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NotJonHamm
Stranger Danger

Registered: 11/14/17
Posts: 73
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) 3
#25219053 - 05/21/18 04:31 PM (5 years, 8 months ago) |
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Hey all, it's been a minute! Got pretty busy with life and had some holidays over the last month or so, but I'm back in the swing of things again. So I thought I might do a quick little grow log about how everything turned out for me.
Results
So initially I colonized 6 unBODified tubs with 2 x Chitwan, 1 x PESA, 1 x Ecuador, 1 x Chitwan/Ecuador, and 1 x Chitwan/PESA - the mixed tubs just being spawn that was leftover.

Out of the 6 tubs, only three of them fruited - PESA, Chitwan, and Chitwan/Ecuador.
The PESA tub probably had the most impressive first flush where clear cutting was the only practical way of picking all the mushrooms. However, the subsequent flushes were pretty sparse, so occasional hand picking was all that was needed. These mushrooms are quite gentle, you can do about 3g, have light visuals, but otherwise feel pretty normal-ish (as far as mushrooms go anyways). Super easy to sleep afterwards with no lingering weird feelings. A good weekday afternoon/evening shroom!

The Chitwan tub was an odd one... The mushrooms looked like a bad hair day with mushrooms growing in every direction, curving hither and thither, stems quite hollow with a lot of give, and had very little attachment to the substrate. Like, if you even looked at them a little too hard - god forbid mist them, they would fall over, haha. There was never really a "big" flush and since they had a very light attachment to the substrate, they were super easy and clean to pick by hand. I was a little worried they wouldn't be very good... but holy shit was I wrong! These mushrooms were more intense than acid trips I've had with the best description of the visuals as being inside of a multidimensional Rubik's cube while someone was trying to solve it with the dimensions of the room being torqued back and forth and peoples' faces melting off. What a trip! That happened after my cousin and I shared 4.5g in a pot of tea. 
***Does anyone know why some of my mushrooms you practically have to scrape substrate from the stem with a knife and with these ones that make 100% clean breaks from the substrate after falling over from their own weight?

The Chitwan/Ecuador tub was a bit of an odd one, sometimes the flushes were pretty sparse, but other times I had to cut the mushrooms in half because they were so big and couldn't fit in the dehydrator. For example, one flush I had mushrooms that averaged about 30-50g wet, each. I'm not a 100% sure whether they were Chitwan or Ecuador varieties since none of them looked the exact same as the Chitwan mushrooms I had growing solo, but shared similar characteristics. If some of them were Chitwan, I'm not sure why the size difference between the two tubs was so big since growing conditions were pretty much identical. So I have a hunch they were most likely the Ecuadorian variety. I haven't really had a chance to try these ones out yet, but if their size is any indication, hopefully big things are in store!

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good haul, even though I did have quite a few issues for my first grow. I've already given away about 3 ounces to my family and friends, but still have more mushrooms than I can shake a stick at! In all, I have 11 x 2L mason jars filled to varying degrees. I haven't bothered weighing them, but one jar holds roughly ~2 ounces depending on how densely it's packed, so my best guess is between 15-20 ounces dried - then plus the three or so ounces I've given away so far. The white pouches in the jars are just silica gel packs that I'm using to absorb any moisture from the air when the jars are opened and such.
***Does anyone have experience with vacuum sealing your mason jars? Does it help the mushrooms keep their potency for longer?

Lessons Learned
Some of the things I learned along the way include:
- You don't really want to see agar with "growth rings". All the agar I used for inoculating my grain jars were all ringed. It was mentioned to me that this might be a sign of some sort of contamination.

- When you have uncolonized grain against the glass in your jars, this may also be a sign of contamination. Almost all of my jars had varying degrees of uncolonized grain pressed up against the glass. After doing some research of past posts and talking with some of the more experienced growers, one should expect 100% coverage of all grains - even the ones that are against the glass.
 I'm not 100% sure, but I think this led to the substrate in my tubs not colonizing 100% either, as can be seen in the following picture.
 This was pretty typical across about 2/3 of my tubs.
- Due to the very low humidity where I live, I learned a little too late that turning the lids on my tubs 90deg to increase FAE while at home made my tubs dry out very quick. They went from nice fluffy looking mycelium to crusted over yellow shit in a matter of days. The two tubs that ended up crusting over never grew anything. Not sure if they didn't grow anything because of the crusty top or from some other contam/poor growing condition. However, I'm pretty sure the dry/moist cycle from FAE and misting was one of the main culprits.

- Then I guess above all, just take your time and make sure you do things right. Since I had so many fuck ups in the beginning (due to buying shitty bacteria laden syringes), I wasted about two months just growing bacteria and lost patience at times for doing things properly/methodically. However, now that I finally have grown something that will last me for... well a very long time, I'm going to start again and try having more consistent grows with less fuck ups (hopefully!).
- Last but not least, although it was cool to have six tubs going all at once for my first grow, I probably wouldn't recommend it to other people starting out. It's not that it's overwhelming, but realistically, you only have so much time in the day and I noticed I cut a few corners and didn't give each set of agar/jars/tubs 100%. For the following grows, I'm probably going to do two tubs at a time, so I can concentrate more easily and not miss so many (possible) mistakes. For example:
- Start agar for tubs 1, 2. - Do jars for tubs 1, 2. Start agar for tubs 3, 4. - Colonize tubs 1, 2. Do jars for tubs 3, 4. Start agar for tubs 5, 6. - ... and so on.
Everything turned out pretty good, all things considered. Not as good as it could have been since three tubs went straight to the compost, but I still ended up with more mushrooms than I can eat/give away. Hopefully my friends and family don't get tired of doing them, haha. But thanks to all the people who helped me out along the way and especially the trusted cultivators for lending their expertise to a fledgling grower!
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Mr. Bear
Hes a bear...


Registered: 05/04/18
Posts: 43
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: NotJonHamm]
#25219101 - 05/21/18 05:00 PM (5 years, 8 months ago) |
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Awesome log thanks for sharing! Cant lie im a little jelly over all those full jars of dry goodness!
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JHOVA
Post whore


Registered: 02/17/17
Posts: 4,727
Loc:
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: Mr. Bear]
#25219156 - 05/21/18 05:32 PM (5 years, 8 months ago) |
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Nice write up man!
-------------------- 🅃 🄴 🄰 🄼 🄲 🄻 🄸 🄽 🄶 🅆 🅁 🄰 🄿
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NotJonHamm
Stranger Danger

Registered: 11/14/17
Posts: 73
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: JHOVA]
#25219199 - 05/21/18 05:57 PM (5 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mr. Bear said: Awesome log thanks for sharing! Cant lie im a little jelly over all those full jars of dry goodness!
Thanks! It's an odd, but good feeling going from my teenage years where I thought it was pretty boss to buy an ounce and share with my friends to handing ounces out like candy, haha.
Quote:
JHOVA said:

Nice write up man!
Thanks! And thanks to you to for all the advice along the way.
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NotJonHamm
Stranger Danger

Registered: 11/14/17
Posts: 73
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: NotJonHamm]
#25219200 - 05/21/18 05:59 PM (5 years, 8 months ago) |
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And just to reiterate the two questions I had, does anyone have any knowledge about:
- Does anyone know why some of my mushrooms you practically have to scrape substrate from the stem with a knife and with these ones that make 100% clean breaks from the substrate after falling over from their own weight?
- Does anyone have experience with vacuum sealing your mason jars? Does it help the mushrooms keep their potency for longer?
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Sacral_Z
Seeker of Knowledge

Registered: 05/22/20
Posts: 4
Loc: Present
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: NotJonHamm]
#26794075 - 06/30/20 09:20 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks for sharing your lessons learned. Congrats on the success!
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BuddyHemphill
Stranger

Registered: 04/05/22
Posts: 2
Last seen: 1 year, 6 months
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: NotJonHamm]
#27721928 - 04/05/22 09:56 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
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Three years after this post is published, I find my way to it. Absolutely wonderful write-up for a first time grow. This is great information for first-time growers, thank you for posting!
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molas77
Stranger

Registered: 06/18/21
Posts: 14
Last seen: 12 hours, 43 minutes
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Re: Things turned out better than expected! (A mini grow log) [Re: NotJonHamm]
#28602342 - 12/29/23 02:16 PM (29 days, 14 hours ago) |
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Amazing results and log, thanks
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