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NPoB
Curious

Registered: 01/24/16
Posts: 93
Loc: Mendocino County
Last seen: 1 month, 1 day
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Re: Hericium abietis (moved) [Re: bodhisatta]
#25914418 - 04/03/19 09:00 PM (4 years, 10 months ago) |
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Thanks Bodisattta. On both counts.
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NPoB
Curious

Registered: 01/24/16
Posts: 93
Loc: Mendocino County
Last seen: 1 month, 1 day
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Re: Hericium abietis (moved) [Re: NPoB]
#25915409 - 04/04/19 11:57 AM (4 years, 10 months ago) |
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Not that I had questions about the suggestion but this is most definitely Hericium erinaceus and not Hericium abietis.
I did a harvest today. The three largest ones weighed only 0.47, 0.50 and 0.56 lb so were surprisingly light for their size and not nearly as dense as I am used to seeing. Maybe that was due to the conifer media? The smell was right but also had a sharp edge so it remains to be seen what this is going to taste like today. The one that initially seemed largest was only 0.50 lb and was very typical looking and solid inside when I cut it open (at least outside of the spaces in between the lobes). It also was clearly expressing its teeth. I have not looked at its spores but have absolutely no doubt I have unintentionally grown an erinaceus on a mixture of douglas-fir, white pine and spruce. That interests me a lot; perhaps even more than if I was actually growing an abietis. I was hoping that the abietis would enable me to utilize the local abundance of douglas-fir so this curious bit of serendipity was a rather fun thing to learn.
The following images were taken today.

Bad color on some is due to indoor tungsten lighting.
An LC of abietis has been ordered and is already on the way. Thanks again for that helpful clarification of this culture being misidentified. That neatly resolved all of my questions. Except for a new one which is less a question and more simple puzzling over how well this did on this media mix. I have tried using lots of different recipes and ratios before settling on a simple one and in that process douglas-fir never seemed to be appreciated by erinaceus even when blended with a mixture of hardwoods and straw as some have suggested here. I sent a question to the vendor asking for more info on where this strain originally came from so perhaps that might add more light?
And thanks again for connecting me with an abietis supplier. They sure do have a nice selection of cultures.
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AyePlus
Stony Danza



Registered: 12/18/14
Posts: 3,393
Loc: Fairfield, Connecticut
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Re: Hericium abietis (moved) [Re: NPoB]
#25915771 - 04/04/19 04:03 PM (4 years, 10 months ago) |
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I went through pretty much exactly the same thought process myself, glad to be of assistance, yields sound consistent with what I was getting as well, they do flush out 2-3 times with about the same yield, lots of commercial growers in PNW use fir pellets for everything. It definitely slows the colonization times a bit but seems to work fine. I’m leaning towards 70% fir pellets and 30% alfalfa for erinaceus production at my farm.
Edited by AyePlus (04/04/19 04:04 PM)
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NPoB
Curious

Registered: 01/24/16
Posts: 93
Loc: Mendocino County
Last seen: 1 month, 1 day
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Re: Hericium abietis (moved) [Re: AyePlus]
#25917198 - 04/05/19 09:32 AM (4 years, 10 months ago) |
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The taste and texture were both excellent last night so the misID was a really nice bit of blind luck. I am still looking forward to the arrival of an abietis culture early next week but even more to inoculating more erinaceus on fir. I sure like when errors can work out better than the original plans.
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NPoB
Curious

Registered: 01/24/16
Posts: 93
Loc: Mendocino County
Last seen: 1 month, 1 day
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Re: Hericium abietis [Re: NPoB]
#26588258 - 04/09/20 08:04 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Apologies for resurrecting such an old thread but I finally completed a followup. After obtaining a liquid culture from a second vendor as was kindly suggested, I did a test of it. It did fine on agar and on grain so several bags were inoculated. It is nice to know erinaceus does OK on softwoods (a few days slower than on my normal hardwood mix) but I am still hoping to someday find a vendor who actually sells abietis.

This is on doug-fir fuel pellets and pine shavings (2:1).
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