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Offlinegreenladel


Registered: 05/27/20
Posts: 636
Last seen: 4 months, 13 days
help with pink oysters on straw pellets please
    #28464310 - 09/10/23 12:26 PM (4 months, 16 days ago)

i have been growing pink oysters on straw in buckets and i have decided to make the switch to straw pellets.
my first bucket seems to have stalled. it is almost a week longer than typical (2 weeks in straw for me). i have opened the lid to have a look and growth has definitely started but it is nowhere near where i would expect it to be.

my thoughts:

1. it could be heat? in UK we have had very high temperatures recently and the room they are in may have reached up to 30°C (86°F) or more. the bucket would have been higher than that inside. i know pink oysters like it hot but is that too hot?

2. maybe i packed the pellets in too tight? usually i get around 1kg of straw in this bucket, but with pellets i got maybe around 1.9kg (dry weights).

3. i checked the website where i bought the pellets and it says their pellets are heat and chemically treated to prevent risk of salmonella. i want the heat treatment of course, but would the chemical treatment cause problems? if so would growth have started at all or would it just have never grown?

4. i did not pasteurize the pellets. my goal is to keep things as cheap as possible so i wanted to rely on the heat treatment of the pellets to do the work. i used cold water straight out of the tap.

5. i typically use around 350g of spawn to each bucket. this is a high ratio for 1kg of straw, but for around 1.9kg of pellets it is a little low. but i think i should see an almost fully colonized bucket at this point shouldn't i?


i have started 2 more buckets. one with less substrate in, so it is loosely packed and with a slightly higher spawn ratio, and another where i used boiling water to pasteurize the pellets.
can anybody offer some input on this please?

thank you :heart:


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Offlinespasm666
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Re: help with pink oysters on straw pellets please [Re: greenladel]
    #28465288 - 09/11/23 11:28 AM (4 months, 15 days ago)

I have never grown pinks but straw pellets I've been using almost two years straight.

1. Maybe. Dunno about pinks but 30C sounds hot, I recently had an overheating issue with those temps and too tightly packed incubation. I measured 55C in the center of my bags and they died.

2. Maybe. Hydrated straw pellets pack quite tightly. On the other hand, I pound the long column bags to the floor to get it nice and tight and they colonize just fine in 10-14 days.

3. Maybe. Chemical treatment does not sound good. I've used four different brands of straw pellets and not one of them was chemically treated. Once there was a bad batch with probably some fungicide in it and that was shitty to deal with, but I got some fruit from it too. It is very possible that it starts to colonize but struggles due to the chemicals. This might be the problem, or not, but I suggest finding untreated pellets.

4. I've used cold tap water to hydrate my pellets and not pasteurized in any way and there has been zero issues (I don't supplement the sub). So it should work just fine. BUT the quality of different straw pellets vary a lot, some pellets perform better and some worse.

5. I don't know how much water you used to hydrate your pellets with but I think it should around two or two and half times the weight of pellets. If so, your spawn ratio would be a bit more than 5%, which should be just fine. I use 5% myself and I could do with even less. My 14kg bags colonize in 14 days max every time.

I cannot say what is your issue but firstly I suspect the chemically treated pellets. Secondly the packing and/or the temps. Number 4 and 5 I don't think are problematic. I would try different brand of pellets with no chemicals and see if it helps.

I hope this helps. And please note my experience is not on pinks, but regular oysters.


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Offlinegreenladel


Registered: 05/27/20
Posts: 636
Last seen: 4 months, 13 days
Re: help with pink oysters on straw pellets please [Re: spasm666]
    #28467464 - 09/13/23 10:57 AM (4 months, 13 days ago)

thank you
i will see how the other tubs do but i will use another supplier for pellets next time. even if these do grow i don't think i want to risk eating them or selling them to others to eat (that is my goal in the long run).

i also wonder if i am adding enough water. i added 1.7 times the water, so maybe that is too dry. i added it slowly and it felt like field capacity, but my judgement of field capacity is probably wrong.

i will let the new tubs grow out and see what happens. i also have a bag going with some extra that would not fit in the tubs, so i can see what is going on in there. so far it appears to be growing, but i have not decided if i will eat them yet if it gets that far :smile:

thank you for the help, much appreciated :heart:


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Offlinespasm666
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Re: help with pink oysters on straw pellets please [Re: greenladel]
    #28467501 - 09/13/23 11:24 AM (4 months, 13 days ago)

Most likely that chemical will not pass on to the fruitbodies unless it contains some heavy metals, but yeah I think you'd be better off with untreated pellets anyway.

I use 18 liters of water to 10kg of straw pellets. The optimal amount varies a little depending on the pellets. You mentioned you added water slowly, but did you give the pellets time to absorb the water? I used to let the pellets hydrate for an hour or two but now I've switched to let them hydrate overnight and spawn in the morning. And in the end you should not depend on a feel of field capacity, it is better to calculate the moisture content or measure it with the microwave tek. 60% is good.

Best of luck!


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Offlinegreenladel


Registered: 05/27/20
Posts: 636
Last seen: 4 months, 13 days
Re: help with pink oysters on straw pellets please [Re: spasm666]
    #28467545 - 09/13/23 12:00 PM (4 months, 13 days ago)

i added the water and broke it all apart with my hands for about 15 minutes. 1.7x was the lowest ratio i saw, so i started there and it felt okay first time so i did not try to add more. i will do some experiments with that too.
i am not familiar with the microwave tek, but i will search for it.
thank you


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Offlinespasm666
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Re: help with pink oysters on straw pellets please [Re: greenladel]
    #28468728 - 09/14/23 10:56 AM (4 months, 12 days ago)

Here's the microwave tek: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/26632628
Basically you just make sub and dry it in a microwave too see what's the moisture content % of it.

15min sounds very little time for expanding the pellets. The pellets vary a lot but I've never seen full expansion in 15min. You may want to try an hour or two at least, that way you don't have to break anything apart with your hands either. Just wait and it will all break into nice fluff when you mix in the spawn (you can add 1,5-2% of chalk too to lower the pH more suitable for the mycelium and less suitable for mold). 1,7 x water should be quite close, maybe a bit on the dry side but not critically.

No problem, glad if I can help even a bit :smile:


Edited by spasm666 (09/14/23 10:57 AM)


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