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Be sure to check out www.3mshrooms.homestead.com for your spore needs

Good luck Melt.

peace.

there is an easier method i use and it brings EXCELLENT results..look up the Quart Jar Way Revisited in the Grow/Find section and follow it to the letter. It's simple, to the point, and extremely effective.

I innoculated 6 jars last week and no cantamination, just beautiful, white myceilium. I think the key here is to use alot of lysol which is what is stressed in the tek. I'd clean the entire area with lysol, soak the box which held the jars, and sprayed the top of the jars with it everyday to discourage contams. Try it out.

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Away!

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"The Fungus Is Amung Us"

Secondly. DON'T GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Growing is "easy" but so is brain surgery if you know how to do it:-) When I first started I had absolutely no problems. But After a few harvests, things did go wrong (and I thought I knew what I was doing:-) I've lost literally POUNDS of substrate, bunches of casings, and til this day, many of them I'm not sure why I lost. Some got contaminated, some just didn't colonize, etc. etc.

Let me see if I can help any....

A pressure cooker is NICE! Not essential, but defintely worth buying. They cook at a more even, regulated heat, and they cook at a higher heat so right there it's good. If you use a canning pot or a just a pot with boiling water, make sure you boil the water until you see steam THEN put your jars in. Some people put water in the pot, but their jars in, then count down an hour....It doesn't work:-) The jars will be sitting in there for a good 10-15 minutes before the necessay heat to sterilze is achieved.

If you get a pressure cooker. Put water in it, then your jars, then tighten down the lid. Start to time when the pressure relief valve starts to jiggle. (If you never used a pressure cooker before you'll know what I'm talking about when you get it:-) Also, alot of teks say that you need to cook for an hour. That's true....AT LEAST AN HOUR! Don't be afriad if you go over 15-20 minutes:-) I wouldn't go over and hour and 1/2 for PF style cakes....

Next. PF....When did you get your syringes from PF? I ordered a few things from him and one being a few B+ syringes. 1/2 of the syringes NEVER colonized!!! Am I pissed?? Sure I am...but PF has treated me good many times so, I can't complain. Point is, maybe your syringe is bad?

You said you lost your casings? Thats sucks... Until you have some success at casing, my best recommendation would be to over colonize your casing.

For example, if a tek calls for half of a 1/2 pint cake...use the entire cake. I'm pretty sure that most contaminates hit within the first 5 days of a casing? So if you use more colonized substrate, your chances of contams gets knocked down. The more colonized substrate that you use the quicker your casing will flourish;-)

Well...I hope things work out for you. And please don't give up. If you need any help just email me.

Lana

I've never used a flame to sterilze my syringes. I always used rubbing alcohol. It will kill 98% of all the contams so...get a cotton ball and rub the needle down 3-4 times;-) It's cleaner and a bit easier.

Just my opinion:-)

When i started this journey into homegrowing i had the first 5 batches very nice, then i began to feel sure and was when the troubles began.....lots of contams, especially bacteria.
Do you want to know how i resolved them?
I FORGOT ALL WHAT I KNEW BOUT CULTIVATION and i started again like the first time..and also i used the points 2-3-4 mentioned above..
Don't get discouraged, growing cubies it's damn easy...BUT SOME RULES CANNOT BE CHANGED (at least if you aren't an expert)
Hope this helps and feel free to ask me more if you need

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Look at http://novenove.homepage.com/Honeytek.html for the liquidmycelium honeytek