I've used the shroomery as a resource for the last 4 years and have had many, many successful grows on BRF cakes and I recently decided to try growing in bulk on rye grain.
I have never actually posted any questions before, but I have hit a wall on my most recent grow and I need some help from someone who has experience fruiting directly from rye grain cased with the 50/50+ casing mixture.
Here goes:
I will skip my grain preparation and inoculation procedures since they went off without a hitch and I had no problems with contamination.
After 15 days of incubation at 82-84 degrees I had 36 quart size jars fully colonized and ready to case.
I made 12 casing trays each with approximately a half inch of 50/50+ casing mix at the bottom, 3 quart jars of colonized rye substrate (about 3 inches deep) in the middle, with a half inch casing layer of 50/50+ mix on top. All 12 pans were then misted with distilled water to what i perceived to be field capacity, covered with tin foil and incubated at 84 degrees for 4 days then placed into their fruiting chambers. All pans showed mycelial growth, some pans (about 3) had regrown to the point that about 30-40% of the casing layer was colonized and the mycelium was visible. Most pans just showed mycelial growth at the edges and in the valleys. Pans were patched and moved to fruiting chamber at this point.
At this point, the pinning strategy was initiated. I uncovered the pans and exposed them to ample (about 16 hours a day) amounts of "daylight" spectrum fluorescent light. Pans were placed into a fruiting chamber held in the 70-74 degree range and humidified by a 3 inch layer of damp perlite, and daily indirect misting. FAE was insured by constructing RR style shotgun terrariums (lots of small holes) and fanning 3 times daily.
There are 2 pans in each fruiting chamber (6 fruiting chambers total). Strains: 2 chambers are B+, 2 chambers are Golden Teacher, and 2 chambers are Penis Envy.
I have waited for 11 days now and the casings have showed no signs of pinning. The casing layer has lots of white mycelium that grew up through it but then appeared to "deflate" almost and it hasn't matured past that point. Some ropy strands across the surface but I wouldn't say its overlay, or stroma, I'm not really sure what has happened at this point but I would appreciate any advice. Additionally, approximately 4 of the casing trays haven't showed ANY signs of growth after patching. I can also provide pics if it will help, i just need to figure out how to upload them lol.
I think my problems could have arrived from a few different sources:
1. I did not check the pH of my casing mix. It was buffered with oyster shell flour and calcium carbonate but I am unsure of the actual pH it was at at the time of casing.
2. Pinning strategy was initiated too late. I waited too long to birth the trays. After more in-depth reading I realized I was following bad advice. The author of one tek instructed that one should wait until the casing was about 40% covered in mycelium before birthing when I now know that it should have been birthed as soon as I saw mycelium in the valleys.
3. Casing layer should have been thicker and substrate layer thinner. (Just something I thought might help? Would appreciate your thoughts on this.)
4. I also suspect that humidity might be an issue. The walls of the chambers have a pretty steady, thin layer of droplets that collect on the walls almost constantly so I suspect that the humidity might be too high, on the other hand the casing layer looks dried out so I can't make heads or tails of whats going on...)
5. I also think that overwatering could be an issue possibly but I spray indirectly and only about twice a day.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Hope I've been thorough enough lol.
-------------------- My Adventures Cultivating Mescaline Bearing Cacti “Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced.” – Terence McKenna
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