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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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Re: Reishi : to supplement or not? [Re: Forrester]
#19461740 - 01/23/14 09:58 AM (10 years, 8 days ago) |
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So here's another update.
First is the unsupplemented bag, spawned with 1/2 quart rye berries. Got small, thin fruits that for the most part are done growing. Didn't really produce that much at all.

Now here's the supplemented bag. Spawned with 1/2 quart rye berries as well but fairly heavily supplemented with wheat bran. Remember, it was only bucket-tek pasteurized, no sterilization was done. As you can see it has some pretty large conks going on and they're still growing, not even close to finished.

I'll post final weights when I harvest but it may be a while, I'm gonna let the supplemented bag keep growing till it's done.
Any updates on your experiments, theonceandfuture?
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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forrest



Registered: 11/16/12
Posts: 1,011
Loc: The Netherlands
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Re: Reishi : to supplement or not? [Re: Forrester]
#19461790 - 01/23/14 10:11 AM (10 years, 8 days ago) |
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wow, that's quite the difference. but did the supplemented one get more O2? it has a lot more pores, looks more like conk than antler, that could explain the difference in mass.
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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Re: Reishi : to supplement or not? [Re: forrest]
#19461808 - 01/23/14 10:16 AM (10 years, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
forrest said: wow, that's quite the difference. but did the supplemented one get more O2? it has a lot more pores, looks more like conk than antler, that could explain the difference in mass.
Nope, to be fair I fruited both in my greenhouse, side by side. Same exact conditions 
I think the unsupplemented bag just never quite had enough energy to make conks, you can see it's working on one but it ain't much.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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forrest



Registered: 11/16/12
Posts: 1,011
Loc: The Netherlands
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Reishi : to supplement or not? [Re: Forrester]
#19462078 - 01/23/14 11:30 AM (10 years, 8 days ago) |
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wow nice!  i'm gonna make my first reishi bags/buckets/tubs in the coming weeks, i'm gonna suppplement for sure! i hope they will grow allright despite the cold. i've been thinking about growing them in my incubator (it's a big freezer).
EDIT: i'll use the search engine about the lights, like a good shroomer ^_^
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Edited by forrest (01/23/14 12:05 PM)
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theonceandfuture
Young Man of the Woods
Registered: 12/11/13
Posts: 41
Last seen: 7 years, 3 months
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Re: Reishi : to supplement or not? [Re: forrest]
#19466828 - 01/24/14 10:04 AM (10 years, 7 days ago) |
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Well, it's still a bit early to say for sure, but if I had to answer now I would say supplementation is the better way to go. These pictures are really terrible, but hopefully you can get at least some idea of the difference.
The first two pics are supplemented and the latter two are not.

Looking at yours I am quite disappointed in the progress of my own. I know you started yours a bit earlier, and if I had to guess I would think you are keeping your temps in a more appropriate range for reishi.
It has been very cold here over the past month+ and it's been a struggle to keep all the blocks warm. Our primary heat source is a wood stove in the basement, so we keep all the blocks there for the initial couple weeks of colonization. Unfortunately with 300 blocks and counting there just isn't enough room now so I am moving the farther along ones up into a spare bedroom that rarely get's above 60F. I am going to pick up a space heater today since I'm starting to get a little irritated at sinking all this money into these and not getting any back yet.
Also, we left town for a week and let the house temp drop down to 50F(the lowest temp on the thermostat that will kick on the furnace) for the entire time. When we got back they all had stalled at about the same place where we left them and some have remained stalled, although most are growing again now.
I don't really have a good place to fruit conks right now, so that's why we are keeping them all in the bags; going for antlers and will try for a second flush of conks outdoors this summer.
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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^^^ thanks for the update!
Here's my final update:
For the most part, I'll let the pics speak for themselves.


I do have one comment. I've noticed that it's not that you NEED to supplement reishi, there's just a specific spawn ratio you DON'T want to go below, or you get really shitty results. The unsupplemented bag here was only spawned with 1/2 quart of spawn (as was the supplemented one). Bags I spawn with a full quart do pretty well. Not as well as the bran bag, but MUCH better than the shitty bag above.
Here's an example of a typical bag, not supplemented, but spawned with a whole quart of spawn. Much better, but still not close to the bran supplemented bag (although it isn't done growing either):

Hope this helps someone
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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theonceandfuture
Young Man of the Woods
Registered: 12/11/13
Posts: 41
Last seen: 7 years, 3 months
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Re: Reishi : to supplement or not? [Re: Forrester]
#19490141 - 01/29/14 07:34 AM (10 years, 2 days ago) |
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Indeed the numbers do speak for themselves there! I also agree with your thoughts on spawn rate/supplementation, it's hard/impossible to figure out where one stops and the other begins so to speak.
Just the past few days of having the space heater in the room have moved things along immensely, although it is further perplexing me because the difference between some of the sup'd/un-sup'd bags is becoming less stark. However I still tend to think that supplementation is the way to go. Your experience seems to clearly point that way and my system is so muddied with different variables that I didn't properly keep track of that I don't trust the results as much.
I'll post some final harvest picks within the next week or two. At least I hope so.
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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Quote:
theonceandfuture said: although it is further perplexing me because the difference between some of the sup'd/un-sup'd bags is becoming less stark. However I still tend to think that supplementation is the way to go. Your experience seems to clearly point that way and my system is so muddied with different variables that I didn't properly keep track of that I don't trust the results as much.
One thing you might look for is the unsupplemented bags running out of steam a lot sooner. I did a very small experiment, but that's what mine did - the unsupp bag finished growing a long time before the supp'd one, which just kept going and going. It may be difficult to see if yours do the same, if they're running out of room in the bag and you can't let 'em keep going, but idk
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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