Auto-SummaryThe post discusses the pros and cons of using Uncle Ben's (UB) rice tek for growing mushrooms compared to PF tek. The author appreciates kind and civil discussions on the forum and acknowledges that UB can yield good results, but it is less reliable and can lead to more failures than PF tek. They emphasize the importance of learning the finer details of mushroom cultivation rather than relying on UB as a "miracle tek." The author also notes that PF tek is generally more cost-effective and produces higher-quality results.
thank you curious thinker, it genuinely warmed my heart to read that (: i just try to be encouraging & point people in the right direction. like i said, a little kindness & civility goes a long way, whether that's on this forum or in real life. i really appreciate hearing that, so thank you. i'm glad i could help even just a little.
(just for the record, it's "he" but i'm comfortable enough with my feminine side to not care either way, my masculinity isn't that fragile lol. just don't call me late to dinner ;D)
yeah, to be completely fair i was totally just spitballing at the success rate when i was typing that examples. i've just seen a lot of fails or people coming here to ask why their shit was going south when using uncle bens (or shooting spores directly to grains/presterilized substrates etc. essentially the same as UB), & the answer is always just "yeah it's kinda sketch to do that. sorry." people are very much about consistency & reliability here, & while someone who is just starting out may be ok with having to toss 3-6 out of their 10 bags, a lot of people here would hate to have to throw out 30-50% of their jars every time they put agar to grain. of course, there's a big difference between someone brand new getting their feet wet & someone who's been growing for awhile trying to perfect their craft & get solid consistent results. i think that was (or should have been, anyways) part of the initial purpose of this thread as well.
that first tub is actually killer!! fuck what the rest say, that's a solid flush. i've for sure seen more sparse MS grows doing things the "proper" way, both in my own growing experience & from pictures on this forum. the other two aren't horribly shabby, & i'm sure at least part of them lacking in comparison to that first pic can be chalked up to general MS weirdness. i think those pics are exactly what weavy was looking for when starting this thread, so it's good to see more actually posted in here. i will say that to a new grower, bacterial contamination is hard to spot & i think a lot of bags are bacterial without people realizing it since they don't necessarily have the experience to realize it. i'm definitely not saying all of them are, or that all of yours were or anything, but it's something even experienced cultivators will miss from time to time. practically every UB bag i've has had some sort of bacterial contamination going on. that being said, i know first hand that you can get some kick ass flushes from bacterial or less than stellar spawn, which i think leads to a disconnect. people using UB see mushrooms & go "see, it works!" without realizing their spawn isn't truly clean & then wonder why they got contamination in their tub somewhere along the line. sometimes you get lucky with bacteria, sometimes you get fucked. i'm in the camp that having any mushrooms is better than no mushrooms, but the results can be pretty variable when it comes to sketchy spawn.
just out of curiosity, did any of those tubs contaminate at any point? that's usually a tell tale sign that there was something funky afoot in the spawn, even if you get a flush or two. just curious; either way, you clearly got a decent amount of mushrooms from the whole affair. i think you probably did a bit more in terms of your sterile work by even just using an SAB. i would venture to guess there's a bit more of a failure rate from people doing it in open air, but that's just speculation on my part.
full discolsure, my first (& only) PF tubs were god awful, & my first few grows using agar & grains weren't exactly great either. like that first tub is better than anything i grew for a solid year or so lol. though, my PF tubs only sucked because i opened them like 12 times a day & i didn't know what surface conditions were lol. they never contam'd out even after flush 3, they were just hella dry & didn't perform well because of that, so i know the spawn was clean. but when i first got into grains & agar i def ran into a learning curve, & it was a bit before i started to get pretty consistent results.
i agree, it can be really hard to have a discussion about disagreements without it devolving into some kindergarten bullshit, just in general. i'm in the USA too & it's just so pathetic on both sides of the political spectrum, & ends up with no one getting anywhere. i think that kind of stuff is just in human nature. i reread the posts in here & you've been nothing but civil, you've given thoughtful responses & i think it's added some good perspective to the thread for anyone who actually took the time to read them. if someone were to ask me the best way to start out, i still wouldn't recommend UB, but i do see what you're saying. it's definitely not the best way to go about it IMO, & i would implore anyone who actually wants to dive into the hobby to either start with better tek or graduate from it after they try it & actually do some learning & understand that there are better ways to do things, but when it comes to getting your feet wet, i do understand why people feel it would be easier to just shove a syringe into a premade bag than it would be to have to make up jars, even if the PF tek really isn't that much more work in reality.
regarding the success of PF tek, it's completely anecdotal, but i see far less jars that are absolutely fucked vs the amount of UB bags or spore to grain/presterilized bags that are either gnarly or unusable, & i think that's a large part of why people are so quick to talk shit on uncle bens. it's not that you can't get mushrooms; you clearly can get some mushrooms with it. it's more that having to throw away a bunch of bags or ending up with shitty grows even 30% of the time is just inherently less successful than PF tends to be in terms of getting good spawn from your spore syringes. sometimes PF jars fail for one reason or another or end up mildly bacterial, but in my (again, anecdotal) experience, there just seem to be far less that are completely unusable. i think coversall summed it up pretty nicely on the first page with this post:
Quote:
The tek can work, and can work fine. It's a standard approach of grain to coir. The big caveat and the reason it isn't liked here is that it promotes spores to grain and doesn't provide the opportunity to learn how to make spawn. It's a fine way of throwing spores at rice and crossing your fingers. You might get a canpoy, but you might get a bag of mold/bacteria, the issue is that you have very little way of controling for this. If you're not bothered or not too fussed about learning the finer details of mushroom cultivation then no sweat. If you want to have a better level of control over your grows and want to learn then it is not the best tek to follow imo.
i still think it's kinda ridiculous to try & say that PF tek is somehow more inaccessible or expensive than UBs just because realistically a pack of jars (or shit, even some old jam jars you have lying around) shouldn't break the bank, & if it does i think you've got bigger fish to fry than worrying about mushroom cultivation lol (not that you specifically were saying this, but just something i've seen mentioned by proponents of UB vs PF tek). if anything having to throw away even just a few bags is "wasting" more money both on the rice itself & the spore syringe than if you were to get a 90-100% success rate with PF tek since you're getting more bang for your buck out of the syringe & the other shit you bought. obviously none of this actually matters, as who really cares if you're out $15 from a small scale attempt of failed bags, but i guess in the theoretical argument of cost effectiveness, it's always going to be better to fully utilize the syringe if that makes sense. also, if you keep doing it & keep failing, even partly, that cost adds up between bags & syringes. i think another problem people here have is that people don't wanna seem to move on from UB/WBR even when they are having issues with it & are suggested alternatives. i agree that it's just a good thing to get people stoked on the hobby, & even a shitty bag of rice can make someone realize they actually really love cultivation & nurturing something. it's more just acknowledging it's way more of a gamble & is only a part of the picture when it comes to learning how to cultivate mushrooms instead of promoting it as an end all-be all miracle tek like it tends to be amongst beginners.
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