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OfflineJeremy62
Northern Neighbour

Registered: 11/19/14
Posts: 125
Loc: Cowichan Station BC Flag
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...?
    #21035002 - 12/28/14 11:20 AM (9 years, 4 months ago)

I am very new to this mushroom growing, I did my research, literally hours and hours of reading that led into days and days. This is a very good site and has some useful information on the subject at hand.

There is some very useful information out there on the web but there is also a lot of misinformation and downright junk information, just like any internet topic I guess?

I decided to have a go at growing Oyster mushrooms on a medium scale, two reasons, their apparent ease of growing and the local demand where I live warrants the time, effort and cost.

I then had to decide HOW I was going to grow. Research showed me a small semi-sterile room where I could control the heat, light, humidity and air flow would work best for me.

I built an 8' x 16' plastic lined room, in one side I have 6000K florescent lights, a small humidifier (I have been using an open top pressure cooker on a hot plate during these cold months which helps the humidity as well as heat) I will use a small cold mist humidifier in the warmer months and a small fan for fresh air movement.

On the other side of the room, which is divided with very heavy plastic "commercial cooler" type hanging door/wall, I have no light source, racks for hanging my bags and an oil filled thermostatic heater.

So far this set up is working for me.

Now I am NOT trying to be a smart ass or know it all, but it seems there is a great deal of over thinking to all this mushroom growing business...... I realize some types of mushrooms are harder to grow then others and need different conditions etc........ but lets just concentrate on Pleurotus as an example......

Substrate, some say sawdust, some say wood chips, some say straw, some say cardboard etc etc...... I guess it depends on what you can source locally at the lowest prices.... in my case I have found that wheat straw is doing what I need.

Pasteurization VS Sterilization.....don't even start me on this...lol

Bottom line, I tried COLD pasteurization with straight wood ash and have had VERY good success.

150 liter barrel filled with about 130 liters water and 7lbs of wood ash, a second smaller barrel with holes for drainage filled with shredded wheat straw lowered and weighted inside the first barrel and soaked for 18 hours, lift the smaller barrel out, let it drain and then fill my plastic bags with 3 handfuls of straw, two spoons of spawn and do this five times in layers for each bag, twist and tie the bag and punch a few holes for air and hang on the racks in the dark side of the "grow room" at 22*C.

What method of spawning to use, again, wide range of varying opinions out there, I am not going into all the possibilities, I could write a book on all the different ideas. Bottom line, I use sterilized (in a pressure cooker @ 15psi for 1 hour) rye grain in Mason jars, I then inoculate the jars with fully colonized grain spawn I prepared before via the same method.......this way saves me space, time, money (buying extra equipment and supplies for numerous other methods).

I understand that spawn loses it's potency after a number of generations so at some point new spawn is introduced.

I am trying to have about four dozen bags at various stages of growth so I have about a dozen fruiting at the same time, still learning this timing thing... ;-)

Eventually I will be using flat rolls of tube bags so I can make my own larger bags and hang them up for colonizing as well as fruiting.

At this point, I started a couple of months ago, I have had TWO bags show very small signs of contamination and that is it. Once all fruiting is complete I can remove the plastic from the straw and use it with no issues in my garden. I have not added lime or gypsum or anything else which would in fact change the soil content of my vegetable garden.

Sorry to ramble on but this mushroom growing appears to be an art, time consuming, costs can be tricky and getting conditions just right is very important, however I notice that a great deal of people OVER THINK this whole thing, just my opinion.

PS. Enough with all the acronyms..... just don't be lazy and type out the whole friggin word..! It is not saving much time by writing PC or FC instead or pressure cooker or fruiting chamber......and it doesn't make you any smarter using acronyms instead of full words... :-)

Happy Growing!


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Offlinetykles
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Registered: 02/04/14
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Re: Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...? [Re: Jeremy62]
    #21055472 - 01/02/15 06:41 AM (9 years, 4 months ago)

Hi Jeremy,
Congratulations on your successful grow! As you can see from my post count, I don't spend a lot of time posting on this message board, but I felt like I needed to provide some feedback regarding your comments.

- I'm not sure if this is your intention, but the tone of your post comes across as kind of smug, almost arrogant.
- You are right, oysters are the easiest species to grow. They are hard NOT to grow. There are wikis online of people cloning purchased oysters in pasteurized coffee, expanding into pasteurized cardboard, getting excellent fruits, and never using a PC or a GH/FC.
- What you are referring to as collectively "overthinking" is a generalization of many people working out the details for their specific situation so that they get things right and set themselves up for success. People use different substrates because of what they have available, what they can get cheap/free, what they can make, etc. There isn't a best substrate per se for a species as prolific as oysters because it is situation/cultivator dependent.
- A lot of discussions have to do with efficiency - this is also contextual. For some people, time is the limiting factor; for others, space. For anyone growing for a living, they need to be as ruthlessly cost effective as possible while reliably producing a consistent yield. So someone you would say is "overthinking things" might be able to take your same space and produce 10-20 TIMES as much yield (measured as weight/time of final product) without any additional time, effort or money.
- Some people just love to delve into the details and tinker. For many people, it's a HOBBY. You do it because you enjoy it, and playing with variables, trying to do a better job, expanding into different species, etc. is just part of the fun. Who doesn't like to poke a campfire with a stick, even though it's going to burn just fine on its own?

A final comment. Acronyms are an acceptable, appropriate, and fundamentally normal part of the English language. Acronyms are used extensively in extremely technical disciplines, scientific and medical journals, and pretty much every profession. They are time saving without diluting the meaning of a written statement. To suggest that people are lazy or trying to look smart by using acronyms isn't an intelligent comment; it's actually kinda asinine. Bear in mind that this is completely different from people writing "u" instead of "you" and using sloppy text-message pseudo-words (lol?); if that was your beef I would completely agree with you.

Sorry if I sound harsh, I just wanted to let you know how your post sounded to a stranger. It is a really fun hobby and very rewarding. I also love the community aspect of this and other forums, and being able to freely exchange ideas, ask stupid questions, discuss techniques and options, and learn from the experience of others is an amazing thing I would never want to take for granted - standing on the shoulders of giants, if you will, is what sets amateurs like us up for success.

Take care,
t

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OfflineJeremy62
Northern Neighbour

Registered: 11/19/14
Posts: 125
Loc: Cowichan Station BC Flag
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...? [Re: tykles]
    #21055694 - 01/02/15 08:49 AM (9 years, 4 months ago)

I respect your response, thank you.

My post was not intended to be "smug", "arrogant" nor "asinine". If it came across that way to you I apologize, writing is not my forte and we all know how difficult it is on the internet to get the full perspective of a person and not misunderstand content.

Perhaps I should have been more specific and not as general in my perceptions of growing Pleurotus, which is what my post was concentrating on.

I also agree with you and totally understand the use of and need for acronyms when used correctly and in the content they were intended, again, perhaps I should have been more direct and specific with my comments. "Some" people use acronyms incorrectly and "create" an acronym that takes a rocket scientist to figure out, all I was trying to say is, if you use an acronym, please use one that is generally accepted by the masses. lol j/k ;-)

Happy Growing.

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Offlinetykles
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Re: Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...? [Re: Jeremy62]
    #21056630 - 01/02/15 12:55 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

I should have chosen better words than arrogant and asinine; probably a little more harsh than I was shooting for (sorry if I came across as a dick; definitely not my intention). As far as I'm concerned, anyone who is as excited about growing mushrooms in their basement as I am is a friend until proven otherwise!

For what it's worth, I *do agree with you about trying to sort through solid, time-proven techniques vs "solutions in search of problems". After I got through my various hurdles, trial and errors, etc., a lot of my recent efforts have been devoted to figuring out exactly what is overkill vs what's actually necessary. As I said above, however, some of this stuff is extremely situation-dependent. For instance, I am avidly watching the newest thread about lime pasteurization - there are some serious pros on there, some of whom are very successful and some of whom aren't. GreenGills is extremely productive and has incredible grows using lime pasteurized, supplemented hardwood pellets. For me, 50% or more of my blocks have grown trich. It might be environment (regional or even just my house and the shit that grows in it), it hopefully isn't technique since that's pretty straightforward. To some extent strains are probably a critical part of the equation as well. If someone is selecting isolates that thrive in their personal environment, then of course they are more likely to experience success.

I've also been screwing around with how I prep my rye, simply because I can't always anticipate the day before that I will have time to jar and PC a full load of rye berries. I have had a lot of bacterial contaminants in my jars as I've tried to figure out how to make it work consistently without the overnight soak.

All I'm saying is that *some of this stuff seems like overkill - until you try to introduce a short cut, and only then do you discover that a lot of shortcuts have been tried and found lacking already.

I do think what would be awesome would be a thread similar to the one on Mushroom Cultivation called something like "The stuff I wasted money/time on" or, "If I knew then what I know now", or something like that. Hard to do with so many different edible species and strains when compared to cubensis plus a few exotics, but it would still be cool. But I have learned shit tons just from the off hand comments of people who have been doing this successfully for a long time.

So with that said - and this is an honest question - have you noticed any specific aspects to your grows that are good examples of overthinking or overcomplicating things? I am hungry to learn more, to be more successful with this hobby, and ideally to save some time and money in the process without losing any of the fun aspects of it. I am blessed with a kick ass job so I really don't ever need to try to make money with mushrooms, just making good food is enough for me :smile:

t

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OfflineJeremy62
Northern Neighbour

Registered: 11/19/14
Posts: 125
Loc: Cowichan Station BC Flag
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...? [Re: tykles]
    #21056881 - 01/02/15 02:24 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

I took no offense to your post, my wife calls me asinine all the time...!

Like you, I am in this for the learning aspect and interesting facts/knowledge of various growing techniques. I also do not need the $$$ but if I am growing anyhow, might as well try and recoup some of my outlay... ;-)

I find the internet a wealth of knowledge but also a trap of misinformation, one just has to weed through the information and decide for themselves what is gospel and what is not.

In response to your question, I find that the general consensus of trying to keep things "totally sterile" is an open ended statement, unless you have a lab it is near impossible and in my opinion, not necessary, basic cleanliness seems to work, at least with oyster growing.

Pasteurization, again, whatever works for an individual is fine, there does not appear to be any hard and fast rules that work for everybody.

I read somewhere about the cold pasteurization technique using wood ash instead of lime and gypsum etc and thought I would give it a try because it saves money on the cost of heating the substrate and the lime etc. plus I have an unlimited supply of wood ash, we heat the house and work shop with wood, so this methods fits in with my needs, on top of that, believe it or not, I can not for the life of me find, locally, "hydrated lime" in the concentration levels that are suggested by some top growers. I believe it is recommended to use high calcium and low magnesium content? If I could get the suggested type of lime I would try it via the cold pasteurization method.

So far, cold pasteurization with wood ash seems to be working, perhaps I will find this method does not produce high volume but the end costs are a factor, and I have been very lucky with a low contamination level.

Lastly, I am confused about different information on creating spawn, lots of methods using different media as well as how these techniques are performed. I tried rye grain, 1 cup grain with 1 cup of water pressure cooked at 15psi for an hour in quart Mason jars, no soaking or precooking or adding anything, once cooled, inoculated with colonized rye grain and for the volume of growing I am currently doing it fills my needs. Again, this might change down the road.

I am in no way trying to say my way is best or better or even good, just saying it is actually producing some mushrooms at a fair return rate financially.

Bottom line, this is a hobby for most and unless one invests big $$$ and major time it is hard to make a decent living growing out of a basement, workshop or laundry room.

Just nice to have some mushrooms to put on the table, give to friends and perhaps if your lucky, have a few to sell and cover some costs.

All the best.

Edited by Jeremy62 (01/02/15 02:31 PM)

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OfflineRandomFX
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Re: Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...? [Re: Jeremy62]
    #21063112 - 01/03/15 07:36 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

heh everything works perfectly until it doesn't...and then that is the difference between someone who has done it large scale for many years and someone who has not, and why those who have are often wise and those who have not are not. In short you can always tell the pioneers by the number of arrows in their back.

you are right in many respects, I think (And I am not one of the uber experienced growers here, so once more I only know what I know, and have avoided many of those arrows because of those who took them before me.)that it is easy to grow mushrooms. just as easy as doing anything else, but it is the finer details and craftsmen whom find these finer details that make the marvels and operate effectively. a mushroom will grow in the middle of the woods without anyone growing it, clearly. and in some environments and times of year they grow super easy also. Many of the other techniques and peculiarities are things that have been used not to grow them when it is easy...but to grow them at the times of years when mold and spore counts are through the roof for instance. or during unideal conditions. and it is also much easier to grow when first starting off I believe. before your equipment or work areas slowly allow contamination in if using poor practices. Or spores or contaminates are not floating around that can actually remain viable for years and years.
I guess life in general can be as complicate or as simple as you want to make and/or control it, but a business does it with as much reliability and control as possible as well as science and the scientific method.

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OfflineJeremy62
Northern Neighbour

Registered: 11/19/14
Posts: 125
Loc: Cowichan Station BC Flag
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
Re: Over thinking this mushroom growing thing...? [Re: RandomFX]
    #21063428 - 01/03/15 08:39 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

I like the arrows in the back metaphor.... ;-)

You are 100% correct with your points, I guess it boils down to doing what works for the individual, as pointed out by tykles, there are numerous factors to various grows that are individual to those grows and the specifics can not be used on other grows due to outside influences.

I am learning that a large part of mushroom growing is trial and error, when you find something that works, stick to it, if it doesn't work, try something else.

I think the frustration in my initial post was when trying to find specific information and getting numerous different answers to the same question........ hopefully mushrooms will grow and the nasty contaminants will stay at bay.

Thanks for the input.

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