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HawaiiMama
Stranger
Registered: 10/22/23
Posts: 2
Last seen: 14 days, 23 hours
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Strange experience with vendor (PNW)
#28514497 - 10/22/23 05:38 PM (3 months, 5 days ago) |
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This is my first post, so many apologies in advance for all the mistakes I'm sure I'm making, but I wanted to share my experience and see if anyone in this community has ever seen anything similar.
On July 15, 2023, I purchased syringes of spores for gourmet mushrooms from PNW Spore Co. Lions Mane, Enoki, and Blue Oyster. I inoculated bags of wood-based substrate with the Lion's Mane and Enoki spores, and the bags developed as expected with no contamination or issues.

Everything seemed fine, although attempting to induce fruiting for the Lion's mane seemed more difficult than I anticipated. The bag was fully colonized with mycelium but stalled, and I had to completely rehydrate the block it before it would pin. I have read so many people say Lion's mane often starts to fruit before you even get the bag open, so I was surprised when mine didn't, even though I live in Hawaii where the proper temperatures and humidity for fruiting exist naturally without the need for much adjusting.
Now I have a fruiting bag, of... something? Something that clearly isn't Lion's mane. I have no idea what I'm growing, but I have two bags of substrate fruiting some unexpected mushrooms that developed from the syringe of spores PNW labeled "Lion's Mane."

I wrote them a couple of days ago and sent pics, but I haven't gotten a response.
What are these? The closest thing I can see online is Chestnut mushrooms, but I'm not comfortable using fungi I don't have 100% verification on.
Has this ever happened to anyone? I was under the impression that PNW was a very reliable vendor.
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Stipe-n Cap


Registered: 08/04/12
Posts: 7,623
Loc: Canada
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Re: Strange experience with vendor (PNW) (moved) [Re: HawaiiMama]
#28514508 - 10/22/23 05:55 PM (3 months, 4 days ago) |
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This thread was moved from Mushroom Cultivation.
Reason: Here you go, chum.
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deadmandave
Slime


Registered: 02/16/10
Posts: 3,355
Loc:
Last seen: 4 hours, 1 minute
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Re: Strange experience with vendor (PNW) (moved) [Re: Stipe-n Cap]
#28514747 - 10/22/23 09:18 PM (3 months, 4 days ago) |
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Chestnuts for sure. Nice job fruiting them, they can be finicky and take a long time.
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HawaiiMama
Stranger
Registered: 10/22/23
Posts: 2
Last seen: 14 days, 23 hours
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Re: Strange experience with vendor (PNW) (moved) [Re: deadmandave]
#28514753 - 10/22/23 09:26 PM (3 months, 4 days ago) |
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I appreciate it because they WERE finicky, and I was pretty sure I would lose them for a while! Rehydrating the block seemed to kick things back in the right direction, but I was totally unprepared for what I saw when the pins started forming.
I'm sad to have to restart the Lion's Mane project, but I guess I'll look deeper into Chestnuts and see what I can do with them. It looks like I'll have a decent amount by the time they finish up. Definitely a screw-up by PNW Spores with their labeling. That's troubling. I want to have confidence I'm getting what I purchased before investing money and months into the process.
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deadmandave
Slime


Registered: 02/16/10
Posts: 3,355
Loc:
Last seen: 4 hours, 1 minute
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Re: Strange experience with vendor (PNW) (moved) [Re: HawaiiMama]
#28514802 - 10/22/23 10:24 PM (3 months, 4 days ago) |
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It happens. Mycelium is nearly impossible to differentiate especially in liquid culture. Let them know what happened and hopefully they'll make it right.
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Forager208
Forager208

Registered: 10/31/23
Posts: 3
Loc: North Idaho
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Re: Strange experience with vendor (PNW) [Re: HawaiiMama]
#28524558 - 10/31/23 12:17 PM (2 months, 27 days ago) |
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I've done a lot of research utilizing their offerings and only had one issue (which they addressed quickly). I would contact them, I can't imagine they won't fix the issue by sending a new syringe.
-------------------- -Forager208
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