tree frog said:

You don't want a casing layer to be like mud unless you are working with like zaps or something.

The mycelium needs to be able to poke through and form aerial hyphae, which means it needs to colonize it some and should have enough structure for mycelium to breathe.  Once it's colonized it's a bit more forgiving, but you don't want standing water as that will cause pins to abort.

This is ochra.  Sorry I don't have any side shots, but it didn't do the weird side thing I saw earlier in the thread.

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tree frog said:

Let me clarify, I apply it at field capacity.  And keep the humidity very high until the mycelium pokes through (casing run).  That way the peat doesn't compact from watering.

Once the mycelium pokes through, I start watering.  And a lot of times I take a photo after misting.  So it was probably just watered.

This isn't a psilocybe, so the aerial mycelium isn't rhizomorphic.  But you can see how much dryer it looks during the casing run.



And in this photo you can see the sparkles from the water droplets during pinning.  You want sparkles not pooling.



And one that I overwatered just a touch.  It's very wet but no pools.



One that's just a touch dry, but probably didn't get watered until later because it was just a touch.



Sorry I don't have more cased psilocybe photos.

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Hah, yes, all of that looks very different from my casing. It looks like you don't have any verm, or am I mistaken? All the pics look way more watery than mine, maybe it's because of the different material ... My photos are a couple of days since applying the casing. No misting.





Those ochras in your first photo looked like they had spikey fuzzy feet, so maybe it was too wet for them?

Kunta Kente said:

Ah gotcha...so, field capacity, leave it alone for case run, initial pins lead to very heavy misting.

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I wouldn't call it very heavy misting.  I let it colonize a bit, and then usually give it a good mist once to water the casing.  Essentially, I do the watering other folks do at application after aerial mycelium is visible over most of the casing.

This is a colonized one before it was watered.



And a different jar right after the initial watering.



And then try to keep it glistening until pins or knots start appearing.  Which I do by holding the spray bottle much further back.

Quote:

And for the record, i'm moreso asking what you do specifically as i know there are many different methods / personal tolerances... (like baba essentially says mist those pan pins, if they fail then get a culture that doesn't)

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It depends on the species.  I don't like mist on any copelandia other than bisporus.  So, I usually back off on misting and instead side water while they're pinning and fruiting.  But that's not a rule, just a tendancy that can depend on the species and how healthy the fruits or pins look.

And casings are only finicky until the first flush is going well.  But once it's going the colony will forgive a lot of abuse in regard to the casing.  So I'll water it directly to rehydrate it.  Sneaking the sprayer underneath the fruits, so they don't bruise or abort from excessive moisture if they are mid flush.  Or just spraying it heavily after I harvest.  And, Yes here I mean heavily   Just remember pins don't tend to like pools of water.

But most of this is regarding pans

tree frog said:

Yeah it was an accidental grow, so it was in a pan tent and the humidity was very high.  And no I don't like verm in my casing.  But I also use a lot of calcium carbonate so it already has a lot of minerals and texture.

Anyway I think you're casing looks good.

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tree frog said:

I think you are misunderstanding the intention of my post because kunta asked about how dark mine are.

You don't want your casing to be like mud, because early on it will wreck the structure.  And later on you don't want the pins to be in standing water, and the surface mycelium will be hydrophobic so often this ends up looking like a fine sparkling mist.

That casing wasn't to wet.  If it was there would be pools, and the pins would be suffering.

But it wasn't like mud either, it has structure.

Also keep in mind there's different grades of peat.  I may be using darker peat moss.  So don't read the color, read the surface.

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tree frog said:

I think you are misunderstanding the intention of my post because kunta asked about how dark mine are.

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tree frog said:

Yeah wet side of field capacity is good for fruiting 👍

I like at field capacity until they are poking through most of the surface.

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920 said:

This pe has a black spot instead of a cap. Is it okay?

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ihansterx4i said:

Got a shoebox of KSSS and there are two very different types of growth.S2B 2/27. Wonder if that sketchy one is cobweb. Does seem to be sort of puffy.

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RhyzoPhreak said:

What is the hottest temperature that cubes can safely tolerate in a monotub? I know old info says 78°f but im wondering if that is outdated

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tree frog said:

I think you are misunderstanding the intention of my post because kunta asked about how dark mine are. 

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