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OfflineDask
Stranger
Registered: 04/26/18
Posts: 11
Last seen: 1 year, 10 months
How I fixed my contamination problem * 1
    #27022581 - 11/05/20 04:28 AM (3 years, 3 months ago)

I'm writing this to let people know how I dealt with my serious trichoderma contamination problem in the hopes that it will help other growers.

I have had between 15-25 monotubs running at any given time over the past few months and without fail trichoderma will pop up just before the first flush on almost every single monotub. It's been frustrating to say the least, considering I had numerous successful monotub grows under my belt before upsizing to my current setup. Not only did I have to bin most of the tubs before even getting a single flush, but the flushes I did get were sparse and the mushrooms were small. The feeling of adhering to sterile technique (I work in front of a flow hood) waiting for grains to colonise, spawning tubs and waiting for tubs to colonise, only for the green devil of trich to come and detroy all your hard work is a pain I will not easily forget.

Now, enough whining. Onto what I changed to deal with the contamination and where I'm at now:

(1) No more taping up holes with duct tape during colonisation. This was the biggest factor. As soon as tubs were spawned I put them into fruiting condtions by covering the holes with breathable micropore tape. With my previous tubs, complete colonisation took about 15 days and the substrate appeared to never fully colonise even beyond that. It would get close, but there would be patches of uncolonised coir. I believe that the uncolonised coir was one factor that allowed trichoderma spores to germinate and eventually colonise the entire tub.

Moreover, by taping the holes with micropore tape, rather than duct tape, my colonisation time dropped to 7-8 days. The mycelium loved the increased FAE and colonised the substrate much faster and growth appeared thicker and healthier.

I believe that the increased FAE also led to greater evaporation on the surface of the substrate, meaning surface water did not pool and stagnate. This was something I definitely noticed in past grows: even though the substrate was at field capacity, water would pool on the surface and create prime breeding grounds for potential contaminants.

(2) Using coir only, rather than coir and verm. I know a lot of people have success using coir and verm and I might cop some flack for this, but since I do not properly pasteurise my substrate (using the bucket tek instead) verm is adding another slight risk of contamination. For me, in my apparently contamination prone environment, I don't think the slight added nutrition is worth the risk. I may decide to add verm back in the future and compare results, but I do not think the benefits justify the risk.

(3) Adding a casing layer. I had read from many sources that a casing layer was unecessary for bulk substrates (i.e. monotubs) and especially with psilocybe cubensis. So I avoided using one. In my last grow, however, I decided to add a pseudo-casing layer by saving some of the coir in the bucket and sprinkling it over the mixed grain spawn and coir until all grains were covered. This made a massive difference. I noticed that pins developed relatively evenly across the surface of the substrate, rather than popping up at different times in different areas of the tub, as I observed to be the case in uncased tubs. The casing layer was very thin (just enough to cover any exposed grains) but I believe it created an optimal microclimate for the development of pins.

So, those are the 3 changes I have implemented to go from just about every tub contaminating before the first flush to zero out of the fifteen current tubs contaminating. Fruits are looking healthier than ever and harvests are bigger than ever. I feel like I have finally begun to develop my mycologist's green thumb through a lot of trial and error and things are finally beginning to go my way. I'm so excited to see how things progress.

Here's the latest tub, which I'm very happy with considering past failures:



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Offlinesmoot
Stranger
Registered: 06/28/19
Posts: 13
Last seen: 5 months, 21 days
Re: How I fixed my contamination problem [Re: Dask]
    #27022609 - 11/05/20 05:02 AM (3 years, 3 months ago)

Congrats! Though I do think you're giving yourself too little credit. You mention a lot of changes to your boxes, but I think the real difference was made in your clean work.

The changes you listed (aside from nixing the duct tape) likely didn't do much to help your battle with the green. It's likely that your sterile tek has simply gotten better. Even working in front of a hood, it's possible to make  mistakes. You mentioned you had 15-25 tubs green out before first flush, I'd put my money on bad spawn combined with too little FAE.

Verm doesn't provide any extra nutrition, it's only there to hold additional moisture. Coir doesn't typically contam on its own, meaning the green had to start somewhere with more nutrients (your grain).


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OfflineDask
Stranger
Registered: 04/26/18
Posts: 11
Last seen: 1 year, 10 months
Re: How I fixed my contamination problem [Re: smoot]
    #27022630 - 11/05/20 05:33 AM (3 years, 3 months ago)

Nope, it wasn't a difference in my clean work. The grain bags that I used for both last grow (15 tubs which all contaminated) and this grow (15 tubs, none of which contaminated) were inoculated using the same liquid culture syringes. I used the same procedure for all the bags. Yet all in the first grow contaminated, and none in the second did. It's not the spawn.

Some grain bags just happened to colonise slightly faster than others and were therefore used in the first grow. The ONLY things that I changed between grows were the points mentioned above.

I am only too well aware of the proclaimed un-contaminability of coir, which makes it even more exasperating when everything contams  :biggrin:

Also, I have heard varying opionions on the nutritional properties of verm. RR has said that verm has nutritional properties for fungi. I've read other trusted cultivators that don't believe it does.


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Offlinesmalltalk_canceled
Babnik
 User Gallery

Registered: 07/13/20
Posts: 2,872
Last seen: 1 day, 30 minutes
Re: How I fixed my contamination problem [Re: Dask]
    #27022664 - 11/05/20 06:07 AM (3 years, 3 months ago)

Sp its possible to get 15 mold and 15 clean transfers from the same lc?


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Willpower is the one true virtue



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InvisibleTheMadHatter420
Trusted Farmer


Registered: 10/12/16
Posts: 12,941
Re: How I fixed my contamination problem [Re: smalltalk_canceled]
    #27022675 - 11/05/20 06:21 AM (3 years, 3 months ago)

Bacterial spawn can produce if given proper FAE. BUT 100% clean spawn will not trich out due to low FAE. I always use Mp tape on my tape holes and masking tape on the bottom holes for colonization. Good spawn should be fully colonized in 4-5 days. With low FAE clean spawn will be done in very fast time.

Keep doing what your doing, but also work on your clean work, never stop trying to get better at your clean work.

O yea over wet subs will Trich out fast as fuck. So with a tub taped up tight, you keep things wet and soggy, which encourages Trich to grow. But having MP tape on holes helps to dry the sub a little bit, which decreases conditions that Trich likes to grow in. Shrooms will grow with less H2O, but as H2O increases and things get soggy, the conditions then favor Trich, and slow down shroom mycelium growth. Trich likes wetter conditions than shrooms. There is an overlap where the conditions can work for both.

This is why I add dry vermiculite to my prepped coir, squeezing as I go, so to dial in the sub moisture to where it benefits shrooms over Trich. You should be able ot give a handful a TIGHT squeeze and get only a little water out, no stream, just drops of water.

Glad you figured out enough to get shrooms. I was once in your boat and it sucked donkey balls, so I know your pain. Now I run on farm mode, lol. :grin:


--------------------
JOIN THE POW WOW


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OfflineAbabyphoenix
You
I'm a teapot User Gallery


Registered: 03/21/19
Posts: 1,015
Loc: Human Body
Last seen: 10 days, 22 hours
Re: How I fixed my contamination problem [Re: Dask]
    #27022788 - 11/05/20 08:13 AM (3 years, 3 months ago)

:thumbup:
I like this.


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:sporedrop::aum:Pho's MushiAventures::aum::sporedrop:
:heartpump:My '21 GLOG:heartpump:
:peace: LAGM 2022 :peace:



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