A noob's journal...I mean I'm the noob, not that this is a TEK for noobs.
Although, for my notes, I'm putting a lot of obvious detail in that might help.







In The Pit's King Oyster Grow LogSpecies: Pleurotus Eryngii
Variety: King, King Oyster
Slant culture coming from:
forestorganics eBay Store
Shane Mulholland is a mycology instructor and naturalist. He currently teaches a series of mushroom cultivation workshops at the University of Michigan, Matthew Botanical Gardens and Eastern Michigan University, Hidden Lake Gardens as well as other locations throughout Michigan and the United States.
11 April, 2020:So far I'm just gonna try growing the same way as PESA...
15 April, 2020:Waiting for an Oyster slant ...
18 April, 2020:Pardon, but what do people use to get culture out of the slant?

1. Scalpel
2. Loop
3. Tweezer
thanks, sorry for the interruption...
A.k.a said:
That’s what I thought but it says lc on the label.
lol, I guess that could be a type of king oyster confusing me. EtherealMind said:
it is a liquid culture of living mycelium
edibles can be sent in liquid cultures because they are not illegalgizmo1 said:
it looks like a slant to me. I've never seen a lc with a craft stick in it lmao. They probably used a lc to inoculate the slant.
Is it liquid or is it solid? if liquid it's a LC if solid it's a slant.OMG!
OK SO....

It looks like there are a couple agar wedges in there.
There's no bubbles, and it's "like totally" full of myc.
EtherealMind said:
Now that I take a closer look it is definitely a slant.
I only read the part that said lC
here is how to inoculate with a slant Quote:
When you are ready to use your cultures, transfer a small piece of mycelium to a petri dish and let it grow out. You can do this with either an inoculation loop or a scalpel. Make sure to only insert the sterile part of your scalpel blade into the tube if you use one.Ok for post above, thanks guys...
Ok...emailed da guy, waiting for reply, film at 11:00!
Thrill said:
Thats a culture slant. Ive never seen any company ship LC in a culture tube before, usually LCs are shipped in syringes like spore solution. Its just some agar poured in there with the wood stick and cooled at an angle to up the surface area, then its inoculated with a little piece of a agar culture.
Use it just like you would a culture on an agar plate. Cut a little piece of it out and drop it on a plate. Master slants can be stored in the fridge for years and still be viable. Easiest way to store cultures long term.Awesome replies guys and drum roll from the vendor:
Hi,
I used one of our LC labels by mistake instead of the culture label, sorry for the confusion.
The tubes size is Borosilicate Glass Test Tubes w/ Screw Cap 20 x 125 mm - 3/4 x 5" - US Made
ta da, happy trails mush heads!
gizmo1 said:
If you can avoid contaminating the original slant it's best to keep it as the master you want the culture to remain as young as possible so you would want to make a slave plate from the master then use the slave plate to make inoculant plates for as long as possible. Once the slave plate runs out you would go back to the master and make another slave. so you would then have a damn near lifetime supply of a young culture from a single master. If you are contaminating you're masters you need to look into either getting bigger tubes, your sterile Tek, or a different tool to pull from the slant or maybe even a combination of the 3.
Yes once colonized the slave plate goes into the fridge.
27 April, 2020:Wedges from the Slave plates, Slave plates to the fridge
Two plates, 3 wedges each, one looks like there's some contam already.
12 May, 2020:Thanks for asking...
Soooo...it's been 7 daze...

Looks kinda wispy, could be happy, temp here is around 84F though...
This guy (piece of agar and myc) was stuck at the top and is crawling all the way down!
26 May, 2020:Two jars to shoeboxes, 21 days in the jar. 1 jar myco : 1.5 jar coirand plenty coir on top.
Forgot to take a picture of the jars.
30 May, 2020:So I'm still not sure about this King Oyster myc.
The jars had a really nice smell, but really diff looking myc.

And now the tubs don't smell so great and just look at that myc!

Growing temp here is around 85F and mebbe the bedroom gets down to 75 at night with A/C.
30 May, 2020:So lookee here...

I know, shocking right, these shoeboxes are toast...right?
The yellow just showed up today, it's going ballistic!
I believe it started by misidentifying the myc in the petri dish. It was sooo tomatose.
(it's kinda telling, I don't seem have one picture of my KO dishes)
And all I've done is spawn some kinda contam...boo hoo.
Well dunno if I should try again in this summer heat, 85F.
Maybe some petri dishes just to see if I can get clean myc?
Or I can learn what KO myc should look like...
Forrester said:
Your jars looked fine to me in that other thread, the pic here looks a little odd but I wouldn't call it a fail yet, it could just be primordia. It's pretty rare for kings not to beat out bacteria and that doesn't look like mold to me.
Give it a chance it might be fine. You could case them if you want, or just keep 'em super moist. You may need a cold shock to get them to actually pin. Wait for other opinions too,Thankyou Forrester, glad I held off tossing!
I'll mist some more, then I might stick them in the fridge overnight.
Edit: 3 nights in the fridge...
16 June, 2020:Sooo, shoeboxes just covered with white "something".
Started 3 more Slave petris from the Slant cause getting bored. Will try for KO myc again.
5 July, 2020:Tormato said:....if it's not growing like a wild fire it's pretty safe to say it's the real deal. 
So I'm up to T4 and average every 5 days to transfer.
That seems really fast, although I've heard Oyster grows fast.
Last attempt I think was just growing some kind of contam.
So does this qualify as "growing like wild fire"?
There're still not very clean looking. And too bad the shark fin wedge isn't visible in TD4.2. LOL
Shark fin wedge = a wedge that lands on edge and looks like a fin.
Tormato said: Those actually look good! Nice job! And shark fins happen....it'll be fine
7 July, 2020: Took one entire plate to a jar and two jars. TC4.1 AND TD4.1, T5'S had spot contams from innoc.
Meaning even though the plates didn't contam by themselves in the dresser (30%~),
I introduced something with shitty innoc tech. The TD's had better rhizo than the TC's.
Two spot contams from meeee!

KO TD5.1
14 July, 2020:shook the two jars @ like 30%, eager!
Got this from PetCo

Going for 1:1:1 spawn, coir, aspen chips
19 July, 2020:One of these is not like the others...(Romper Room)

The two on the right were shaken yesterday and (drum roll)
the one the left was never inoculated, it's been waiting since 10 July for G2G.

Oats, no foil PC, dried outside on a screen.
That's 1/7 that auto contamed. (new term)
Forrester said:
Autocomtam'd 
For an autocontam, that sure looks suspiciously like oyster mycelium lol!
AKA said:
"You’ve been blessed with an immaculate inoculation. You got the real flesh of the gods on the way. "Forrester said:
Good advice - I highly recommend pruning for kings as well, they pin too much, if you cut all but a few, they grow much larger
25 July, 2020:Going to shoeboxes today. With Henry guarding...

For 2 Shoeboxes
2 jars aspen chips, soaked and drained.
300g coir
1+ L hot water, added more, after an hour, it seems like it was easy to add a little more
hot water to dial in the field capacity.
mixed at 88F
Liners, I'm thinking later I don't want the lid, which doesn't pass light.
I might elevate the bag opening like it was hanging.
FRICK I forgot to note which jar in which shoebox!
TedsDead said:
Well, the thermal death temp for cubes is 104F... i usually wait until the coir is 85F PastyWhyte said:
Yeast is often bad procedure, most often comes from the cultivator themselves. (Inoculating jars ) 1 August, 2020:"King oyster needs a good casing layer after colonizing."
So I'm planning to add a layer of Coir after this colonizes a bit more.
These tubs were spawned 5 days ago,
1 Jar spawn, 1 jar Aspen Chips, and 1 jar coir, each.
Temperature is a whopping 85F day and with A/C in
the bedroom, 72F at night. They're kinda up on blocks to help cooling.
There's another refrigerator I could use. Wouldn't it be 'cool' to make a Martha out of it, with cooling!
Pretty crazy, but it keeps me out of mischief.
I cracked the lids last night because they were very wet.
Actually poured excess water out. My coir was on the dry side of field capacity.
But maybe the Aspen Chips added more water. I soaked them separately for an hour and drained.
The chips soaked up water fast, they're thin. So next time it's both coir&chips for a lite pasteurize.
The liner is a 10 gallon garbage bag. Just thought I'd try it.

Don't know why tub 1 looks green. Mebbe from changing the camera angle to avoid a reflection.
The walls in the bedroom are green, I mean, you know, it's Puerto Rico.

So all those lines are bag wrinkles. Kinda like me.

1) 400g Coir x 2 mL/g= 800 mL hot water 140-160 F. Casing layer
my new multiplier is now 2 mL/g of coir.
The casing layer came to a bit over an inch.
7 September, 2020:Well it's off to the garden with trichoderma.

A/C at night didn't help, just too warm 84 by day, 73 at night.
Shoeboxes went 44 days, perhaps my casing layer was too thick at 1".
Just a quickie...
So I'm gonna dump a couple shoeboxes in the garden.
Trich'd out. 1. Would you just kinda plant the substrates whole?
2. Or break it up and turn it into the soil?Anyway, I'll try again in Nov/Dec when it's only 79!
Forrester said: I'd break it all up, the trich will just eat the shit out of it if left whole and buried. 7 September, 2020: