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2ci
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First grow need some guidance/ reassurance 1
#28615592 - 01/09/24 06:07 PM (18 days, 13 hours ago) |
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Starting my first grow. I jumped in before educating myself here and went with popcorn for my grain with some coffee grounds. I also inoculated with multi spore syringe instead of using agar. This round was pc’d in an instant pot but I picked up a presto for my future grows. I also started some agar for my next round that I will clean and use to inoculate oats.
Ok now with that out of the way, I inoculated my popcorn pints with golden teacher mss on 12-15-23 then break and shake on 12-29-23 when it was around 30%. I had zero visible moisture in my jars until two days ago. I assume this is just condensation from the heat the myc is producing. I keep my grow room at ~70-75f.
These are the four jars one is fully colonized(I think)

Jar two is almost there with this little spot that needs to fill in.

Jar three also has a little section that needs to fill in some more.

The fourth jar is the runt of the litter seems fine but it is definitely moving along slower than the rest.


How do these look? Should I be concerned about the amount of condensation? I plan to spawn to bulk two of these per shoe box. How long can the fully colonized jar sit waiting for one of the others to finish?
Edited by 2ci (01/09/24 06:17 PM)
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Hysteria
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28615605 - 01/09/24 06:21 PM (18 days, 13 hours ago) |
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Yes, you should be concerned about all that condensation. Have a look here and particularly scroll down to section 5.
Also, give this a read before you go any further.
You came to the right place. Read, learn, and ask questions, and you will be good to go in no time. Cheers and good luck!
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bigfootscreepyuncl
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28615612 - 01/09/24 06:29 PM (18 days, 13 hours ago) |
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Quote:
2ci said: Starting my first grow. I jumped in before educating myself here and went with popcorn for my grain with some coffee grounds. I also inoculated with multi spore syringe instead of using agar. This round was pc’d in an instant pot but I picked up a presto for my future grows. I also started some agar for my next round that I will clean and use to inoculate oats.
Hello and welcome to the forum! Many people find this forum after they get started on the wrong path and want to correct course, so you're in good company here! Coffee and popcorn is really old school, I'm curious where you even came across that! A presto 23 and agar will take you as far as you want to go in this hobby, excellent choices! If you don't already have one a SAB (Still Air Box) is another critical piece of equipment. Without one you can't really do sterile work...unless you have a flowhood, obviously I'm assuming you don't have one of those 
Ok now with that out of the way, I inoculated my popcorn pints with golden teacher mss on 12-15-23 then break and shake on 12-29-23 when it was around 30%. I had zero visible moisture in my jars until two days ago. I assume this is just condensation from the heat the myc is producing. I keep my grow room at ~70-75f.
Kudos, yes, the condensation is a result of mycelium being thermogenic. A few of your jars do have quite a lot of condensation which can be an indicator of a bacterial contamination which would be expected from grains inoculated with MSS. It could also be from the popcorn itself because they hold a huge amount of water. Or both.
These are the four jars one is fully colonized(I think)

Considering this is MSS straight to grain this looks pretty good and I would agree that it is fully colonized!
Jar two is almost there with this little spot that needs to fill in.

Those last little bits of grain always take the longest lol. But again, this jar doesn't look too bad either
Jar three also has a little section that needs to fill in some more.

This one isn't too bad either but there is more condensation as you've pointed out. Leads me to believe there's likely a larger bacteria colony in there. Not the end of the world. I would still move forward with it
The fourth jar is the runt of the litter seems fine but it is definitely moving along slower than the rest.


This jar looks a little sketchy due to the larger amount of condensation and the mycelium doesn't look as clean or uniform as the other jars. I would probably let his one finish colonizing and set it aside. If I were to spawn it I would do so on its own (not mixed with your other jars)
Jars 2, 3 and 4 can be shaken and broken up again. By breaking and shaking them you'll distribute the condensation and allow the last little bits of grain to be colonized once the whole jar recovers. If you decide to break and shake them again pay attention to how hard it is to break the grains apart. If it takes more than a couple little thumps on your palm it is likely bacterial. Again, not the end of the world. I have spawned plenty of bacterial grains and gotten decent hauls out of them when I was first starting. Additionally, pay attention to how fast they recover. When I break up a jar of grains 80+% colonized I want to see the grains become white and fuzzy again within about 24 hours. A fast recovery is a good indicator of spawn health.
How do these look? Should I be concerned about the amount of condensation?
Overall, not terrible at all! How do you plan to move forward with your spawn? Are you going to spawn it into shoeboxes? If so, what substrate are you going to use? Best of luck and keep us posted!
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I 5318008 NOT a virgin!
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2ci
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Thanks for the quick responses. I am really digging the hobby so far especially now that I found Shroomery. I spend most of my free time since I registered here reading and planning lol.
Yes I have a sab. I found the popcorn/coffee tek with a combination of Reddit and YouTube 😕. Lesson learned lol.
I edited the original after you commented but I plan to spawn to bulk in a shoebox using coir as my substrate two jars per shoebox.
Planning to do this tek on my next grow once I get clean myc on agar
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bigfootscreepyuncl
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28615648 - 01/09/24 07:21 PM (18 days, 12 hours ago) |
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Well we're glad to have you over here and I'm glad you found your way out of those cesspools lol.
Reading and planning will take you quite far on this forum. People are a lot more willing to answer your questions when they can tell you've done your research and you're just 'stuck'. A lot of people will post like 'tell me how to grow mushrooms I need a pound tomorrow' 
That shoebox TEK is tried and true so you've picked a good one! 2 jars of spawn should be just fine for a shoebox
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I 5318008 NOT a virgin!
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2ci
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I did a break and shake on jars 2,3 and 4. How long can jar 1 (fully colonized that wasn't BnS) sit waiting for the others to recover? Do you think I should just put that one to bulk by itself instead of waiting?
#2

#3

#4
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metaneuralnetwork
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28616118 - 01/10/24 08:53 AM (17 days, 22 hours ago) |
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I recently took time to read a lot of threads where trusted cultivators are giving the OK to jars with far more condensation than yours.
And let me add that I have some jars that are about as far along as yours with about the same amount of condensation (this is what had me reading many threads and comparing photos of similar jars to begin with).
edit - wanted to add that the break and shake is a good way to see where you're at, too. The mycelium should colonize the material at an advanced rate. If the mycelium is very slow to recover, it's likely on account of unicellular bacteria, but I don't anticipate you're going to have that problem, based on my limited but recent reading on the subject.
Edited by metaneuralnetwork (01/10/24 08:56 AM)
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bigfootscreepyuncl
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28616121 - 01/10/24 08:57 AM (17 days, 22 hours ago) |
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No, I wouldn't spawn the single jar to bulk (also referred to simply as 'spawning the jar'...spawn is both a noun and verb). Since you have pint jars I think you will be better off spawning 2 jars into 1 shoebox.
The colonized jar can sit for a while. A week or more won't be a problem. If you really wanted to you can even just break up the first jar so they all recover at the same time. You don't need to do it but it would give you an opportunity to see how hard it is to break up and how fast it recovers.
The option is yours. It will be fine to sit and wait for the others to recover if you don't want to break it up, or you can bust it up and let them all recover at the same time. There's really no benefit to one over the other.
If you were to run a single jar in a shoebox I would isolate your 4th jar, the most questionable one, and spawn that into its' own shoebox and use jars 1, 2 and 3 in a single shoebox. Since jar 4 is the most suspicious of the bunch, by putting that one into its' own shoebox, if it does contaminate it won't take the other 3 down with it. Just food for thought.
If you have any further questions feel free to ask, otherwise keep us posted on your progress
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I 5318008 NOT a virgin!
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2ci
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Thanks for the guidance. Jars 2 and 3 recovered in ~24 hours and are almost fully colonized now. As expected jar 4 is just now starting to fuzz up slowly so I’m just gonna set that one aside and see what happens to it for science. Jars 1-3 should be ready to spawn by Monday or Tuesday.
I have a question that is a little off topic from the original post but thought I would throw it in here. I will ask it in a separate thread if that’s the better practice. I have these plates that are starting to show growth.




These were inoculated with B+ spore print using inoculation loop in a Z pattern (I was a little aggressive and cut into the agar in a few spots😕) on January 5. I didn’t have the material needed to make my own plates at the time so these were pre poured plates from a sponsor site. I have not been able to find other people with plates with growth that looks quite like this. Is this normal mycelium growth? When I see pictures with growth that covers this much area of the plate it looks much whiter than mine. Should I take transfers from these? I assume the one with the thick white growth is contam.
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bigfootscreepyuncl
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28619512 - 01/13/24 08:45 AM (14 days, 23 hours ago) |
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Quote:
2ci said: Thanks for the guidance. Jars 2 and 3 recovered in ~24 hours and are almost fully colonized now. As expected jar 4 is just now starting to fuzz up slowly so I’m just gonna set that one aside and see what happens to it for science. Jars 1-3 should be ready to spawn by Monday or Tuesday.
I have a question that is a little off topic from the original post but thought I would throw it in here. I will ask it in a separate thread if that’s the better practice. I have these plates that are starting to show growth.




These were inoculated with B+ spore print using inoculation loop in a Z pattern (I was a little aggressive and cut into the agar in a few spots😕) on January 5. I didn’t have the material needed to make my own plates at the time so these were pre poured plates from a sponsor site. I have not been able to find other people with plates with growth that looks quite like this. Is this normal mycelium growth? When I see pictures with growth that covers this much area of the plate it looks much whiter than mine. Should I take transfers from these? I assume the one with the thick white growth is contam.
Sounds like things are moving in the right direction for you!
Regarding your agar question: there's no need to create a separate thread to ask an agar question, I'm happy to help you in this thread. But in the future you can post anything related in the AGAR ENVY (Anything and All things agar) thread.
Yes, the first picture with the thick white growth is a bacteria colony. Those show up from time to time for various reasons and so long as they aren't in the culture itself they're relatively harmless and generally easy to transfer away from.
The other plates look OK for spore mycelium. Faint/wispy growth like that isn't uncommon when working with spores but there are a lot of other variables to consider, many of which you likely won't know because you purchased the plates. Nutrient levels, type(s) of nutrients in the agar, percentage of agar, etc. can all impact the appearance of mycelium on plates. Also, more often than not when you see the highly rhizo plates people love to show off, that white ropey mycelium is *typically* from a clone culture. In my experience, clonal mycelium is often thicker and whiter than from spores.
Your plates look good, feel free to transfer to some new plates and see if you can't get a clean culture to send to grains! Keep up the good work and feel free to ask any further questions you may have along the way!
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I 5318008 NOT a virgin!
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2ci
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I think I am ready to spawn these three jars (1-3)

The myc on the corn in jar one is much thicker due to one less break and shake. Do you think these are ready?
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fiddle_head
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28624740 - 01/17/24 03:46 PM (10 days, 16 hours ago) |
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yeah the cottony weak growth looks like alot of my germ plates and is pretty normal. glad you´re getting into agar and taking advantage of the forums. cant wait to see your progress.
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LogicaL Chaos
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28624763 - 01/17/24 03:59 PM (10 days, 15 hours ago) |
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They look good! It is time
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2ci
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: LogicaL Chaos] 1
#28625841 - 01/18/24 11:54 AM (9 days, 19 hours ago) |
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Alright, I spawned these 3 jars into a shoebox with coir. Wish me luck.
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2ci
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28626892 - 01/19/24 08:56 AM (8 days, 22 hours ago) |
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I checked my shoebox today and noticed that I have several areas that the substrate is not packed tight against the container and there is condensation all the way to the bottom. Should I give it a better pack today? This would be about 24 hours since I spawned the jars.

Thanks for all the help so far everyone.
Edited by 2ci (01/19/24 08:58 AM)
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LogicaL Chaos
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28628033 - 01/20/24 01:15 AM (8 days, 6 hours ago) |
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I would give it a light packing, just so the substrate is not fractured. But if the gap is small, i probably wouldnt bother. You can also try the non-invasive option of tapping the side of the shoebox to help the coir-spawn settle down into the corner.
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2ci
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: LogicaL Chaos]
#28628312 - 01/20/24 09:12 AM (7 days, 22 hours ago) |
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Ok thanks for the response. It’s just a couple small pockets where I didn’t mix the substrate and spawn good enough. I don’t think it would have happened if I was using smaller grain. I’m just going to roll with it.
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2ci
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Re: First grow need some guidance/ reassurance [Re: 2ci]
#28630781 - 01/22/24 08:38 AM (5 days, 23 hours ago) |
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Here is a quick update, pretty surprised at how quickly the myc has started poking through the substrate. Not sure if it looks too dry, but let me know if you see anything that should be addressed.

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