fruits then you need to increase the C02 concentration. I would just leave the bags alone and let them fruit as they want. Next time if you want thicker stems you can leave the block in the bag.
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BlueGrower
Stranger



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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
#14242797 - 04/05/11 04:34 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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This company from korea trims the eryngii and they seem to get top grade mushrooms:
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: BlueGrower]
#14244416 - 04/05/11 08:56 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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To each their own. I've never seen any reason to trim primordia for any species. It's certainly not necessary to get kings with thick stems.
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badman


Registered: 06/14/06
Posts: 4,039
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
#14245683 - 04/06/11 12:53 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Oh yeh, where did you get the straw and alfalfa logs from?
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solarity
mm... my favourite food



Registered: 03/31/09
Posts: 1,590
Loc: UK
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: badman]
#14246215 - 04/06/11 06:00 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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In the UK These guys make them strawlogs.co.uk and strogs.ie - google for others. They are for burning, quite a few local shops sell them - not sure the chains are convinced yet. The only Alfalfa cube manufacturer I have found that does not add molasses is Simple Systems simplesystemhorsefeeds.co.uk
-------------------- Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!
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BlueGrower
Stranger



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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: solarity]
#14246460 - 04/06/11 08:41 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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MonkeyKnifeFight, i´m just trying to find products not found in my country´s market. In Spain there is quite a culture of mushroom hunting, eating and cultivating so the prices are much lower than in the US (i would say about 40% cheaper.
however "Top grade mushrooms" sell quite expensive. By top grade i mean something similar to the mushrooms from the video i posted before, all the shrooms are big and very similar in size. For myself i don´t mind that mushrooms are different sizes or even a little broken but it seems that the market cares and they can be sold twice the prize.
Maybe i´m wrong but my logic tells me that if you trim primordia just next to a bigger mushroom you get: - thay that mushroom doesn´t "merge" with shrooms that are close to it, therefore keeping a more homogeneus shape. - As when you prune a tree i find logical that when you trim, the mushrooms that you leave alive get stronger as they have more resources: water, nutrients... for them.
Just trying to get the best quality even if i have to sacrifice quantity because i can´t compete in price ¿some ideas for this? thanks
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: BlueGrower]
#14246678 - 04/06/11 09:50 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I've just never seen mushrooms behave in this way. I always see X primordia come to maturity where X is the number that the environment allows for. All the other primordia stall out or dry out naturally.
But I don't grow mushrooms to sell so have no idea about that stuff. Around here people are very hip to mushrooms and I see King Oysters in the grocery store that are dried up and terrible looking and they have them priced at $17.99/lb. Wouldn't be hard to compete with that.
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NSF
Eager to learn


Registered: 01/27/11
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
#14248563 - 04/06/11 04:46 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I've been exposed to a couple of different theories on the primordia removal debate. And i think it's beneficial to keep them there. When you see eryngii in asian super markets they look incredible and trimmed neat. even more so when you read they were grown in Korea. But they nitrogen gas flood the packaging to improve shelf life.
I'm not into that, i'd prefer to leave a few little ones on, even at harvest, and these can supply some extra water to the big ones around it. A little survival of the fittest i guess.
But really, commercial operations using bags and bottles, they don't do thos for ease of filling or stackability, they do it because of controlled fruiting. They could fill tray with substrate rather than bottles with substrate. What bottles or bags do is allow the grower to induce fruting in a specific and controlled way.
After colonisation we effectively hit one or more switches to trick the fungi into thinking it's the right season for reproduction. Generally we do this by changing light, temp, humidity or O2 levels. Well, one or all of those.
If the grow is in the bottle only the top can detect the changes in humidity and O2 so it starts to fruit. A bit like finding a hole in some bark in the wild. Then the rest of the bottle puts all of it's fruiting effort into the top.
But we hobby growers prefer larger blocks, bigger amount of shrooms for same effort, huge surface areas, huge amount of pins, not focussed on a couple of pristine fruit.
So rather than removing pins, prevent them through fruiting conditions and bag/block/jar/bucket design.
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fngbronco
Monkey Man



Registered: 09/26/10
Posts: 2,877
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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: NSF]
#14248629 - 04/06/11 05:00 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Unless you're using an isolate where it is a single massive organism wouldn't trimming some onl be removing them from that organism? I guess it would keep them from competing but they could still grow larger when the others are harvest. Sorry if that didn't make any sense.
-------------------- I challenge you to challenge yourself more! When you feel complacent and ready to hang it up, challenge yourself to get over it! If you fail, don't look at it as you didn't succeed, look at it as you would a rock face you're trying to climb. Stand back, wayyyy back, and look at it and plot another path. If you can't find one, shuffle down the way a little, a little change of scenery or a view from a different angle may give you the insight you need. Anything I state is relayed information from a friend of a friend and should be viewed as completely fictitious. I do not partake in any illegal or grey-area-of-the-law activities, but do have lots of friends who may or may not. -fngbronco Pill Divider Agar Tek
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


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Re: Eryngii and Nebrodensis on compressed straw & alfalfa [Re: fngbronco]
#14249196 - 04/06/11 06:53 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
fngbronco said: Unless you're using an isolate where it is a single massive organism wouldn't trimming some onl be removing them from that organism? I guess it would keep them from competing but they could still grow larger when the others are harvest. Sorry if that didn't make any sense.
I think generally we are always talking about isolates around here. You don't see too many edible grows with multispore.
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