THE LONE SURVIVORThis is a second growlog that is closely related to the one above.
On July 7th I inoculated 5 PF-tek pucks with the same PE syringe I mentioned in the OP. The spores germinated fast and I made 2 transfers from every germ plate to new pucks. I have to admit I like to take clones from these pucks because they usually pin heavily. Even APE pins very well on these without a casing, some pics from a couple years ago:

The problem is that these PE pucks didn't want to pin no matter what. I wasn't too surprised by this, though. Too bad because I was hoping to snatch some easy clones.
40 days in and the pucks didn't even have some sad knots to show so I took the bait, dunked the pucks a few minutes and then applied a crappy casing layer by sprinkling some verm straight out of bag on all pucks and then misted the verm down until dark.
NOTHING... 3 weeks went by after casing and still the pucks didn't want to pin at all. I didn't want to toss them just yet so I just forgot about them.
Lo and behold, on September 12th I was preparing to toss them all when I found this in a puck:

Big phat pin. The only one out of 15 pucks. The Lone Survivor.
4 October.So of course I cloned that bastard. Two transfers in and looking pretty good so I made an
LC today. Nothing to show but some liquid in a weird jar.
12 October.
That's the 300ml LC eight days in. I could use it right now but I'd rather let it go a bit longer so there's more myc. I think it's gonna be ready in 5-6 days.
16 October.

On the left, the 300ml LC I've been posting since the beginning and on the right, a 250ml LC (.2% LME and .1% agar) that I inoculated with the same clone 2 days after I inoculated the first LC.
I wasn't planning on making a second LC so I didn't even posted it. I don't know what I was thinking putting all the eggs in one basket for the growlog so I made the second LC as a backup in case something went wrong with the first one. And thank god I did because shit did indeed happen.
I was trying to aspirate the LC when I realized the tube was completely stuck. It almost never happens but it does happen sometimes and it had to happen for the growlog, right?


Making the backup LC was not in the original plan but now that I had it I was planning on doing a side by side (regular LC versus agar LC) but now it's only going to be the agar LC, bummer.

Have to say it's the first time I'm adding agar to an LC (was inspired by
Nate's TEK, although I used half the agar he says in the tek) and was greatly surprised to see how thoroughly myc colonizes the broth with the help of a bit of agar. There were not uncolonized parts of liquid to be seen like it always happens with regular LC's and myc seems to colonize the broth faster too.
The only drawback is that the agar clouds the liquid big time and I think it would be downright impossible to notice the usual visual signs of contamination in the LC.
Made some nice syringes and inoculated a bunch of jars of wheat.

I ordered the wheat online because the grain I can get locally is horrible stuff. But take a look at this online shit...

Doesn't look good at all and it's so difficult to hydrate. This is the best I could do.


I'm a little bummed with the grain situation but if this wheat doesn't work I will try another.
27 October.

This wheat is giving me shit as I expected.
These are eleven days in and they're not done yet. Shook them at inoculation (I never do that, just wanted to check something out) and then shook again when the LC recovered, and they have received today what I hope will be the last shake.
I don't trust this wheat at all so I'm going to be making another LC with this clone and will use the same wheat I'm using for the first growlog.
Regardless, I hope it works out because I inoculated all those jars you can see in the pic. Don't know what I was thinking going so big with a suspect grain.
3 November.

These are some jars after a last recovery shake. I'm not happy how they're looking. Spawned only 4 jars to CVG (1:2) and made my first ez dialed tub ala Pasty.

Depending on how the spawn behaves in the next few days I'll decide whether or not to spawn the rest of the jars.
8 November.
This is the tub 5 days in. It isn't looking bad but it could look better and it gives off a slightly bacterial smell. I'm going to case it soon.
In the meantime, I'm still holding the rest of the jars in the pic. I'm still not liking the spawn and I'm not very happy how it's performing in the tub, so I may toss these eventually and make some millet spawn instead.
11 November.
Cased it,

Since I can't seem to find plain peat without any additives, I've been using some potting soil for cactus for all my PE grows.
For all of you having the same problem, know that you can use this.
I always get such a nice coverage of the casing and very good surface conditions, myc loves it. The prep is the same as the usual 50/50 peat/verm casing, with lime and gypsum too.
This is the stuff,


Also made a bucket with this clone today, 3qts to CVG (1:2). And another bucket for the first growlog which I won't bump for such a small update.

Also noc'd some millet jars today with the LS clone.
28 November.
I know it's nearly impossible to see them in the pic but we have the first pins starting to pop up.
5 December.
The pinset ain't precisely breathtaking but neither was the spawn, nonetheless I have the impression these fruits are going to be cool when grown out. I still have faith in this clone.
Here's a tub I cased recently, same clone;
8 December.

They have a long way to go yet.
Yield's gonna be shitty but man aren't they purdy.
For reference, this is a 60L tub.
11 December.

First tub of the LS clon done.
Some 3 digit monsters:
17 December.
Here's the LS clone on millet spawn. I think we're going to see pins very soon.
11 January.So the tub looked and smelled fine before casing it and after casing it too (at first) but something weird happened:


The sparse few fruits took too long to pop up and growth is obviously stunted. There's also some fuzz on the caps that looks like some kind of mold, just kept it this long out of curiosity to see what'd do.
These last days the tub was giving off an earthy smell so I was expecting trich at any moment. No trich but some kind of mold started to pop up on the surface (circled in red in the pic), so I had to toss the tub. Broke the sub apart to inspect and it looked and smelled fine. The earthy smell seemed to come from the casing only.
Same issue with the same clone, this time in a bucket:

I'm suspecting the casing. I got lazy and used some jars with casing material that had been sitting for way over a month on a shelf after pasteurization. Had the exact same issue with a tub of KSSS that also got cased with the same old casing material.
These tubs were looking great from the beginning so I was stoked to see how they'd perform from what I thought was better spawn than the spawn used for the previous grow. Guess I'll have to start over.