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How does mold go undetected in jars?
    #29694675 -

I've been having a rough time with mold contamination in my shoebox grows.  It's been driving me nuts.  It has got to be from dirty grain spawn, but I haven't a clue where the fucking spores are hiding!

Briefly, I've been using whole oats. They are hydrated by simmering, and loaded into quart jars and PCed.  Then they are inoculated from agar.  I've been using Burpees coir, and the bucket tek (using an insulated cooler).

I've been PCing for 90 minutes at 15psi, which used to be adequate.

Still, somehow mold is finding it's way in to the bulk substrate.

I'm just wondering, if the issue is incomplete sterilization, is it possible for white mycellium to simply cover over the mold so that it visually seems ok?  I've seen this happen on agar, where mycellium seems to overtake mold. 

Has anyone else experienced healthy looking jars turning to green right around the first flush in bulk?  When I dump the jars in to the shoeboxes, I've been breaking them up carefully and looking for signs of green, or any hard clumps that would indicate mold or bacteria.  I am simply not seeing any.

This weekend I prepared more oat jars.  I nailed the hydration, the interior of the oat grain being a nice continuous off white (without the pure white core of raw oats).  I'm certain that step is right.

I think one thing I've been sloppy with was allowing the PC to vent before pressurizing it.  I had been giving it maybe 4 or 5 minutes.  This time, a full 10 with a continuous jet of steam.  I added 15 minutes to the PC time, so it's at 1:45.

It's all I can think of.  Somehow mold is getting through in a way that I can't see, I'm hoping increasing the venting and PC time blasts it.  I was under the impression that mold was easy to kill.  Around 160F for an hour should absolutely destroy it. 

Sorry for rambling, I'm annoyed and frustrated.  Somehow that shit is getting through and I can't see it.  It's driving me nuts!  I've read on here, time and time again that failed grows are from bad spawn.  That coir will not germinate spores, that after the jars are fully colonized they are very difficult to contaminate.  I just lost 4 out of 4 shoeboxes.  Something is sneaking through.

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: John in WI]
    #29694700 -

I’m not familiar with burpees coir. I suspect that it may have trichoderma in it. Burpees is a gardening company. Trichoderma is actually a beneficial, anti-fungal organism that is occasionally added to potting soil to help plant growth. I might be completely wrong here but it’s definitely a possibility.

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: John in WI]
    #29694711 -

I would PC for 2 hours. And yes, you want to give the PC at least 10 minutes to vent or else it will not be as effective.

Ive found that even when I follow the standard method of Sterilization time (90 min), I do still get a few contams, so I upped the time of PCing and it basically solved it

And I just learned that some molds are initially white and then change colors which indicate its not mycelium

Quote:
Trichoderma is actually a beneficial, anti-fungal organism that is occasionally added to potting soil to help plant growth


This is a very good point Incidental_farmer, if this is true, I would recommend using a different coir, or just pasteurizing it


Tighten up your PCing and Im sure you'll get much better results:thumbup:


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: John in WI] * 2
    #29694725 -

John in WI said:
Has anyone else experienced healthy looking jars turning to green right around the first flush in bulk?  When I dump the jars in to the shoeboxes, I've been breaking them up carefully and looking for signs of green, or any hard clumps that would indicate mold or bacteria.  I am simply not seeing any.


Me. I probably only had one or two successful flushes when I got back into this over many many tubs.

Switching from Oats helped.

Focusing on having 100% clean innlculant helped more.

Chances are you're dealing with a bacterial contamination that's causing skipped grains or weakened mycelium. The trich isn't in the jar itself, it's getting a foothold in uncolonized grains.

Got any pictures of your spawn?

Are you using Agar or LC to inoculate? If agar, pics of plates would help too. If it's LC, then you'll want to only use that to inoculate agar and make transfers until you have a 100% clean culture, and use that agar plate to inoculate grains.

I get the frustration. Give us some info to work with and we'll help get you sorted.


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: PuffM4gicDr4gon]
    #29695008 -

Thanks for the thoughts.
Burpees is a garden company, they've been around forever.  I read up on it, and it's supposed to be 100% coir, no additives.  I'm on my last brick.  I think I used to use Eco.
I've been innoculating from agar in a SAB. Taking the precautions. I wear gloves, wiped tools with dilute bleach, flame sterilize...

It just seems weird to me.  If mold dies after 1hr at 180F, it should already be dead by the time the grain is hydrated by simmering.  I thought mold spores were easy to kill, that pressure cooking went after more resistant endospores.

I think I should have PCed some jars and just let them sit as a control.

Hopefully this run will meet with success.  The PC was properly vented for 10 minutes, I gave it an extra 15 minutes at full pressure.

I was really just curious about if mold can survive that treatment, then rear it's ugly head later when spawning to bulk.  I've seen mycellium overtake mold on agar plates.  The mold is most certainly alive, but covered in a white mat. 

Anyway, I cleaned all my tubs with dishsoap and a mist of bleach, hoping I can get this figured out.
These problems drive me nuts.  It isn't witchcraft. It's a process that when followed properly should work. 
I had some shit like this the last year of grad school, procedures that seemed to stop working.  But that's impossible.  Something changed. It must have.    My gut feeling is being sloppy with venting.  With a large partial pressure of air in the PC, I may have been operating 20 degrees colder than I thought I was. And that could be catastrophic.

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: PuffM4gicDr4gon]
    #29695017 -

Incidental_farmer said:
I’m not familiar with burpees coir. I suspect that it may have trichoderma in it. Burpees is a gardening company. Trichoderma is actually a beneficial, anti-fungal organism that is occasionally added to potting soil to help plant growth. I might be completely wrong here but it’s definitely a possibility.


I've used coir marked "with added trichoderma", and it has been fine. I used it a couple of times when I couldn't get my regular stuff; then lately found a brick of it in my stuff, so am running a few shoeboxes side by side with it and the regular, just to double check. No difference in colonization and no "trich". I don't bucket tek, but I do put the weighed coir in each shoebox and add boiling water directly; maybe that's plenty to kill off the added trich. Should be really.



PuffM4gicDr4gon said:
Chances are you're dealing with a bacterial contamination that's causing skipped grains or weakened mycelium. The trich isn't in the jar itself, it's getting a foothold in uncolonized grains.

Got any pictures of your spawn?




My bet would be on this.

If you want to do some control jars, do a couple you leave sealed, and take another couple and go through the motions of innoculating in your SAB, just don't inoculate. If your PC process is off, both will go south. If your PC process is on point, but sterile technique is off, your jar/s that got opened should show it. If all the controls stay fine, you probably have some baccy in your plates.

Or- could be something as simple as you're introducing a nutrient source when spawning to bulk. Make sure whatever you are hydrating your coir in is spotlessly clean, likewise anything used to measure it out. There are folks here who use dedicated buckets and measuring cups for coir and only coir to eliminate any chance of a random grain or crumb of something getting in.


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Edited by bluescreen (10/12/26 08:24 AM)

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: bluescreen]
    #29695058 -

I would 100% agree that if trichoderma or other molds are appearing after going to bulk it’s because the culture is either genetically compromised or bacterial and too weak to fight it off in the substrate. Unless you go to bulk in completely sterile conditions the very act of spawning will introduce spores that are normally out competed by the mycelium.

Mold is normally very quick to show up in a jar of grain, certainly you can expect signs before full colonisation occurs even if the mold doesn’t sporulate in the jar.

As has already been mentioned, good grain prep, extended PC cycles and control jars will all help to narrow down where the problem is creeping in but for what it’s worth my bet is the culture is t up to snuff.

Edited by MomoMyco (10/12/26 09:11 AM)

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: MomoMyco]
    #29695198 -

Give us pics!


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: PuffM4gicDr4gon]
    #29695543 -

I highly recommend stove top pasteurization of substrate, even if it is just coir & verm. I do it each and every time and never get mold, and very rarely get trich, but that is usually because I spawned a jar I wasn't 100% certain about.

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: Bungmurphy]
    #29695686 -

I recommend using a control. A jar that has been PC'd but not inoculated. Should narrow things down.

Yes mycelium will cover contams making them invisible to the eye. Contams go dormant until you spawn.

Take pictures of your plates before you send them.



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Agar Plates and Removing Hidden Contaminants - A Visual Notebook
Recognizing Contamination in Grain Jars - A Visual Notebook
Contaminated Condiment Cup Cleanup v1.0

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: DV8DUG]
    #29695944 -

I think that must be exactly what's going on--the mycellium obscuring the mold so that it looks good visually, but has a time bomb waiting to go off.  I've seen it on some old forgotten about agar plates--you can see very dark spots (of mold) but covered in a "healthy" layer of white.

I already inoculated the jars I prepared this weekend (using a full 10 minute vent time, and an hour and 45 minute PC cycle).  I'm planning to do another run this weekend.  I can fit 9 jars in my PC, I would like to put 3 on the shelf unopened. 

I'm also planning, when the jars I nocced up are coming along, to do some g2a transfers.  If there is anything nasty lurking in there, it should become very clear on agar.

But you're right--trying to diagnose a problem without any data is a fool's errand.  I need to methodically rule things out.  I'm starting to suspect it was my half-ass venting on the PC before installing the weight.  I did some reading on Dalton's Law (of Partial Pressures), and it's quite possible I've been running the PC at 15psi, but at temperatures 10+ degrees lower than I thought I was.

It can't hurt--more purging, longer cycle.  I'm using whole oats, which I've read can be a little more resistant to sterilization than smaller grain like WBS.

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: John in WI]
    #29696098 -

I love oats. I use them exclusively.

Testing things on agar can't be bad.


--------------------
Agar Plates and Removing Hidden Contaminants - A Visual Notebook
Recognizing Contamination in Grain Jars - A Visual Notebook
Contaminated Condiment Cup Cleanup v1.0

Green Cap Pheno Isolation

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: DV8DUG]
    #29696113 -

If all four shoeboxes contaminated around the first flush, I’d be looking for a common factor rather than assuming the grain hydration is the problem. Contamination can be present in spawn without being obvious, and healthy-looking mycelium on the surface doesn’t necessarily mean the whole jar is clean. The fact that it keeps happening across multiple boxes makes me wonder whether the agar cultures are carrying something through, even if they look clean, or whether the same issue is affecting every batch. I’d also avoid assuming the coir is completely sterile just because it was prepared with bucket tek. Changing several things at once might make it harder to pinpoint the cause, so Id try to narrow it down one variable at a time. Four out of four failing is frustrating, but it should give you a useful clue that there’s probably a shared source.

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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: Garincha]
    #29696360 -

I don’t know if this was covered yet but, bacteria is a major vector for mold. No mold in the spawn but there is bacteria. The bacteria slows and inhibits the recovery of the shroom mycelium and then in the window the mold spores can germ and get a foothold on the weakly colonized media. Most people who’s grows trich out did so because of bacteria in the spawn.


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: Pastywhyte]
    #29696391 -

it is also likely that your agar technique and clean work is a vector.


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: fiddle_head]
    #29696393 -

Seldom is it really "dirty grain" although that is the case with certain grains more, as oats are well known to be dirty but bioloads can be extinguished with the proper preparation and added sterilization time, even really big ones. Most errors are -> you spilt something in the sab (example) -> didn't cook your spawn (quite) long enough -> bare grains in your jars -> trichoderma.


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: fiddle_head]
    #29696419 -

Bacterial contams can also weaken mycelium which is a germination trigger for trich so yea ur inert coir has no nutes though a trich spore that normally couldn't grow... well all ur grains in contact with that coir if it's damaged or stalling itl actually trigger trichroderma germination :oldman: fucn trich anyways mannn :blah:


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Re: How does mold go undetected in jars? [Re: bloodssonnew]
    #29696433 -

My issues with Bacillus thurngenesis is it also produces a lot of other things that may impede fungi, even after the bacteria itself is dead. Cry toxins, chitineses, metalloproteases, which may impede the shrooms. I don't know to what extent heat can denture some of these things but I suspect some of them continue to have an effect even after sterilization. BTI is commonly used as a pesticide for organic grain so it's pretty common.


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