It all began the sixth day of December when I finally inoculated them. It had taken some time to get vermiculite.
My Canon A70 decided to commit suicide, so I do not have pictures.
I used four 2,5dl cups as jars. The substrate was one quarter rye flour and three quarters of vermiculite. Jars were covered with two tin foils each and pressure cooked for along with a syringe and sterile water in a small glass for ~45 minutes and cooled down.
Syringe was made from a print of some cubensis. It was scraped to sterile water and sucked to syringe. I had made another syringe earlier from a print I got from frse (strain A) but wasn?t sure of its potency and sterility. My technique probably sucked a lot. Jars were then inoculated, three of them with the first syringe mentioned and one with the A strain syringe. We did not use glove boxes nor sprays to ?sterilize? the kitchen we worked in. But it worked very well with an oven.
Jars were put to a small cardboard box, which was also wrapped with gift paper to ensure darkness inside. I used a lamp to warm up the temperature up to 27-29C.
After a couple of days the A strain jar was fully? contaminated. Nice. But the other three had some nice white spots.
The first jar was fully colonized after Christmas. I cased it with vermiculite only and covered with foil. Couple of days went and I noticed the casing had dried and pulled away from the borders. I then sprayed it with water/H202. I then put a plastic wrap over it to stop the moisture getting out. Couple of days waiting and then I put in a 10L basket, put some (~5cm layer)vermiculite(wetted with water/H202) on the bottom, sprayed the walls with water/H202. I bought a thermo/hygrometer after a couple of days and noticed it was too humid. I finally wiped the walls dry and settled to fanning it several times a day. The RH fluctuated between 97-100% most of the time.
The other two cakes were ready on 7th of January. I cased them like the first cake but put that wrap over the casing to prevent drying.
It was 11t of January and no signs of pinning in the first casing. Till now, I had, for some reason, thought that the casing shouldn?t be misted, even though I had read just the opposite... Well, I realized my mistake and misted it a bit. The other casing had some myc poking through on a couple of areas so I patched them, misted a bit and put the wrap and foil on.
January the 13th the second (the two cake) casing was showing some myc poking through the verm layer. So I put it in a terrarium which was made of a plastic container with a lid, size was ~20L. I had drilled four small holes in the sides of the container.
It was 16th January and THE FIRST PINS emerged in the first casing! One mushroom was ahead of others and dropped its spores after 2 days. I picked it and let the others grow for a day and the picked them also. Then I put some wetted (h202+water) verm on the damaged casing and raised the RH back to 95+ %. Dry weight of the harvest was 1,1g, very bad... I think it was because the casing dried out. The second casing does not show signs of pinning, but hasn?t dried out while I?ve misted it every day. The myc is a bit bluish?
Its Monday, 23rd January. No signs of anything in the morning. But, in the afternoon there?s mushrooms coming again from the first casing. 3 small pins and one like 5 cm mushie. Yeehaw! 24th day I picked the first one and made a print. The rest I picked the next day and took one cap for printing. Wet weight of this second harvest was around 6 grams? I think these should have come with the first ones. Probably the myc isn?t so evenly spread?
Around 25th day the first pins emerged in the second casing.
28th January, after a cruise, I return home and notice the 2nd casing has a bigger shroomie which has dropped its spores but the cap isn?t flat, actually its very round. Other few shroomies are very small. I harvested them but the next day there were a couple of shroomies coming up again. I let them grow, harvested them 3rd and 4th of February and took a couple of prints. The harvest was 12,5g wet without the 4 caps I put to print on the 3rd day and a couple of grams wet on the 4th day.
7th of January there were a pin or two again in the second casing. The casings have been it a pretty moist conditions for a couple of days, I haven?t misted them so much and have put the lids on too tightly, so there were some drops formed on the lids which I wiped off?.
Results till now: ~5g dry from 2 casings?.
So it went, a couple of shrooms came during the next few days. I won?t report how the rest went, not too much to tell.. Not good. Now on to my next grow.
What I?ll do: -ditch the peroxide from misting, get a better misting bottle. -try WBS, cased with verm/peat
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