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SonomaFungi_707
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SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) 1
#28624777 - 01/17/24 04:06 PM (10 days, 15 hours ago) |
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Hey, everyone.
Figured I’d start a grow log to document my first stab at mushroom cultivation - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Huge thanks to those who chimed in on my other two threads and helped get me to where I am (even if I’m not quite where I want to be).
So far I’ve: * Poured about 15 MEA plates (Petri dishes). I kept two out at ambient temp in a previously unused ziplock bag (no parafilm). Both control plates show single colonies trichoderma - possibly introduced when I removed the plates from the still air box and put them into the ziplock while exposed to ambient air.
* (1/11/24) Inoculated 3 plates with Golden Teacher and 3 plates with B+. The B+ plates are shown on photos below. They’ve got some widespread discoloration that seems to be bacterial, but has not changed or expanded since it first showed up. The B+ plates are also starting to show some little clumps of white fuzzy growth - possibly mycelium, possibly mold. I’m he golden teacher plates are a mess - some of what looks like bacteria, and nothing that looks good.
* While in my SAB inoculating the plates, I also inoculated 6 PF Tek jars with GT and 6 with B+. The B+ jars are starting to show some rapid mycelium growth. GT jars have some growth that I can see under magnification but not with my eyes alone. I think ALL of my jars are too wet, despite following the PF Tek (2:1:1, verm:BRF:water).
So that’s where I’m at. Please feel free to share your thoughts/critiques/suggestions/etc. All pics were taken today, roughly 1 week after inoculation.
Cheers!
phot









Edited by SonomaFungi_707 (01/17/24 04:08 PM)
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SonomaFungi_707
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My PP5 “Slime” cups and micropore tape arrived from Amazon. 🤣 Soon there will be a bunch of little agar plates waiting for their shot at glory.
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SonomaFungi_707
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Here’s another photo of one of my B+ plates.
It looks like my spores germinated on/in the large tan-colored bacterial colony (if that’s what it is?). The bacterial colony (?) has not grown or changed color or anything since it first showed up shortly after inoculation.
If I let this mycelium grow out into the clean area of the plate a little more, can I go ahead and cut some out for a transfer? Or should I just consider this mycelium toast since it literally grew right out of a pool of bacteria?
I’ve read that water agar might be helpful in a situation like this. What do you think?
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OctopusDisco
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Hey, SF!
Hope those jars are colonizing well!
The PP5 slime cups you got seem legit. I bought some sauce containers that had "formed" lids (i.e. not flat) and it made it very difficult to see what was going on inside. Yours appear much better!
Not sure what your particular motivation is for using the slime cups instead of standard petris (I was attracted by a smaller size and cheaper unit cost). If it's to do no-pour agar, it looks like you're on the right track with the PP5 containers. If it's for similar reasons to mine, I found some 60mm petris that were comparable to some of the slime containers. Instead of parafilm, I've been using a roll of cling wrap that I cut into 1-inch rolls.
Quote:
SonomaFungi_707 said: ...
I’ve read that water agar might be helpful in a situation like this. What do you think?

I made water agar for the first time in my most recent batch, and I transferred a pretty clean sample to it to see how the mycelium grows. I'll take some pictures and share here when there's something to show!
Keep in mind that I'm a newcomer to this hobby, but I would probably take a transfer from the leading edge to another nutrient plate, then to water agar. My thinking is that you still want as clean of a transfer as possible before taking to water agar, since the mycelium will still need to utilize the nutrient agar transfer wedge to make new mycelium to search for more food.
I'm very curious about cleaning cultures with water agar and haven't come across a lot of great info, so I'd love if anyone can drop some knowledge!
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SonomaFungi_707
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Re: SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) [Re: OctopusDisco]
#28626266 - 01/18/24 05:44 PM (9 days, 14 hours ago) |
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Hey, Octopus. My jars are actually looking great! (To me, anyway!)
The Golden Teacher jars are starting to come to life, too, which is neat.
About those slime cups… I’m actually going to return them to Amazon and swap them for the screw top type (like the “holy grail” no-pour, but possibly not the exact same product). The slime cups are just too much of a PITA to open. You have to break the seal on one side, then slide your finger all the way around to break the rest of the seal before the lid will finally pop off. Just too much fuss for working in a cramped SAB…
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SonomaFungi_707
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Quick update… Roughly 11 out of 12 jars seem to be doing great, as far as I can tell. The B+ are colonizing much faster than the Golden Teacher, but they’re starting to pick up the pace. One B+ jar doesn’t look great - I think it ended up way to wet, possibly due to some water seeping in during the PC cycle. It’s colonizing, but just looks really wet…
Here’s a pic of what the B+ jars look like today. Seems like a mix of tomentose and rhizo growth going on, huh?
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SonomaFungi_707
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I also made a batch of 20 no-pour agar plates using “holy grail” type screw top containers and roughly following the steps for using foil instead of that nifty Christmas cookie container.
I’ll take some pics when I pull them out, but I already know they won’t be “perfect”. Added a few drops of blue food coloring to the agar/malt mix while I was stirring it on the stove…. Let’s just say that you DO NOT want to use plant-based food coloring. It immediately formed a bunch of little bluish black flecks rather than dissolving and turning the whole solution blue. Oh well… I doubt it will be a problem aside from just looking funky.
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SonomaFungi_707
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Alright! I went ahead and transferred some mycelium from my germination plates into some freshly made HG agar containers. I’ve got two HGs with B+ and two with Golden Tiger.
Love how clear they are! You can see the little agar chunk I transferred.
Edited by SonomaFungi_707 (01/22/24 08:01 PM)
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mycoloking
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Quote:
SonomaFungi_707 said: Alright! I went ahead and transferred some mycelium from more germination plates into some freshly made HG agar containers. I’ve got two HGs with B+ and two with Golden Tiger.
Love how clear they are! You can see the little agar chunk I transferred.

Looking Great! I just did my first PDA Dishes last night, super stoked it worked out!
Good luck on the agar plate!
-------------------- Hoping to grow some great mushies with some TLC, Tender Loving Care!
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OctopusDisco
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Re: SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) [Re: mycoloking]
#28631563 - 01/22/24 10:35 PM (5 days, 9 hours ago) |
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Nice work, SF Those agar containers are pretty rad. Glad you found the solution that works for you! What nutrient source did you use?
The last B+ jar you posted definitely reminds me of what mine looked like. Weird request, but when you birth it, will you report back on how it smells?
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fiddle_head
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always love seeing new names and faces and new grow logs on here. dont be a stranger and let us know if you need any help. keep up the good work frien
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SonomaFungi_707
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Re: SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) [Re: fiddle_head]
#28631905 - 01/23/24 09:17 AM (4 days, 22 hours ago) |
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Thanks for the replies!
The agar mix I used was 10 grams of light malt extract, 10 grams of agar agar, and 500 ml of water. I also added a couple drops of what turned out to be plant based blue food coloring (fail!) - it just turned into little flecks of solid material when I mixed it into the hot agar solution. Shouldn’t hurt anything, but definitely didn’t dye the plates blue. 🙄
I’ll definitely report back on how these jars smell when I crack them open. So far they don’t really smell like anything, but I’m trying not to fiddle with them too much so it’s not like I’m sticking my nose right up to the holes or anything.
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SonomaFungi_707
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Dang… Lost a jar to trichoderma (maybe two, TBD). I’m sure this was caused by me handling these things too much, which probably caused some dry vermiculite (plus trichoderma spores) to drop down along the edge of the jar. Lesson learned - next time I’ll do my best to leave them the F alone.
I took the jar outside and opened it up for a post-mortem exam. I was surprised to find that the mycelium was mostly around the outside. The inside of the cake was firm, moist, and pliable - almost like the texture you’d get if you mixed vermiculite with clay. I’m not sure if this is normal, or caused by my particular ingredients or mixing ratio. Maybe my vermiculite is too coarse, which could lead to a higher percentage of brown rice flour when measuring by volume? It just seemed very “gluey” inside, for lack of a better word - not a lot of void space for airflow.
I might try grinding up my own brown rice next time - maybe a coarser grind will avoid the gluey/clay-like texture.
Live and learn, huh?
Good thing I stopped by the hardware store yesterday and bought another dozen half pint jars. 🤣 I think I’ll put some micropore tape over the holes immediately after injecting this next round… I also have some fine vermiculite coming in the mail. I think that will help with my water content issue.




Edited by SonomaFungi_707 (01/23/24 12:00 PM)
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OctopusDisco
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Quote:
SonomaFungi_707 said: I’m sure this was caused by me handling these things too much, which probably caused some dry vermiculite (plus trichoderma spores) to drop down along the edge of the jar. Lesson learned - next time I’ll do my best to leave them the F alone.
Bummer about the jar! 100% that's the reason mine got contaminated too: overhandling that caused pieces of vermiculite to fall down the sides.
Quote:
SonomaFungi_707 said: I might try grinding up my own brown rice next time - maybe a coarser grind will avoid the gluey/clay-like texture.
Any particular reason you want to do BRF/verm cakes instead of putting agar directly to whole brown rice? I just used some whole brown rice for grain spawn and it was extremely easy.
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SonomaFungi_707
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Re: SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) [Re: OctopusDisco]
#28632099 - 01/23/24 12:30 PM (4 days, 19 hours ago) |
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I don’t have any clean mycelium growing on agar yet, so that’s the main reason I’m not going to grain jars yet. I’m working on agar stuff in parallel, but will probably just do another batch of PF Tek jars in the meantime to keep this hobby rolling along and hopefully get some fruits before too long. Once I’ve got fruits, I will do some cloning to agar.
I’ve got two more unused syringes (plus a small amount of leftover B+), and won’t need NEARLY the full volume for agar work. Might as well noc up another round of PF Tek jars, huh?
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SonomaFungi_707
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Here’s a photo of that one jar I mentioned that’s obviously too wet/mucky. It’s growing, but there are big wet patches that don’t seem to be colonizing.
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OctopusDisco
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The splotchy growth is concerning. Are there any portions of the cake that do not look like that?
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SonomaFungi_707
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Re: SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) [Re: OctopusDisco]
#28632317 - 01/23/24 04:37 PM (4 days, 15 hours ago) |
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It’s all splotchy like that. The mix is just so wet and mucky it’s sticking to the sides of the jar. All 12 of my jars seem on the wet/mucky side, but this one is EXTRA - must have gotten some water in there somehow during the PC cycle. I separated this jar from the others, and I’m just gonna keep an eye on it - you know, for science. 🤓 I don’t plan to mix this one into my shoeboxes when the time comes.
We’ll see what happens!
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OctopusDisco
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Yeah, I'd definitely keep this one separate from the others. When the time comes, this one might be a good candidate for fruiting directly from the jar. I've seen people add a top layer and attach a plastic bag to the jar with a rubber band.
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SonomaFungi_707
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Re: SonomaFungi’s first stab (Grow Log) [Re: OctopusDisco]
#28632354 - 01/23/24 05:17 PM (4 days, 14 hours ago) |
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That’s kinda what I was thinking, actually. Bag it up and see what happens.
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