I have been interested in growing mushrooms for a couple of years, but like many, the process seemed overwhelming. In January, I finally took the plunge, ordered two spore syringes from a forum sponsor (B+ and Malabar), and started my growing journey. Following are the results.
BACKGROUND After reading a number of threads, it became apparent that using agar is the best way to isolate consistent organisms to grow as spawn. I have a background in biology and my job involves some sterile manipulation in hoods, so luckily sterile technique was easy for me.
EQUIPMENT I used Bod's TEKs almost exclusively as I had no clue what I was doing. I used malt extract for my agar. I sterilized my agar using an instant pot. I have read differing opinions regarding instant pots and whether they are sufficient for sterilization. I didn't have any problems. Certainly I got some contamination on my agar plates, but I feel that was likely from my carelessness in transferring agar rather than the instant pot itself. I made a total of 5 or 6 transfers to isolate clones as best I could. Again, I was a bit nervous as to 1) how to recognize contamination and 2) how I would know when I had isolated enough. Luckily, both answers became pretty obvious once I had enough Petri dishes growing. You start to "see" what healthy mycelium looks like and once you have isolated enough, your growth is nearly circular and symmetrical. It's really a beautiful thing. Once I was satisfied with my isolates, it was time to prepare the spawn. I once again turned to Bod's oat spawn TEK, primarily for its simplicity. The fewer variables I created, the quicker I would hopefully be able to learn from my mistakes. For this, I used a large pressure cooker and put agar slices with the grain in glass canning jars with Polyfill in holes in the lid. I found out that this process takes ~1 month for the jars to fully colonize, and the top of the jar occasionally starts to form pins by the time the jar is completely colonized. I for sure will try liquid culture next time to speed up this process. Up to this time, about 5 months had elapsed, and I was getting excited - I was finally near harvest time. I bought two 60 qt clear totes to use as monotubs. I used Bod's unmodified TEK combined with his recommendations for using coir as a substrate for simplicity and to minimize variables so I could learn and hopefully improve my process. The Malabars colonized the grain jars about a week quicker than the B+, so they were spawned into the coir first. Per Bod's TEK, I used 650g of coir with 5-6 qt of oat spawn, flipped the lid upside-down, and misted with water once or twice daily. Results of the first flush of Malabars:



This made about ~150g dried Malabars. I got two more flushes before contamination took over and I was able to get some spore prints.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any pictures of the first grow of the B+, but they didn't colonize as nicely as the Malabars. I also got three flushes out of them before contamination took over.
I had no idea if anything was actually going to grow in my monotubs, so I kept a set of clean Petri dishes containing my isolates in the fridge to use if the grow went sour. I used those dishes for a second set of grows.
Results of the second grow, Flush 1 of Malabars:


Results of the second grow, Flush 1 of B+:


One thing to note: the B+ mycelium in the first set of spawn jars I grew had a blue tinge in a number of jars. For a while, I was really unsure as to whether it was contamination or not, but everything ended up growing in the monotubs and it definitely smelled like mushrooms. They were upstairs in our house, so I feel like the mycelium got stressed from the warm temperatures (this was in the early summer). The second set of jars I grew did not have this problem.
So there you have it. First experience growing mushrooms was a resounding success, I think.
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