Home | Community | Message Board


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Mushroom-Hut Liquid Cultures   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   North Spore Bulk Substrate

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
First grow - how are these looking?
    #26943510 - 09/19/20 04:20 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Hey all,

This is my first grow, and while I think everything looks fine, I'm seeing some minor things that's been making me paranoid and anxious, so I wanted to get some more experienced eyes on my tub.

I'm using an unmodified tub, and have been having to mist pretty often in order to keep surface conditions having visible beads of moisture.

Due to this, I'm concerned I might be over-misting, but am having a tough time telling apart a overly-saturated / waterlogging mushroom from a normal one, as I again have no previous grows under my belt.

Picture of whole tub; one with flash, one without:


Do these look over-misted?

The stems on a lot of the fruits have also begun to turn dark. Is this normal, or is this an indication of waterlogging? Here's two pictures of the same mushroom; again with and without flash:


It's more obvious on the second picture, where a flash is used.


Furthermore, some dark spots have appeared on a small number of caps. My research on here has left me concluding it's simply caused by water drops falling from the lid and onto the cap, thus "bruising" it. My lid did have heavy pooling on it due to over-misting it, so this makes sense, and I have since fixed it. They don't smell bad, and the rest of the mushroom looks normal, so I don't think it's rotting. Please let me know if you disagree with this conclusion.
Close up of discolored caps:

Discolorations circled:



The veil has broken on two of my mushrooms, however, both these two fruits and the whole tub itself seem a bit underdeveloped for this to be happening already. The whole tub is from a MS syringe - do these specific mushrooms just have bad genetics, causing them to be small?

Better-ish picture of the main offender:

It's hard to tell scale from the picture, but this mushroom is 3ish inches tall.


Finally, upon feeling the caps of the mushrooms, they all feel slimly, despite looking dry. Granted; they were misted recently when I felt them, but all the visible water had evaporated off / been absorbed. Normally a slimy feeling cap indicates bacteria - but my caps don't have any visible slime on them, unlike the mushroom in this picture off a contamination thread, where there's a very obvious coating of visible slime on it:

Does this mean they're fine? They feel slimy, but don't look slimy. Do fresh mushrooms usually feel wet and slimy? I know mushrooms are ~93% water, so sorry if this is a dumb question, lol.

Thanks in advance guys; I really value hearing other people's opinions.


Edited by MikeSelium (09/19/20 04:28 AM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineForresterM
aspiring sociopath
Male User Gallery

Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA Flag
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
Trusted Cultivator
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26943516 - 09/19/20 04:33 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Mist less for sure!

You have a lot of mushroom there that's why they're smaller.  And yes, genetics from MS.


--------------------
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.
-------------------

Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them?  Try this double extraction method.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: Forrester]
    #26943533 - 09/19/20 04:50 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

My understanding was to mist whenever the mushrooms look dry - should I instead be feeling them to see if they're dry?

Keeping moisture up during colonization was a lot easier than it is now. It seems like now, within an hour, all my misting has been absorbed or evaporated, even though my FAE has remained constant.

I made a thread about this yesterday but am still struggling. How to mist maturing fruitbodies in general is still a weak area of mine and is tripping me up. Any advice?


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineForresterM
aspiring sociopath
Male User Gallery

Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA Flag
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
Trusted Cultivator
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26943536 - 09/19/20 04:51 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Just stop misting entirely and let the mushrooms grow.  There's enough moisture in there.


--------------------
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.
-------------------

Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them?  Try this double extraction method.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: Forrester]
    #26943554 - 09/19/20 05:15 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Are you generally supposed to stop misting completely once the pins start to noticeably mature, unless the substrate itself starts to dry out, or are you supposed to continue misting throughout the whole grow, but just not overmist it like I did?


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineCrashTest
Stay Learning


Registered: 06/21/20
Posts: 623
Last seen: 7 months, 17 days
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26943560 - 09/19/20 05:24 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

The only real purpose of misting is to suspend tiny droplets on the myc surface to encourage evaporation which is a pinning trigger. If your sub is properly hydrated to field capacity once you see pins you really don’t need to continue misting. Shrooms are full of water anyway, probably about 90% water


--------------------
:mushroom2: this account is automated, any posts related to activities or advice thereof are strictly opinions from numerous online sites and are for informational purposes only - CrashTest2020:mushroom2:



Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: CrashTest]
    #26943569 - 09/19/20 05:38 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Ah, I see. In which case I've been heavily over-misting...

All things are learning opportunities, I suppose. Luckily it looks like I should still get a very good yeild out of these, especially for it being my first ever grow.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineA.k.aM
Stranger
 User Gallery


Registered: 10/27/19
Posts: 16,816
Loc: Gaming the system
Last seen: 3 hours, 34 minutes
Trusted Cultivator
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26943610 - 09/19/20 06:23 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Damn man that’s a monster first grow :thumbup:

Rest assured whatever you’re doing is working lol. The shrooms are so thick now that nothing is reaching the surface anyway and just sitting on the caps causing blotching. The stems look great.

It’s definitely going to suck up water after you harvest with a flush like that.


--------------------
LAGM2020


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: A.k.a]
    #26943617 - 09/19/20 06:29 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Thanks man, means a lot. I read up and studied for months before even starting; I'm glad to see it pay off.

And yeah, I think it was a combination of the mist not being able to reach the surface because of the dense growth, and then because of that, me over-compensating by misting even more.

One more question: should I increase FAE to try to dry out the excess moisture the mushrooms absorbed, or should I just keep the same FAE and let the mushrooms figure themselves out?

They don't seem significantly waterlogged, so I'm leaning on just ignoring them from now until harvest... thoughts?


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineA.k.aM
Stranger
 User Gallery


Registered: 10/27/19
Posts: 16,816
Loc: Gaming the system
Last seen: 3 hours, 34 minutes
Trusted Cultivator
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26943627 - 09/19/20 06:53 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

You could try it but I wouldn’t change anything, they don’t look starved for air at all.

I’d be worried about drying it out but they’re actually so far along there won’t be time so you could increase the air til harvest if you want.


--------------------
LAGM2020


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinefragrantdiscipline
LostWanderer


Registered: 01/02/20
Posts: 32
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26943704 - 09/19/20 08:20 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

It is possible to be too wet or too dry. The need for moisture is important to the mycellium, not the mushrooms. Look at the in the wild process. Heavy rain, long periods of rain result in mushroom growth after the rains. It's also why Bod can soak his entire substrate in water bringing it to the top of his bins to harvest the fruits and then pump out the excess for a second round of pinning. It's also why cakes get soaked for 24hrs before fruiting.

However, if your substrate isn't wet enough you might run into an issue where you have enough moisture for the mycellium to start pinning, but dry out during the fruiting resulting in stunted growth. Without enough moisture in the substrate the fruits will stop growing. Add more water they will continue their growth, assuming you didn't wait too long.


--------------------
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand in a desperate land.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: fragrantdiscipline]
    #26944843 - 09/19/20 08:06 PM (3 years, 4 months ago)

I thought I'd update everyone with my final results, in case any fellow noobs stumble across this thread so they can learn from my mistakes.

I woke up this morning to see half the tub not only veil breaking, but their caps also flattening out - a mere 9 hours after these pictures were originally posted. I was not expecting them to veil break for at least another day or two, and their explosive growth towards the end really surprised me and caught me off guard. Nonetheless, I was able to harvest them all, and none had begun dropping spores yet, so I'm not too concerned.

However, where only a few mushrooms were showing signs of significant waterlogging in the original pictures, a lot more of them developed into waterlogged fruits. This is odd, as I didn't mist any more after posting the original pictures, but I guess that just goes to show how much I over-misted them originally. None of them looked infected with bacteria (and regardless, are going into a dehydrator for 8 hours, so any small amounts of bacteria are going to be killed off), but obviously this was still somewhat undesirable.

Having them waterlogged is probably going to make them be a higher percentage of water by weight, so while my yields were probably affected a little bit, I don't think it was anything major. I still had a massive flush, having to completely jam pack a four tray dehydrator to fit them all in, and I expect it's going to take well over 10 hours to them fully dry due to this. I'll update this thread to include the final dried weight once they finish.

Finally, I harvested with a knife, but didn't cut nearly close enough to the base, so a lot of stumps remain. Also, while trying to remove the block to drain the water, I completely broke my block in half, and then partially broke one of the halves in half again. I'm fully expecting contamination to feed off the stumps once they start to rot, and given the block has also been substantially injured, I don't expect a very good second flush, if I even get one at all. Regardless, my first flush was more than enough for me to be happy with.

If any experienced growers are reading this, do blocks that get completely split in half generally recover? Also, am I correct in assuming contamination will start to feed off the stumps soon, before a second flush can be achieved?


Edited by MikeSelium (09/21/20 03:58 AM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineForresterM
aspiring sociopath
Male User Gallery

Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA Flag
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
Trusted Cultivator
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26945511 - 09/20/20 04:46 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Nice first grow, I bet you're quite happy with that harvest, I would be!

The broken up block does not need to recover, it will fruit from from the pieces just fine, it doesn't care that you broke it.  I think most of us have done the same.

The stumps won't rot any more than shorter ones would have.  They just turn back into mycelium, so you're good there as well.


--------------------
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.
-------------------

Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them?  Try this double extraction method.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: Forrester]
    #26947171 - 09/21/20 03:57 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Here's a picture of the block 1.5 days after harvest:



As you can see, I left pretty high stumps in most areas, had no choice but to cut a bunch of pins while harvesting because everything was so dense, and accidently ripped up a pretty large area of substrate by experimenting with twisting and tearing a monster cluster of mushrooms (top right). A few pins have popped up in the last day, but most of them are aborting (I had zero aborts on my first flush). It's probably due to the fact that I dunked and started misting again, so they got way too much water again... do I need to start misting again after I dunk to trigger new pins, or is the dunk itself sufficient?

Also, you're right, the stumps are reverting! I see fuzziness at the bases of some stumps. Given they're so big / thick, I imagine it's going to take awhile for them to fully revert. Also, because the stumps are so thick and abundant, it's blocking pins from forming where the stumps are (which is basically everywhere). Hopefully this sorts itself out.

I'll admit I fucked up harvesting pretty bad, and I wouldn't be surprised if it never significantly recovers. But, I'm also in completely uncharted territory with this being my first grow, so I'll hope you're right in that it'll be able to recover and produce a good second flush.

Thanks for all the advice / information.


For those that are curious, I dried them for 16 hours. They were done at 10 hours, but I wanted to really make sure they were 0% water so let them go while I slept.

Final dried weight came out to be 158.2 grams dry. Wow.


Edited by MikeSelium (09/21/20 04:08 AM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineA.k.aM
Stranger
 User Gallery


Registered: 10/27/19
Posts: 16,816
Loc: Gaming the system
Last seen: 3 hours, 34 minutes
Trusted Cultivator
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: MikeSelium]
    #26947301 - 09/21/20 07:03 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Yeah those are a little thick for stumps but whatever. I bet you about nut your pants cutting this thing down. My first harvest I couldn’t believe how big the pile of shrooms was and I hadn’t even made a dent in the canopy yet.


Over 5oz is awesome. How much spawn is in there?


Everything seems normal so far, I don’t think you over hydrated it cuz it probably needed a lot after a flush that size.


Now you’re hooked on cult forever.
:super:


--------------------
LAGM2020


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMikeSelium
armchair mycologist

Registered: 07/14/20
Posts: 20
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
Re: First grow - how are these looking? [Re: A.k.a]
    #26948037 - 09/21/20 03:48 PM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Oh, definitely. My 4 tray dehydrator was 100% packed to the brim. There was zero spacing in between mushrooms; it was literally a giant pile consisting of 4+ layers of mushrooms per tray. I was scared it was going to start a fire because the dehydrator physically couldn't push air through all the layers at first. I had to fill a half gallon mason jar full of water as a weight to keep the thing closed, and even then it wasn't enough to fully compress all the trays until the mushroom started losing water weight.

As for spawn, I used 2 quarts of dry white millet; once hydrated and sterlized it expanded to ~4.875 quarts of spawn. (I used 3 separate half gallon mason jars, each were a tad over the 6 cup marking line, making ~19.5 cups in total volume).

I used a 650 gram coir brick + 2 qt vermiculite + ¼ cup gypsum + 4 qt of boiling water for my substrate.

For my 66qt tub, the substrate + spawn depth came out to be ~3.5 inches.

I attribute all my success to religiously following GordoTEK's mushroom cultivation video on YouTube. His TEK is an accumulation of all general knowledge / consensuses from here on Shroomery. I subsidized any gaps in knowledge with more research from these forums, and this was the result.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Mushroom-Hut Liquid Cultures   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   North Spore Bulk Substrate


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* When to harvest...different opinions... bighongkong 4,867 11 08/25/18 10:23 AM
by Caps McGee
* Waterlogged/fuzzy cakes saveable? Danimal 3,041 7 07/25/02 10:30 AM
by psilocybinjunkie
* Complete Professional Growing Tek
( 1 2 3 all )
bluhoney 21,895 42 01/03/23 12:50 PM
by stemseed
* What to do if the substrate is waterlogged? Jorsher 2,125 7 09/08/06 07:08 PM
by hyphae
* What is waterlogged? LTBOOMER 1,967 2 05/15/02 07:36 PM
by angryshroom
* FIRST HARVEST! PICS!! These look OK? AreA 4,454 7 04/19/02 02:03 AM
by AreA
* to harvest or not to harvest? (pics) archnut 3,151 2 06/27/02 06:31 AM
by archnut
* First Harvest Question OKKuato 1,931 4 11/23/02 05:50 PM
by kykeon

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Shroomism, george castanza, RogerRabbit, veggie, mushboy, fahtster, LogicaL Chaos, 13shrooms, Stipe-n Cap, Pastywhyte, bodhisatta, Tormato, Land Trout, A.k.a
326 topic views. 24 members, 180 guests and 63 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.029 seconds spending 0.006 seconds on 12 queries.