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xenomicx
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How do I increase colonization times?
#28685949 - 03/04/24 08:39 AM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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I have tried to inoculate my grain with either a direct injection of spores at the port, or by using a AGAR wedge. After that I have place the bag or mason jar, depending on what tech I'm using, into a dark warm place. Sometimes I get a good colonization in 1-2 weeks, and other times it takes 7-12 weeks. I have FAE and a temp of about 74F each time I do it. I just don't understand why sometimes it's faster and other times it takes forever. I've tried using a small heater to keep everything at the same temp. I've also tried using a warming mat for plants. Played with the temps up to 80F and down to 70F. Not sure how to get the fastest results once the spores hit the grain.
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Smellyhobbit
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx] 1
#28685965 - 03/04/24 08:48 AM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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Spores to grain is both slow and prone to contamination. Agar to grain is both clean if done correctly and reliably fast. About 2 weeks from inoculation to being ready to send. There’s obviously wiggle room, but two weeks is pretty standard.
Semi solid liquid culture, or SSLC, is the fastest inoculant I’ve worked with, but if you’re still shooting spores to grain you aren’t ready for that.
Do not use heating mats. Heat the room, not the grow. You also don’t HAVE to keep them in the dark, but it’s probably not hurting anything.
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tree frog
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Smellyhobbit] 1
#28686027 - 03/04/24 09:49 AM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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Light is beneficial in all stages of growth. Otherwise everything smelly said.
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hamloaf
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: tree frog] 2
#28686089 - 03/04/24 10:56 AM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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Correct. Ambient light is beneficial in all stages of mushroom growth. Also, heating the room if necessary is the preferred method over heating up a substrate using heating pads. Colonizing substrates produce their own heat. The bigger the substrate, the more heat is generated by the substrate. 68-72F is the sweet spot temperature-wise for cubensis in all stages of growth. A good rule of thumb as far as temperature is concerned is if you are comfortable, so is the mycelium.
Spores to grain and/or agar wedge to bag is not recommended. Spores>agar, then transfer a few times to more agar to establish a clean culture is the preferred method of operation. Once the culture is established to be clean transfer clean agar wedges into quart jars of sterilized grains. I would not concern my self with liquid culture or spawn bag procedures until getting a handle on the the basics of spores>agar>sterilized grains and having several successful grows first.
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xenomicx
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Smellyhobbit]
#28686246 - 03/04/24 01:59 PM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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Never heard of SSLC till today. I did think of it a few weeks ago, but my idea was to use my PDA from the media bottle and put it in my spore syringe. I know how to do the entire pressure cooker/mason jar tech with PDA petri dishes etc. What I'm doing now is just a kit I saw at a headshop. I wanted to see if it works.
I need to look more into SSLC...do you have any recommended readings?
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Yahra
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx]
#28686300 - 03/04/24 02:56 PM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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Look here: SSLC.
Don't put your PDA in a spore syringe. This will most likely fail.
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Smellyhobbit
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Yahra]
#28686311 - 03/04/24 03:19 PM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
Yahra said: Look here: SSLC.
Don't put your PDA in a spore syringe. This will most likely fail.

SSLC is fantastic, but be warned: If your sterile procedure isn’t solid this will only compound existing problems. Make sure you know how to make and handle clean cultures before going this rout.
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elasticaltiger
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Smellyhobbit]
#28686351 - 03/04/24 04:09 PM (10 months, 8 days ago) |
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As others have said, LC is great for getting a lot of inoculant spread around for fast tecovery and growth.
I'm hesitant to say this because your grain and inoculant prep needs to basically be perfect - but higher temperatures up to 80 degrees F for the room can also speed things up but only if your grains are absolutely sterile. If there's even a little bacteria left alive it will thrive at those higher temps.
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xenomicx
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Yahra]
#28689582 - 03/07/24 06:21 AM (10 months, 5 days ago) |
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Thanks for the link. However, its not explained in detail what to do. Do you make your SSLC and then sterilize it in a pressure cooker for an hour or so at 15psi? And how do you remove the SSLC and put it into the grain jars? Just open the lids infront of a hepa filter and dump a little in, or is a syringe used to suck it out of the SSLC jar and then injected into a grain jar with lids that have ports?
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RockinRobot
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx]
#28689584 - 03/07/24 06:24 AM (10 months, 5 days ago) |
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Quote:
xenomicx said: Thanks for the link. However, its not explained in detail what to do. Do you make your SSLC and then sterilize it in a pressure cooker for an hour or so at 15psi? And how do you remove the SSLC and put it into the grain jars? Just open the lids infront of a hepa filter and dump a little in, or is a syringe used to suck it out of the SSLC jar and then injected into a grain jar with lids that have ports?
I would really not even think about LC or SSLC until you have agar work down to a science. LC and SSLC are great ways to ruin lots of grain if they not done right.
There are NO GOOD shortcuts in this hobby. NONE
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hamloaf
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx]
#28689588 - 03/07/24 06:32 AM (10 months, 5 days ago) |
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tree frog
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx] 2
#28689608 - 03/07/24 07:00 AM (10 months, 5 days ago) |
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Quote:
xenomicx said: Thanks for the link. However, its not explained in detail what to do. Do you make your SSLC and then sterilize it in a pressure cooker for an hour or so at 15psi? And how do you remove the SSLC and put it into the grain jars? Just open the lids infront of a hepa filter and dump a little in, or is a syringe used to suck it out of the SSLC jar and then injected into a grain jar with lids that have ports?
You get your spores -> agar -> grains down to around 2 weeks tops and your failure rates down to less than 5%. Poor agar work and poor grain prep I bet are the cause of your inconsistent results.
Don't worry about LCs until you get things consistent. And then, find the josex poke if you decide things are still to slow.
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xenomicx
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: RockinRobot]
#28691188 - 03/08/24 07:52 AM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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I do have it down to a science. Been doing it for years. I'm trying to do something I haven't tried before for research, focusing mainly on speed. I feel like I'm taking forever when I: measure out my nutrients in a media bottle, boiling it in a microwave, then pressure cooking it for 45 mins plus the time it takes to built up heat and vent the air, then wait till it cools down, then pour my dishes, then stack them so the condensation rises, then inoculate, then a few weeks of waiting for pretty little mycelium growth, then boiling my grain, then letting the steam off of it, then fill jars, then pressure cook them 2+ God knows how many hours today.....yeah, I know for sure what I'm doing. I'm a little stoned now, so I can explain.
My son owns a head shop. A few months back he got these prepacked grain kits, a substrate kit, and spores. I finally went in and said something to him about it. I told him those things were massively overpriced and would never work. I explained to him about technique and contamination, and how vulnerable these kits were. But he swore to me, that people have come in and bought them and got results. "No Way!", I said.
So last week I decided to give one of these bags a shot. I didn't pay the outrages price he marked it as, he just gave it to me to try. And now I'm trying to mindstorm a way to do this in the manner the instructions allude to. I was personally thinking I could increase times by first injecting straight out of the media into the bag, then after that solidifies, inject this spore syringe we're trying out. Then I thought, "maybe I could make a syringe that had both in it.
Then someone mentioned this SSLC. Never heard of it, but it was in the line of thinking. I'm also thinking about a future grow going back to my old school method, but pressure cooking the PDA mix and grain together, then maybe making a LC to speed things up. As of right now, using the OS method is taking me about 4 months to pick my first fruit.
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RockinRobot
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx]
#28691193 - 03/08/24 07:59 AM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
xenomicx said: I do have it down to a science. Been doing it for years. I'm trying to do something I haven't tried before for research, focusing mainly on speed. I feel like I'm taking forever when I: measure out my nutrients in a media bottle, boiling it in a microwave, then pressure cooking it for 45 mins plus the time it takes to built up heat and vent the air, then wait till it cools down, then pour my dishes, then stack them so the condensation rises, then inoculate, then a few weeks of waiting for pretty little mycelium growth, then boiling my grain, then letting the steam off of it, then fill jars, then pressure cook them 2+ God knows how many hours today.....yeah, I know for sure what I'm doing. I'm a little stoned now, so I can explain.
My son owns a head shop. A few months back he got these prepacked grain kits, a substrate kit, and spores. I finally went in and said something to him about it. I told him those things were massively overpriced and would never work. I explained to him about technique and contamination, and how vulnerable these kits were. But he swore to me, that people have come in and bought them and got results. "No Way!", I said.
So last week I decided to give one of these bags a shot. I didn't pay the outrages price he marked it as, he just gave it to me to try. And now I'm trying to mindstorm a way to do this in the manner the instructions allude to. I was personally thinking I could increase times by first injecting straight out of the media into the bag, then after that solidifies, inject this spore syringe we're trying out. Then I thought, "maybe I could make a syringe that had both in it.
Then someone mentioned this SSLC. Never heard of it, but it was in the line of thinking. I'm also thinking about a future grow going back to my old school method, but pressure cooking the PDA mix and grain together, then maybe making a LC to speed things up. As of right now, using the OS method is taking me about 4 months to pick my first fruit.
Sorry but you don't have anything down to a science if you're thinking about shooting spores into Grain or an AIO bag
There are no good shortcuts in this hobby.
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tree frog
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx]
#28691203 - 03/08/24 08:14 AM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
xenomicx said: Sometimes I get a good colonization in 1-2 weeks, and other times it takes 7-12 weeks. I have FAE and a temp of about 74F each time I do it.
Go spores - > agar then...
agar -> stasis agar -> grain -> bulk -> clone to agar
clone -> stasis clone -> grain
when you need more instead of going back to spores you go...
stasis -> agar -> grain
or go spores -> agar -> josex poke to LC -> your kids mycobags (or grains).
I don't really recommend LC though until 95% of your jars finish within two weeks (give or take depending on temperature). And any jar that took 7 weeks to finish (let alone 12) I would say is sus as fuck at those temperatures especially 
Edited by tree frog (03/08/24 08:29 AM)
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RoseKolodny
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: xenomicx]
#28691488 - 03/08/24 12:29 PM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
xenomicx said: I do have it down to a science. Been doing it for years. I'm trying to do something I haven't tried before for research, focusing mainly on speed. I feel like I'm taking forever when I: measure out my nutrients in a media bottle, boiling it in a microwave, then pressure cooking it for 45 mins plus the time it takes to built up heat and vent the air, then wait till it cools down, then pour my dishes, then stack them so the condensation rises, then inoculate, then a few weeks of waiting for pretty little mycelium growth, then boiling my grain, then letting the steam off of it, then fill jars, then pressure cook them 2+ God knows how many hours today.....yeah, I know for sure what I'm doing. I'm a little stoned now, so I can explain.
My son owns a head shop. A few months back he got these prepacked grain kits, a substrate kit, and spores. I finally went in and said something to him about it. I told him those things were massively overpriced and would never work. I explained to him about technique and contamination, and how vulnerable these kits were. But he swore to me, that people have come in and bought them and got results. "No Way!", I said.
So last week I decided to give one of these bags a shot. I didn't pay the outrages price he marked it as, he just gave it to me to try. And now I'm trying to mindstorm a way to do this in the manner the instructions allude to. I was personally thinking I could increase times by first injecting straight out of the media into the bag, then after that solidifies, inject this spore syringe we're trying out. Then I thought, "maybe I could make a syringe that had both in it.
Then someone mentioned this SSLC. Never heard of it, but it was in the line of thinking. I'm also thinking about a future grow going back to my old school method, but pressure cooking the PDA mix and grain together, then maybe making a LC to speed things up. As of right now, using the OS method is taking me about 4 months to pick my first fruit.
Your first instinct was correct: kits suck.
There are several issues with injecting spores into sterile media.
1) Spores come with contamination, which good cube mycelium has to waste energy fighting and often loses against. B) You have to penetrate the bag to get that needle in there, which pushes outside stuff inside. Hooray contam! NO, iso is not magic and it doesn't fix this. iii) When you make a couple of transfers on agar, you select the fastest, most vigorous growth from the leading edge. With spores you get whatever you get.
You shouldn't be starting from scratch on every grow. You should have a rotating stock of plates and colonized grain.
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Hysteria
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Smellyhobbit]
#28691913 - 03/08/24 06:37 PM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Agar wedge fully colonizing a grain jar in 2 weeks? I'm assuming that's not MSS to agar you are talking about, but a decent clone.
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Smellyhobbit
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Hysteria]
#28691955 - 03/08/24 07:29 PM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
Hysteria said: Agar wedge fully colonizing a grain jar in 2 weeks? I'm assuming that's not MSS to agar you are talking about, but a decent clone.
Both usually. I can pretty reliably get 2 weeks from wedge. Maybe you’re right and I haven’t paid close enough attention haha.
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Hysteria
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Smellyhobbit]
#28691964 - 03/08/24 07:39 PM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
Smellyhobbit said:
Quote:
Hysteria said: Agar wedge fully colonizing a grain jar in 2 weeks? I'm assuming that's not MSS to agar you are talking about, but a decent clone.
Both usually. I can pretty reliably get 2 weeks from wedge. Maybe you’re right and I haven’t paid close enough attention haha.
Or more likely you're right and I just suck ass lol.
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Smellyhobbit
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Hysteria] 1
#28691980 - 03/08/24 07:58 PM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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I just usually have so much going I have stopped paying very close attention to colonization times. I start new jars every week and just send what’s ready when it’s ready.
Maybe it’s slow as hell and idk lol
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Hysteria
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Re: How do I increase colonization times? [Re: Smellyhobbit] 1
#28691988 - 03/08/24 08:03 PM (10 months, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
Smellyhobbit said: I just usually have so much going I have stopped paying very close attention to colonization times. I start new jars every week and just send what’s ready when it’s ready.
Maybe it’s slow as hell and idk lol
^ And that right there is the real solution to OPs problem. Keep a steady rotation, doesn't have to be big, and colonization time becomes a non-issue.
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