Anomalocaris said:

What does grass add to a pan grow?

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Gilmour Hendrix said:

You are a guiding light in my cult world. Thank you.

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1NFIN8 said:

My pan cyan culture is bunk. Nothing but contam on the plates. I’ll try a few more and will streak them but I’m not optimistic. Grr.

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fahtster said:

I don’t even bother with anything other than wa for cloning anymore.  It’s too reliable.  Like, works every time kind of reliable.  I do take em to a CS after they’ve grown out but I would do another transfer anyway, might as well be to a CS

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tree frog said:

Anomalocaris said:

What does grass add to a pan grow?

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Honestly, I don't know that anybody is researching it as much as I am, at least in regard to pans, and I'm just a hobby mycologist so..  take my observations with a grain of salt.

First of all microclimate, grass helps to condense moisture down into the casing.  So the surface conditions are going to be better than in a tray without grass.  It also absorbs carbon and releases oxygen. Improving air quality.  At least at the surface of the substrate.

Second, nature doesn't live by itself. So when you drop grass seed into a casing it's covered in endospores. And those endospores are going to be species that like to live with grass.  They will be a combination of fungi and bacteria, but they're not fungi and bacteria that compete with mushrooms that also live in grass.

And some species of bacteria in particular, release hormones that encourage plant growth. But also encourage pin formation.  This last part isn't conjecture, there are research papers on this that I have cribbed from.  And the root boost bacteria that I have selected (azospirrilum), is because of those research papers.

So that is my thought on why it works. Cyans don't seem to care one way or the other.  Bisporus, chlorocystis, the pictured Mystery SA, and likely many other species...  they get by with a little help from their friends.

We can grow them without grass and bacteria, sometimes they will stay vegetative and stall. Like my mystery sa did.  More often they just take a really long time to fruit.

So the long story short. It helps them pin.  And pin faster.  While giving the pins a good microclimate for development.

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tree frog said:

Anomalocaris said:

What does grass add to a pan grow?

---

Honestly, I don't know that anybody is researching it as much as I am, at least in regard to pans, and I'm just a hobby mycologist so..  take my observations with a grain of salt.

First of all microclimate, grass helps to condense moisture down into the casing.  So the surface conditions are going to be better than in a tray without grass.  It also absorbs carbon and releases oxygen. Improving air quality.  At least at the surface of the substrate.

Second, nature doesn't live by itself. So when you drop grass seed into a casing it's covered in endospores. And those endospores are going to be species that like to live with grass.  They will be a combination of fungi and bacteria, but they're not fungi and bacteria that compete with mushrooms that also live in grass.

And some species of bacteria in particular, release hormones that encourage plant growth. But also encourage pin formation.  This last part isn't conjecture, there are research papers on this that I have cribbed from.  And the root boost bacteria that I have selected (azospirrilum), is because of those research papers.

So that is my thought on why it works. Cyans don't seem to care one way or the other.  Bisporus, chlorocystis, the pictured Mystery SA, and likely many other species...  they get by with a little help from their friends.

We can grow them without grass and bacteria, sometimes they will stay vegetative and stall. Like my mystery sa did.  More often they just take a really long time to fruit.

So the long story short. It helps them pin.  And pin faster.  While giving the pins a good microclimate for development.

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Thank you for sharing all this .

I would assume if the grass seeds carry "good" spores/bacteria it might be ok to use sterilized casing or even not sterilized/not pasteurized, as with the grass seeds it would be like inoculating the casing with that stuff, what do you think about that?