tultedspoon said:

If agar looks good, can I make LI solution with it and inoculate PF jars with this? It's not going to be too concentrated and make weird mycelium or anything?

Bodhista mentioned just dropping an agar wedge into PF jar and not using a dry verm layer, but could colonizing from top to bottom change how well fruiting from the jar would then be? I'm assuming he was only thinking about making a jar and then spawning to bulk or something.

So I'm thinking you would want the mycelium growing from the bottom to the top for best chance from fruiting from the jar, which would mean LI inoculation (but worried if too concentrated is a thing or not).

If I see a lot of clean growth on agar plates I'm hoping I can spready several ml of thick solution along the bottom of a jar? Just wasn't sure how the mycelium network thinks or maps out where it can fruit from when things are left in a jar, and how important it is to keep the inoculation at the bottom or not?

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hidingbush said:

SexxLaws said:

I have questions:

You’re working in a still air box.

1. What do you do with the syringe when you need to wipe down the entire jar before inoculating it?


I wipe down my jars first, or just spray them down, inside the box.



You get a syringe where you need to undo that plastic cap and put on a new needle.

2. Do you wipe the outside of the sterile needle with alcohol prior to opening it and putting it on the end of the syringe?


Wipe the plastic part down, flame sterilize needle outside box


4. Is an alcohol soaked paper towel as good as a disposable alcohol prep pad?

Yes



5. If you set the alcohol soaked paper towel on the table inside of the still air box, is it still sterile or is there a chance for contamination?


Overthinking, just act fast


6. Do you flame sterilize between jars, or only if the end of the needle touches something that’s not a jar?

Between jars



7. Is it okay to flame sterilize and then cool the end of the needle off with an alcohol soaked paper towel?


No!  And basically the first little bit of liquid cools it so don't wait around cooling



8. Do you use a new roll of paper towel for each inoculation session?


Flame sterilize the needle. All the jars, just wipe them down once while inside the box



9. Is it better to bleach the inside of the still air box, or is spraying it down with 70% iso okay?


Soap or 70 iso.  Bleach would be terrible to breathe...

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Answers in the quote

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SexxLaws said:

Thank you both. I tried agar a while back. I ordered a shady flowhood from someone online and I realized after I got the thing that it was probably a scam. It ended up working about two times and then completely died and wouldn't turn on. I suck at this stuff, but I really want to learn. So any way, I made a bunch of agar plates, but I didn't do them like the roger rabbit video. I made them so I could PC in pp5 containers. It didn't really go that well. There was tons of water, so I waited for it to evaporate and by the time it did, they were all filled with mold. I will start on agar. I am just wary of doing it because I am scared of contams. I will search up agar in the hitchiker's guide and see what's up.

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tree frog said:

AZ Starman2112 said:

RhyzoPhreak said:

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

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I bought a couple of gadgets from mush cult places. None of them were worth beans. The best thing I have is my curved aquarium scissors. By far the best thing I’ve used and it is sharp and easy and I can literally snip a single pan from between two pins without disturbing the pins. And I can get under fat blobs of yeti and get them out without tearing up the substrate. This is the one I have and I love it!

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I also use these scissors.  Or ones similar.

The other tool just looks like a dumb gimmick.  Like 90% of stuff marketed to mushroom hobbyists.

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Lol.. when you click the link it literally says in the description.

"A specialized tool "engineered" for mono tub growers..."

It's literally a razor blade stuck to the end of a piece of plastic.

koma23 said:

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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Yeah, I'm definitely struggling with decoding casing moisture levels, it's my first time dealing with peat and yours isn't the same as mine. If you say that for your casing over hydration would mean pooling - than ok. Imo if my casing looked like yours, it would be over hydrated bc as it stands now, my casing was more towards the wet side of field capacity, and if it looked like yours it would probably be over.

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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Ok.

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Archespore said:

Kunta Kente said:

It's funny because where I am, the hot South, well... In about 3 weeks outside they would be toast very quickly, but inside we keep it very low 70s. So I need to heat them lol

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Low 70s is fine, no need to heat them. They produce a couple degrees of heat while cooking as well

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divineverdance said:

Is this healthy looking?

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Nokumana said:

Will liquid culture keep okay in a borosilicate media bottle with an unmodified lid?

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malvaneglecta said:

Hi all, first time doing agar. My agar is an extremely lazy recipe, 2% agar and 3% whole wheat flakes. I inoculated with a very dirty spore swab. Cubensis.

I have a question on whether this is two different morphs of mushroom mycelium or if the thicker one is some contamination. Stared on the left is a bacterial growth, and stared on the right is a burst wheat grain in agar. I also circled in green and purple where I would take mycelium from in order to isolate it.






For reference this is (what I assume to be) more cubensis mycelium on a different plate. The giant blob of scary bacteria is stared. Otherwise I think it’ll be easier to clean up, just wanted to make sure it was actually cubensis.

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Nokumana said:

Will liquid culture keep okay in a borosilicate media bottle with an unmodified lid?

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malvaneglecta said:

Hi all, first time doing agar. My agar is an extremely lazy recipe, 2% agar and 3% whole wheat flakes. I inoculated with a very dirty spore swab. Cubensis.

I have a question on whether this is two different morphs of mushroom mycelium or if the thicker one is some contamination. Stared on the left is a bacterial growth, and stared on the right is a burst wheat grain in agar. I also circled in green and purple where I would take mycelium from in order to isolate it.






For reference this is (what I assume to be) more cubensis mycelium on a different plate. The giant blob of scary bacteria is stared. Otherwise I think it’ll be easier to clean up, just wanted to make sure it was actually cubensis.

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How long ago were these swiped, and how long till first signs of myc?

First on the left has potential, the smaller one .... might be the bacteria causing stress.

Id get some samples in a cabin soon, maybe storing them vertically so the myc can climb while the bacteria falls, to get cleaner transfers.

Maybe it's the recipe.....Karo and potato flakes is pretty fkn lazy too

Second one, not quite convinced yet its cube myc there might be something riding along... beside the bacteria.

How did you swipe the plastes?

AstroSporeFiend said:

Nokumana said:

Will liquid culture keep okay in a borosilicate media bottle with an unmodified lid?

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Why do LC when you can just do LI in a bottle with no filter needed? It should store for several years like a Cryovial or you can shake the fuck out of it and just pour it.

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Not saying you're wrong, but 0,2% LC will last a really long time as well. I run my LC in unmodified 100ml(filled from 40 to 80ml) media bottles and free pour. Either it being LI or LC I will use all of it in one session or toss if there is anything left.

Josex poke to LC, or even better, SSLC(if used within reasonable time) feels a lot safer and harder to fuck up in my opinion, sure is faster to colonize as well, again nothing wrong with LI and for long time storage it's most likely better, but for all else josex poke to SSLC and free pour is king



And



Is also true