Home | Community | Message Board


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   North Spore Bulk Substrate   MagicBag.co Certified Organic All-In-One Grow Bags   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   PhytoExtractum Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder   Mushroom-Hut Substrate Mix   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
Some of these posts are very old and might contain outdated information. You may wish to search for newer posts instead.
Offlinewzombie05
wz

Registered: 11/27/04
Posts: 62
Last seen: 18 years, 1 month
What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing????????
    #4124258 - 05/02/05 04:52 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

well i just birthed a rather large casing about a week and a half ago, but im getting very few but large fruits. what can i do to get larger yeilds???? the casing layer is about a 1/2 in thick and i got about 6 cakes in it. thanks!!

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleNeedMoreSleep
OCD = 100%Sterility :-)

Registered: 01/25/05
Posts: 1,210
Loc: One Inch ↑
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: wzombie05]
    #4124384 - 05/02/05 05:15 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Uneven colonization of the casing layer, non-optimal pre-pinning conditions, incorrect casing layer moisure, temperature, etc. The list goes on and on, could you explain your setup a little more???


--------------------

"Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil,
which we must fear most. And that is... the indifference of good men."
-Boondock Saints

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinewzombie05
wz

Registered: 11/27/04
Posts: 62
Last seen: 18 years, 1 month
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: NeedMoreSleep]
    #4124403 - 05/02/05 05:20 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

well i got perlite humidity, the strain is B+, my casing layer is 50/50 verm/peat moss thats about it, its about 12"x12" container with about 6 cakes in it. i think i put the casing layer too thick, should i take it out of the fruiting chamber and put back in the dark for awhile and let the rest of it colinize???

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleNeedMoreSleep
OCD = 100%Sterility :-)

Registered: 01/25/05
Posts: 1,210
Loc: One Inch ↑
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: wzombie05]
    #4124435 - 05/02/05 05:30 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

How are you getting air exchange?  Do you have bubble wands in your perlite, or are you just fanning?  Did you adjust the ph of the peat?  How thick is your casing layer as well as your substrate?  Did you not let it colonize the casing layer before you put it into fruiting conditions?  Once you case the substrate, you should put it back into incubation until you see colonization on top of the casing layer.  At which point you patch, and put into fruiting conditions.  You casing layer should be colonized just under the surface, and you should be able to see mycelium in the valleys... GL bro :stoned:


--------------------

"Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil,
which we must fear most. And that is... the indifference of good men."
-Boondock Saints

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinewzombie05
wz

Registered: 11/27/04
Posts: 62
Last seen: 18 years, 1 month
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: NeedMoreSleep]
    #4124503 - 05/02/05 05:53 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

well i am just fanning about twice a day, substrate about one inch thick and casing layer about half inch thick. afterwards i put back in incubation chamber for about a week untill i saw some myclium in the cracks like you said. only thing is the ph, i didnt adjust the peat moss any at all, usually i never have problems, this is my first large casing, usually i do way smaller and do good.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinegratefulredhead
member

Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 488
Loc: Off the map....
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: wzombie05]
    #4124990 - 05/02/05 07:37 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

could have to do with the ph... have you used this formula for casing before and not had any problems??


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlineerags
Get the most outof your gourd
 User Gallery

Registered: 02/14/05
Posts: 97
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: wzombie05]
    #4126139 - 05/02/05 11:58 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

substrate about one inch thick and casing layer about half inch thick.




Among other factors, a thicker substrate layer might give you bigger fruits. Go for a few more inches next time. 1 inch is pretty thin.


--------------------
http://www.bumwine.com/

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineGNIOM1498
Death Cup
 User Gallery

Registered: 12/15/04
Posts: 945
Loc: My home is where my spiri...
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: erags]
    #4126238 - 05/03/05 12:23 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

what.... few more inches for half pints? for every inch of substrate ur casing should be 1/4 inch in thickness. ph would have something to do with it to acidic. RH could too and air circulation. Im thinking ur casing was to thick and uneven an inch for half pints is kind of thick IMHO. Im guessing they were only 2 inches thick so ideally ur casing should have been 1/2 inch.


--------------------

----ALL MY POSTS ARE FICTIONAL-------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinehyphae
born to grow
 User Gallery

Registered: 12/13/02
Posts: 6,228
Loc: the rain forests
Last seen: 12 years, 10 months
Trusted Cultivator
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: GNIOM1498]
    #4127413 - 05/03/05 11:20 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

A perfectly level substrate along with an even thickness of the casing layer will go along way with obtaining prolific pinsets and patching doesn't hurt either! :wink: GL


--------------------
Getting the most out of your casings!, A pinning strategy.
Oyster Shell "Flour" $2 for 1lb. a hell of a deal :wink:
Not what is overlay but rather what overlay is
Gas Exchange vs. FAE

"We all have priorities. I used a closet once setup a nice little lab trouble was all the shit that was in there ended up in the bedroom that pissed off the GF then I ended up dumping her as she was getting in the way of my sterile culture technique! Ya I got priorities too!!!"

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlineerags
Get the most outof your gourd
 User Gallery

Registered: 02/14/05
Posts: 97
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: wzombie05]
    #4130916 - 05/04/05 12:23 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Did I miss something. Sounds like you made a large casing by dumping colonized jars (grain spawn cakes) and putting casing on top, no? Thicker substrate might give bigger fruit.


--------------------
http://www.bumwine.com/

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineBlue Helix
bold hand
Male User Gallery

Registered: 02/02/03
Posts: 1,565
Last seen: 8 months, 15 days
Trusted Cultivator
OG Cultivator
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: wzombie05]
    #4130980 - 05/04/05 12:35 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

I have studied the subject of high-density, even pinsets with great interest, and your question is NOT as basic as you might think. There are very few people on here who are showing good pinsets, and I personally have had hit or miss luck. One person who has proven himself time and again is Agar, and I hope he replies on here.

Today, I believe my best pinsets shared certain things:

1) Proper moisture content of the casing and casing evenness - Putting the casing on as loosely and evenly as possible should go without saying. Moisture content is a little more tricky: do not water to near saturation before the casing incubation. A perfectly watered casing for the super critical casing incubation stage means a casing that feels rather moist. A good way to hit the right moisture content is to remove about 10-15% of the casing material in the dry state before you add water, moisten the rest near saturation, and add the dry back. That will get you in the ball park for casing moisture. I personally can sense it purely by feel when it's just right. Especially if you are using peat moss, you got to be careful about over saturation. Too much water will stifle the mycelium in the casing incubation. You will raise the casing moisture to near saturation prior to the first flush AFTER incubation, not now.

2) Incubation of the casing in the case of a small tray - In the case of a larger tray, enough heat is generated typically for self-incubation if the room is around the mid-70s, but you should cover the whole thing with a blanket. If you want to make certain, push a temperature probe in the core and make sure it doesn't go above 90F in a thick tray or 86F in a thinner tray.

During incubation it is absolutely critical that the tray not be exposed to excessive light or fresh air. I believe every really good pinset I've had was on a tray covered with some sort of pin-poked cling wrap or a loose-fitting lid. Don't look at the tray on a daily basis either unless you have a deep red bulb (I don't mean just the decorative ones. I mean deep red.). Even with the bulb, I would minimize looking at the tray. If you give the mycelium light and fresh air triggers, it often--not always but often--will stop running the casing layer. Once it stops vegative growth for whatever reason, it will not start again no matter what you do (at least in my experience).

3) Patch or disrupt mycelium that comes up too fast - patching works well and is popular around these parts. However, I mostly take a fork and just disrupt the early poking mycelium a bit to even out the flush without introducing more casing material like in patching. A general very light scratch 24 to 48 hours before taking the tray out to fruit has proven VERY useful to getting a high density, even pinset in my trays. I almost always lightly scratch my casings like this. A light scratch should be one no further than half way down the casing layer. A deep scratch all the way down to the substrate may be counter productive, and I don't recommend it. Note that patching or disrupting give the mycelium triggers to end vegative growth, so you want to do this only at the very end of the casing incubation or else you might mistakenly stall the casing run.


4) Provide proper fruiting conditions - prepinning the first flush that means 95-100% RH with misting to slowly bring the casing to near saturation. Once it's there, stop misting until the flush comes.

Final notes:
I cannot over-emphasize the importance of incubating a casing, especially a peat-moss-based one. Without proper incubation of the casing, your pinsets will either be uneven, not very dense, or worse. You'll probably get a dozen mushrooms a square foot or so if you are lucky, but a good first flush pinset should have a hundred pins per square foot or more. Below are two of my trays that had good pinsets.

Substrate was broken up WBS cakes colonized with the Ecudorian strain.
The casing was lightly scratched and incubated tub-in-tub:



Substrate was hore manure spawned with WBS cakes colonized with
B+ strain. Casing was lightly scratched and incubated with
self-heating and reflective bubble wrap insulation on the
outside trapping the heat in:

Edited by Blue Helix (05/04/05 01:03 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinescatmanrav
Brainy Smurf

Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 11,483
Loc: Flag
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
Trusted Cultivator
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: Blue Helix]
    #4131093 - 05/04/05 01:14 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

True that ^^^^



--------------------
"life is like a drop of rain getting closer and closer to falling into a lake, and then when you hit the lake there is no more rain drop, only the lake."

Growing with bags, start to finish (including my new grain and substrate prep)
Anyone looking to start bulk tubs/mono tubs/shotgun hybrids? Good tubs to use..
How I do grain (old still good tips)
Turn your closet into a fruiting chamber
Casing layer colonization and overlay

Edited by scatmanrav (05/04/05 01:26 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineHotnuts
old hand
 User Gallery

Registered: 02/26/05
Posts: 3,436
Loc: Wild Blue Yawnder
Last seen: 2 months, 22 days
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: scatmanrav]
    #4131259 - 05/04/05 02:43 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

A good piece of patching and light, light, light. When you get a good rhizome coverage in your casing, add some water weight to it. At this point also add light that is comparibale to the outside. About 12 hours of it. Boom! There ya go! Light is the key for stimulating pins after you've established a good rhizome coverage on your casing.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineBlue Helix
bold hand
Male User Gallery

Registered: 02/02/03
Posts: 1,565
Last seen: 8 months, 15 days
Trusted Cultivator
OG Cultivator
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: scatmanrav]
    #4131867 - 05/04/05 09:46 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Love those pinsets, scatmanrav! I also love the way you let them mature to flat tops. I am definitely going to do that on my next tray.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineMr.Caterpillar
Curiouser & Curiouser!
 User Gallery


Registered: 07/28/07
Posts: 233
Loc: Wonderland
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
Re: What causes uneven pinsets on a large casing???????? [Re: Blue Helix]
    #8435752 - 05/23/08 03:35 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Hello Blue Helix,

I like this post above. It's very informative.

My recent crop was overall successful. Some of the trays had very dense even pinsets, but some were uneven, and a very few produced only a few pins.


Quote:

Blue Helix said:


1) Proper moisture content of the casing and casing evenness - Putting the casing on as loosely and evenly as possible should go without saying. Moisture content is a little more tricky: do not water to near saturation before the casing incubation. A perfectly watered casing for the super critical casing incubation stage means a casing that feels rather moist. A good way to hit the right moisture content is to remove about 10-15% of the casing material in the dry state before you add water, moisten the rest near saturation, and add the dry back. That will get you in the ball park for casing moisture. I personally can sense it purely by feel when it's just right. Especially if you are using peat moss, you got to be careful about over saturation. Too much water will stifle the mycelium in the casing incubation. You will raise the casing moisture to near saturation prior to the first flush AFTER incubation, not now.




Here is what I did (I am following the items in your post):

1. I made a casing from 60% verm 40% coir and balanced to ph 8 with using oyster shell calcium and hydrated lime. Brought the moisture to the point that a dribble would come out when squeezed firmly.

Quote:

Blue Helix said:

2) Incubation of the casing in the case of a small tray - In the case of a larger tray, enough heat is generated typically for self-incubation if the room is around the mid-70s, but you should cover the whole thing with a blanket. If you want to make certain, push a temperature probe in the core and make sure it doesn't go above 90F in a thick tray or 86F in a thinner tray.

During incubation it is absolutely critical that the tray not be exposed to excessive light or fresh air. I believe every really good pinset I've had was on a tray covered with some sort of pin-poked cling wrap or a loose-fitting lid. Don't look at the tray on a daily basis either unless you have a deep red bulb (I don't mean just the decorative ones. I mean deep red.). Even with the bulb, I would minimize looking at the tray. If you give the mycelium light and fresh air triggers, it often--not always but often--will stop running the casing layer. Once it stops vegative growth for whatever reason, it will not start again no matter what you do (at least in my experience).




2. It's a weakness of my FC that I don't have a proper antechamber to protect the cultures from exposure to light when I open the door. You mention covering the trays, but my experience with covering the trays is not favorable - I had very slow colonization and contamination when I covered my trays in an earlier crop. Now my method is to have the tops exposed, but covered with a dense and flat layer of pure cow manure that is heavily spawned. The bottoms of the trays are completely open with aluminum window screen inserted (I also use a layer of verm on the bottom too, but it is not fully moistened like the casing layer - but I get a lot of
fruiting on the bottom this way). Anyway, with the tops exposed I get a very dense colonization throughout, but there were a few trays that were an exception and did not colonize so evenly due to excessive drying on the surface, but I think this drying may be due to having too much air circulation in the room.

I like to have a look at the cultures everyday so that I can monitor the substrate temperature carefully, and keep an eye out for any contamination (I get a bit of chaetomium (I think that's what it is . . . ) here and there, but find that catching it early and just picking it out keeps it at bay, and it does not seem to be an issue after the trays are cased). I also just like to look at the mycelial growth.

You mention using a "deep red" bulb. Are you suggesting the use of a dark room bulb? I typically wear an LED head lamp, but I use the white LED. The head lamp I have also has a red LED, but it's not too bright. I have assumed the LEDs don't give light and/or nough of it in the correct color temperature for fruiting, but I have never checked on this.


Quote:

Blue Helix said:

3) Patch or disrupt mycelium that comes up too fast - patching works well and is popular around these parts. However, I mostly take a fork and just disrupt the early poking mycelium a bit to even out the flush without introducing more casing material like in patching. A general very light scratch 24 to 48 hours before taking the tray out to fruit has proven VERY useful to getting a high density, even pinset in my trays. I almost always lightly scratch my casings like this. A light scratch should be one no further than half way down the casing layer. A deep scratch all the way down to the substrate may be counter productive, and I don't recommend it. Note that patching or disrupting give the mycelium triggers to end vegative growth, so you want to do this only at the very end of the casing incubation or else you might mistakenly stall the casing run.




3. I haven't had a need to patch the coir/verm casing, but I did not give it more than about 12 hours of incubation. The casing was laid to a depth of about 5/8 of an inch. This is the third time I have used a verm/coir casing, and the first time I used it I gave it three days to incubate, and found that it had overlaid the surface. Mycelium really grows quickly through a coir casing! It has occurred to me to let the myscelium
really overlay the coir casing (as it wants to do . . . ) and then scratch as you suggest, give it a day to recover and then initiate. On the other hand I am thinking of switching back to a verm/peat moss casing.


Quote:

Blue Helix said:


4) Provide proper fruiting conditions - prepinning the first flush that means 95-100% RH with misting to slowly bring the casing to near saturation. Once it's there, stop misting until the flush comes.




4. What I did was to very lightly mist using a pressure spray misters several times a day and maintaining 100% humidity with a mix of fresh and recycled air. My objective was too just maintain the moisture content of the casing, but without disrupting the delicate activity of the pinhead formation. I continued in this mode until I saw that the pins were mostly a quarter-inch tall, and then I switched to a a Dramm seedling nozzle on a garden hose to lay the water on more heavily. All in all this worked pretty well, but it became tricky because I had uneven pinning. I think the source of the uneven pinning was definitely exposure to daylight via opening and closing the FC door. When I put the casing on I saw that the trays closest to the door had significant numbers of pinhead initials already formed. Later I noted that mushrooms formed prematurely in what seemed to be the trajectory of light entering the room, but this caused trouble in all the beds it occurred in because buttons (or "fingerlings" if you will) have different watering requirements versus pins. It is my impression that if developing pins receive too much water, i.e.; anything more than a super light misting, that they develop more rapidly but the mushrooms are smaller.

Quote:

Blue Helix said:

Final notes:
I cannot over-emphasize the importance of incubating a casing, especially a peat-moss-based one. Without proper incubation of the casing, your pinsets will either be uneven, not very dense, or worse. You'll probably get a dozen mushrooms a square foot or so if you are lucky, but a good first flush pinset should have a hundred pins per square foot or more. Below are two of my trays that had good pinsets.





Results in my room really varied, as I said at the top. I definitely had some dense first flushes with big mushrooms too. Some of the densest flushes were dominated by small mushrooms, hordes of small mushrooms, and personally I do not care for that. I'd like to have very dense flushes of very large mushrooms, but I have not yet found the way to get that result uniformally every time.

After the first flush I find that it is difficult to sustain the proper moisture to get a vibrant second flush. Perhaps this is a nutrition problem, or perhaps it has to do with strain. My current crop has been "Thai", but last time I grew "Palenque" and it gave a better second and third flush than the Thai seems to, but was no match for Thai on the first flush.


Thanks,
Mr.Caterpillar

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   North Spore Bulk Substrate   MagicBag.co Certified Organic All-In-One Grow Bags   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   PhytoExtractum Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder   Mushroom-Hut Substrate Mix   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* question about casing and substrate additives yogithehoneybear 1,818 3 01/29/02 01:48 PM
by dimitri211
* Casing my substrates confusedteen420 1,398 1 04/03/02 10:22 AM
by hispeed67
* uneven pinset problems new2you 2,458 9 11/04/02 11:41 PM
by DERRAYLD
* Flip yer casings or re crumble? overlayed casing indicaz 1,151 4 06/11/02 11:11 AM
by angryshroom
* Quick casing question. optikal_trip 1,665 13 10/29/01 10:07 AM
by oscill8
* What will happen to this casing? mahookah 606 4 08/23/01 03:23 PM
by shellacct
* What would happen to my casing if........... LTBOOMER 744 4 06/30/02 06:28 AM
by Roadkill
* Re: Mixing substrate with casing! The next big thing?
( 1 2 all )
LinkA 6,276 21 01/15/00 03:52 PM
by Anonymous

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Shroomism, george castanza, RogerRabbit, veggie, mushboy, fahtster, LogicaL Chaos, 13shrooms, Stipe-n Cap, Pastywhyte, bodhisatta, Tormato, Land Trout, A.k.a
7,901 topic views. 10 members, 85 guests and 69 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.025 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 12 queries.