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PrematureProblem
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[UPDATE] Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled
#28364074 - 06/18/23 06:38 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Hello shroomers,
In an XXL monotub I'm seeing some early pinning (knots became visible on the surface 5 days early from the advised 2 weeks since mixing the colonized grain), and pinned the next day). I read around this forum and some others and the advice I saw was to just remove the lid and get fruiting.
Unfortunately though, my coir does not look like it is colonized enough to remove the cake from the tub. I've given it an additional 6 days but it looks like since the pinning started the mycelium has stopped spreading.
I think the early pinning was caused by too much airflow; once I spotted the pins I noticed that one of the corners of the tub lid was not fully 'clicked' down. Temperatures in my house weren't very stable either, swinging between 23-27C during grain colonization and between 24-30C during substrate colonization.
So, I'm not sure what's the best way to proceed here. Should I just take the lid off of my tub to start fruiting but keep the cake inside, go whole-hog and remove it from the tub, or keep waiting and see what happens? It's been 15 days since mixing the grain/substrate.
Will the (still growing) pins cause problems?
These are z-strain cubes. I don't see any signs of contam, though I do see plenty of bruised pins all over the place.
Thanks in advance, let me know what other information I can provide.
Edited by PrematureProblem (07/07/23 09:32 AM)
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Screwup
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Re: Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled [Re: PrematureProblem]
#28364086 - 06/18/23 06:48 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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PrematureProblem
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Re: Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled [Re: Screwup]
#28364088 - 06/18/23 06:53 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Of course. You can see all 4 sides and the top, here. https://imgur.com/a/A1oOjr1
It looks a lot lighter in the pictures than in person-- photos of cakes from a friend who got the same kit from the same supplier had a much higher myc density. The cake seems solidish when I push up on the bottom of the tub, it holds together, but very spongy and soft (like moist dirt).
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somogyi
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Re: Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled [Re: PrematureProblem]
#28364163 - 06/18/23 09:04 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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From your descriptions and what you've explained, it certainly seems that something has preemptively induced fruiting- likely too much airflow, or temperature stress, as you've stated. Personally, my main concern here would be the blocks integrity upon removal: as you've written, the cake doesn't seem to be fully solidified yet.
From the supplied images, it seems that its far too late to attempt to cease or halt it, and that removing it and inducing proper fruiting conditions would be appropriate- however, obviously, I cant physically observe the blocks condition, this would only be done if you deem it strong enough to do so.
Additionally, the photos display some seemingly healthy, and fairly comprehensive fruiting throughout the tub, which is great, confirming (at least partial) mycelial growth throughout.
Good luck.
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PrematureProblem
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Re: Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled [Re: somogyi]
#28364172 - 06/18/23 09:18 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks, from what you're saying it sounds like trying to fruit them while still in the tub will be the way to go. I'm sure the cake would hold together when removed, but I have strong doubts that it would survive dunking for a second flush if I did so.
Will the mycelium continue trying to colonize / is there a way I can get that to begin happening again? I'm assuming that this early fruiting means that the myc hasn't absorbed the full load of nutrients, and won't yield as many fruit if it doesn't fully colonize?
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PrematureProblem
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Re: Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled [Re: PrematureProblem]
#28364191 - 06/18/23 09:49 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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I guess I have another question, too:
I saw on some other threads, that uncolonised coir could contaminate after the first flush or two. Some threads suggested trying to wash the excess away..
Would that actually be advisable in this case? My guess is that I wouldn't want to risk compromising the integrity of the 'cake', but then I'm not sure how serious the risk of contam is, in comparison.
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PrematureProblem
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Re: Premature pinning-- coir colonization seems to have stalled [Re: PrematureProblem]
#28388169 - 07/07/23 09:06 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Just leaving some info for the next person to google this problem, though I do also have a question for experienced growers.
I ended up waiting an extra week (longer than I wanted but something came up) to see if I could spot any more myc spreading but it didn't seem to be the case, so I settled on opening the tub but leaving the cake inside it so it would fruit from the top. At this point the entire top layer was covered in aborts (I think this would have been a very successful grow if handled better!).
I plucked as many of the aborts as I could to clear the way, using flame sterilized tweezers for the smaller ones. I plucked a total of ~100G undried aborts.
8 days later I got another 100G of fresh fully grown mushrooms with the veils nearly breaking already (on the smaller side compared to what I've seen before, but otherwise healthy.) It's worth noting I screwed up here. The instructions for my kit suggested two 1cm slits and I totally blanked on this and forgot. The Myc at this point had decided to start climbing the stems of its fruits, a good inch up (where was all this activity during the colonization phase??)
At this point the only thing left to do was un-tub the cake and hope it would survive a dunk. I was surprised to see the cake had a decent amount of integrity compared to how I expected. It survived rinsing, dunking for 24h, 1 more rinse and then being transferred back to the fruiting bag along with some light handling. It lost a few corners of mostly-coir. Still very spongy-feeling compared to other cakes I've handled.
It's been 4 more days and I have some fresh pins sprouting but not in any impressive quantity so far. Full disclosure: the top of the cake was not looking so good after plucking the first flush, many aborts still left, some green-blue mycelium which remained from poor plucking of the large shrooms. I sort of panicked I guess and decided that since it had quite a generous casing layer I could shave a little off the top (1-2mm) with a clean knife. The sides of the cake were even worse, since they had shrooms trying to grow the whole time they were tubbed, lots of green and some leftover shroom from where I'd tried to pluck them with tweezers while they were still in the tub, so I shaved 1mm from each side too. I did this pre-dunking.
Edit: One last update, two days later I got another 200G flush from the cake, the myc looks a bit defeated and fuzzy so I've tossed it. That brings the the fruits total to ~400G. The supplier site advertised ~500-1000G total so to say I got 80% of the lower bounds despite the number of mistakes I made and the limited number of flushes, I'm happy.
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Question for growers: Was shaving the cake a poor choice? I mostly did it because I doubted I'd get a second flush and it felt like something to try, but let me know. I also get the impression that after slicing I should maybe have prevented any FAE to maybe encourage the myc to re-form better, but I'm not sure if that's how it works 
For future readers: I regret waiting the extra days before unlidding-- I think the extra time probably just made things worse as aborts kept forming throughout. I also regret not removing it from the tub rather than growing it inside the tub, now that I know it was fairly safe to do so-- I had many shrooms growing from the sides which didn't meet their potential.
Edited by PrematureProblem (07/09/23 11:13 AM)
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