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strike
High Roller



Registered: 09/27/13
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Last seen: 9 years, 11 months
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Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium!
#19271734 - 12/13/13 05:21 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Hello everyone,
First off, I just want to say that I'm doing my best to be patient and not tamper with my pint jars (filled with rye berries), all inoculated with ATL #7 to try and grow just stones, not fruit.
But its been almost 3 weeks, and no growth at all. No contams, a very small amount of rust on the bottom from tiny metal shavings. I stuffed a 1/4" hole tight with Polyfil and used a self-healing silicone inoc port.
I've been retracing my steps to see where I might have gone wrong. I followed StoneSun and Violets Truffle Teks. I also used (under the experimental techniques) the "Fast Foolproof Inoculation" by inoculating through an alcohol soaked sponge, through the port.
I'm asking the community what might have gone wrong so I can plan better for next time and improve on this interesting hobby.
Some hypothesis':
-Alcohol soaked sponge had too much alcohol and killed spores as they exited the syringe within the jar -Pressure cook didn't go properly (90 min at 15 PSI with spacers and all) -Grains were soaked too long (Rye Berries soaked for 24 hours, drained, then PC'ed 3 hours later) -Polyfill too tight to allow for GE (fairly tight, probably more than necessary but I didn't want to risk contams) -Syringes were fake/crap??
Some other notes:
Temp has been a consistent 70F to 73F. Jars have been kept in complete darkness, but with some periods of inconsistent ambient light. 1 mL inoc in 3 diff. spots for each jar.
I understand that there are MANY variables, but I feel like I messed up somewhere blatantly.
One more thing: If the alcohol did kill the spores, could I theoretically inoculate again with a syringe of Mex A? Or are these jars just finished?
Thanks everyone in advance! I really appreciate all the info I've gained from this site so far just from browsing; seems like every minute I spend on this hobby, I learn more and more.
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19271768 - 12/13/13 05:29 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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skip the alcohol sponge, gets no more sterile then red hot if it were your pc the grains would have contaminated by now, make sure to vent the steam for a few mins before putting your weight on again if your grains wee soaked too long contams would have showed up pollyfill cant be too tight for ge if there's no growth releasing gases syringes being fucked is a good theory
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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strike
High Roller



Registered: 09/27/13
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Last seen: 9 years, 11 months
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: cronicr]
#19271778 - 12/13/13 05:31 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Yeah thanks man. If that syringe was just fucked, and the inside of the jars are still sterile, could I inoculate again into the same ones? If so, I think I'll give it another week and a half (4 weeks total) and if there's no growth, I'll go again round 2!
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19271795 - 12/13/13 05:36 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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i'd just start more jars if i didn't know the exact cause
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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RiparianZoneJunky
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19271801 - 12/13/13 05:37 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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ATL 7 spores are notoriously slow to germinate. Best thing to do is to use agar to get them going, but that is probably beyond your level. If you have no contams and followed the tek just give it some more time, and maybe put it into an incubator to give it some heat. There is always a chance with a vendor syringe that your syringe is just bunk, I recommend investing in agar early on in your career and never looking back, I've used syringes about 5 times and had shitty luck so I switched to noccing agar from prints and never looked back. If your sterile technique is good and the syringe has no contams then re-noccing the jars with the same syringe will not do any damage as long as you don't fuck up the moisture content with too much water, but it would probably be better to try it on new jars.
Edited by RiparianZoneJunky (12/13/13 05:38 PM)
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strike
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: RiparianZoneJunky]
#19271825 - 12/13/13 05:45 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Alright. I've actually never recalled seeing that ATL is a pretty slow colonizer, but then again, I'm like the epitome of a newbie. I'm not familiar with agar (I have no clue what it is!) but I'm sure some research will prove valuable. As far as an incubator, I'll start putting something together, or maybe just turning up on the heater in my house from 72 to 75 or so.
For cost reasons, I think I'll gamble and try inoculating again with Mex A into the same jars if its been longer than roughly 4 weeks and zero growth.
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RiparianZoneJunky
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19271839 - 12/13/13 05:51 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
strike said: Alright. I've actually never recalled seeing that ATL is a pretty slow colonizer, but then again, I'm like the epitome of a newbie. I'm not familiar with agar (I have no clue what it is!) but I'm sure some research will prove valuable. As far as an incubator, I'll start putting something together, or maybe just turning up on the heater in my house from 72 to 75 or so.
For cost reasons, I think I'll gamble and try inoculating again with Mex A into the same jars if its been longer than roughly 4 weeks and zero growth.
Check out the "Let's Grow Mushrooms" videos section on agar, it's pretty much all you need to know. The petri dishes are an added cost but it's worth the $$$ IMO, especially since it allows you to get into cloning fruits of successful grows and making isolates etc, and it opens up the avenue toward growing exotics and woodlovers from wild prints. I've heard a lot of people complain about slow germination with ATL 7 and I've experienced it myself, not sure why it goes dormant or how to break that dormancy, but time and higher temps seems to usually do the trick for me.
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strike
High Roller



Registered: 09/27/13
Posts: 23
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: RiparianZoneJunky]
#19271867 - 12/13/13 05:59 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Awesome. Thanks a ton! I'll definitely give that a go next time around. I think for now, I'll invest some planning into agar for next time and be patient with my 8 jars, maybe try and incubate at a higher temperature.
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19271874 - 12/13/13 06:02 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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did you shake after you inoculated?
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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StickyIcky Fingers
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Registered: 12/03/13
Posts: 178
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: RiparianZoneJunky]
#19271875 - 12/13/13 06:02 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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My spore to grain jars took 3-4 weeks to show growth and were pretty slow to colonize. Once I shook the jars colonization happened faster once the grains were looser after the shake. I left two alone they took another month or so to colonize and have fewer stones in them than the shaken jars.
I have read that shaking is bad/ not always helpful for this species but I think it was the grains being loosened from the shake that made the difference.
Like ^ is saying try agar out it is not hard and is a very useful medium.
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strike
High Roller



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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: StickyIcky Fingers]
#19271909 - 12/13/13 06:13 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I did not shake after inoculation, the Teks I read suggested not to until there is a small amount of 20% mycelium growth.
But, if you recommend I do, that makes perfect sense: loosening the grains so they aren't as tightly packed should really speed it up.
I've heard though that doing this can cause them to fail, and I know that its different for every case (ridiculous amount of variables), but now based on what you said, I think I'll consider some firm shakes to loosen it up.
How exactly did you shake yours/when did you shake them? 3 week period?
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StickyIcky Fingers
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Registered: 12/03/13
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19271973 - 12/13/13 06:30 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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yes I have also heard that and was hesitant to try it with mine but they were going quite slow and it helped the test jars once they recovered.
I would recommend having loose grains so I guess try it with one first wait for recover and go from there.
They were a third to half colonized so I used a bike tire to break up the myc then rolled the jar in my hands to turn it and tumble the grains around. You could try rolling the jar first to see if it will loosen at all before breaking up the myc. I may have tried that tho and then went to the bike tire... I dont remember
When I noc up my mex jars I am going to do the roll right after the agar transfer to make them loose. The more numerous and larger spaces between the grains are where the stones seem to like to form.
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RogerRabbit
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19272118 - 12/13/13 07:21 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
almost 3 weeks no mycelium!
That's not that long.
Most sclerotia producing species I've grown are slow to get started and have very light and wispy mycelium at first. It's not dense like cube mycelium until much later. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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strike
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: RogerRabbit]
#19273981 - 12/14/13 10:05 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Alright, I think I'm going to do this-
Wait one more week and see if any signs of colonization show up.
A. If it does, I'm going to see how fast its growing. If its going way too slow, I'll try and shake to loosen up the grains, but only at maximum half of my jars (just in case shaking stops the colonization).
If no colonization shows up in a week, I'll shake half of them. But what is this "bike tire" method? How do you break up grains in a jar with a bike tire?
Thanks again everyone for the tips, I really appreciate the support here!!! I think the most important thing for me now is to remain patient, and like RR said, I guess its not uncommon for sclerotia to take longer to colonize.
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Kalypto
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19274000 - 12/14/13 10:11 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
strike said: Hello everyone,
First off, I just want to say that I'm doing my best to be patient and not tamper with my pint jars (filled with rye berries), all inoculated with ATL #7 to try and grow just stones, not fruit.
Pint jars? Why such small amounts? When I do it , I use 5 lb bags
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RiparianZoneJunky
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Registered: 10/30/11
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: Kalypto]
#19274026 - 12/14/13 10:20 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kalypto said:
Quote:
strike said: Hello everyone,
First off, I just want to say that I'm doing my best to be patient and not tamper with my pint jars (filled with rye berries), all inoculated with ATL #7 to try and grow just stones, not fruit.
Pint jars? Why such small amounts? When I do it , I use 5 lb bags
Yeah, pint jars aren't going to give you much yield, I would use them to spawn to a pasteurized mini-bulk tray once they're 100% colonized, then give it a nice thick casing and try to fruit them once the sub is colonized. They grow very large stones while in fruiting conditions when properly cased, I generally skip the in vitro stone part as I find cased grains or substrates grow larger stones in a shorter amount of time. Not only that, but the fruitbodies will give you prints as well as a very potent mushroom per weight.
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StickyIcky Fingers
Free DOOM!! Available Here

Registered: 12/03/13
Posts: 178
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19274191 - 12/14/13 10:58 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
strike said:But what is this "bike tire" method? How do you break up grains in a jar with a bike tire?
smack the jar against the tire of a bike a mountain bike tire or a fat bike tire if you happen to have one. I dont think you would want to try this on a road bike. Make sure the tire has some pressure so you dont hit the rim.
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Kalypto
Psychonaut



Registered: 09/19/12
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: StickyIcky Fingers]
#19274206 - 12/14/13 11:02 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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I use to use phone books as someone pointed out to me , Ive broken three jars cutting my hand open each time , Ive heard a lot more people swear by bike tires , I just switched to bag which I would recommend you try , Its save lots of time IMO
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strike
High Roller



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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: Kalypto]
#19275008 - 12/14/13 02:38 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Okay, so first off my apologies if I'm a bit slow to this, but here's what I'm thinking
1. I don't think I want to try and fruit them, it just seems like a little out of my league right now. I'm also extremely busy right now with a lot of things going on, and I really don't want to mess it up by not being able to devote enough time to successfully fruiting them (hence the "only stones" ideology).
2. However, if I can do some kind of transfer into bulk to get better stone yields without tons of extra time/costs, by simply doing some kind of transfer method into a large bag filled with some kind of substrate, that would be great, and perfectly ideal for my situation.
3. I used pint jars because quart wouldn't fit in the pressure cooker I already had at my house...maybe I should have invested in a larger one and gone with quart, but I didn't know how successful I would be/if I would do this more in the future to pay off the larger PC investment.
So essentially, I'm looking at taking the following actions:
A. Loosening up the grain (question: should I do this NOW, before it has shown signs of mycelium growth, or at 20-30%?)
B. Waiting until 100% colonization, then doing some kind of transfer (what kind of transfer[grain to grain, water suspension...]? To what substrate? Into bags I assume?) To me, it sounds like you guys don't think that pint yields will be worthwhile, and transfer to bulk is nearing a necessity.
C. Waiting patiently for the transfer to recolonize the new bag and grow stones invitro (assuming invitro means inside the substrate?)
Thanks again for everything! I've already gotten way more feedback than I expected, and I can always try and make a list of stuff to research on here (so far, its agar, bulk substrates, etc.), but the personal advice is extremely helpful.
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RiparianZoneJunky
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Re: Trying to grow just stones for the first time...almost 3 weeks no mycelium! [Re: strike]
#19275071 - 12/14/13 02:52 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
strike said: Okay, so first off my apologies if I'm a bit slow to this, but here's what I'm thinking
1. I don't think I want to try and fruit them, it just seems like a little out of my league right now. I'm also extremely busy right now with a lot of things going on, and I really don't want to mess it up by not being able to devote enough time to successfully fruiting them (hence the "only stones" ideology).
2. However, if I can do some kind of transfer into bulk to get better stone yields without tons of extra time/costs, by simply doing some kind of transfer method into a large bag filled with some kind of substrate, that would be great, and perfectly ideal for my situation.
3. I used pint jars because quart wouldn't fit in the pressure cooker I already had at my house...maybe I should have invested in a larger one and gone with quart, but I didn't know how successful I would be/if I would do this more in the future to pay off the larger PC investment.
So essentially, I'm looking at taking the following actions:
A. Loosening up the grain (question: should I do this NOW, before it has shown signs of mycelium growth, or at 20-30%?)
B. Waiting until 100% colonization, then doing some kind of transfer (what kind of transfer[grain to grain, water suspension...]? To what substrate? Into bags I assume?) To me, it sounds like you guys don't think that pint yields will be worthwhile, and transfer to bulk is nearing a necessity.
C. Waiting patiently for the transfer to recolonize the new bag and grow stones invitro (assuming invitro means inside the substrate?)
Thanks again for everything! I've already gotten way more feedback than I expected, and I can always try and make a list of stuff to research on here (so far, its agar, bulk substrates, etc.), but the personal advice is extremely helpful.
As soon as one of your pints in 100% colonized, you could use it to inoculate a sterilized mycobag full of grains, that way you could move to a larger yield without having to fruit, case or any of that other stuff, probably the easiest way to go at this point.
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