RogerRabbit said:

It looks like you have a problem with molds infused into the mushroom mycelium, hitchhiking along for the ride.
RR

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TheBoomking said:

RogerRabbit said:

It looks like you have a problem with molds infused into the mushroom mycelium, hitchhiking along for the ride.
RR

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That is so weird.

Though it does go along with what I've been doing recently, which is making a couple transfers before inoculating the grains with my culture. I've thought before it would be a good idea to inoculate from a plate with no "old" mycelium present that was in storage.

The grains for these tubs were done prior to that.

It also is interesting to me that the molds go green in 3 days, almost without fail, and almost exclusively on stumps. I wish I had the foresight to take a sequence of shots so I could show you the transition between stump and green.

I have plenty of cultures to play with and I plan on getting this figured out.  First things first, I'm going to be twisting instead of cutting for a good 20+ tubs.  I'll also be continuing to keep making a few transfers before trusting a dish to be completely clean.

My question is, shouldn't I see the green either on agar or grains if the contam was present in my culture?  And if not there, shouldn't it blast me with green when I colonize the substrate? I'm perplexed as to how it could "hide" so effectively for so long.

RogerRabbit said:

It just does that.  I've seen molds stay dormant through several grain to grain transfers only to infect and sporulate over every bulk substrate.

Are you using unicorn bags by any chance?  I ended up getting a 50% fail rate with them before I switched over to mycelia bags.

Remember, mold spores can't germinate, colonize, and then sporulate within three days.  They're fast, but not that fast.
RR

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That makes total sense. I was wondering about the 3 day timeframe too.

I have recently been experimenting with unicorn bags and I have not had the greatest success rate with them either.  The bottoms also have a tendency to tear when agitated so I have to be extra careful with them.

They do very well for my sawdust bags and king oysters, I had great success with them in april.  But with grains I seem to have more issues.

After reviewing my last few grows I think the main suspect right now is poorly-stored cultures in petri dishes. I was not taking any transfers, just moving them from storage to the SAB to grains. Most had pretty bad condensation problems and the parafilm had torn in places. I had wondered if/when that would come back to bite me on the ass.

It's not hard to imagine spores and bacteria landing on the mycelium and then getting knocked off on to the grains when I inoculated my jars.

Yet another harsh lesson to never cut corners. Live and learn

Oh, and Kizzle, i think you are right. I photographed that stump for that fuzzy stuff on it, I don't think there was any green mold there.

Oeric McKenna said:

Well dude, you're gonna have to harvest at sub level with a laser!

(Or say fuck it and have a beer.)

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FrankHorrigan said:

Hacker, I thought the same thing a couple months back and I gave them a long soak in vinegar...ended up rusting the spring and had to buy new fiskars

I clean them with an alcohol-soaked paper towel and I make sure to do it before and after I harvest. I never leave any chunks or small pieces stuck to the scissors and yes, ty, my tubs are dialed in. This guy named Frank has a pretty good tek

Honestly though I'm sure I will figure it out, given enough time. As I'm sure you know my entire cultivation experience has been one huge uphill battle against the green.

I thought it was crazy and had a few particularly "colorful" tubs to share. I figured I'd at least dispel the idea that stumps don't rot, something I even stated up until a few months ago.

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