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Ducky
Governor ofRhythm


Registered: 05/09/06
Posts: 71
Loc: on a boat somewhere
Last seen: 17 years, 8 months
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Hydroponic Casings
#5721140 - 06/06/06 10:58 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Going to try this. Theoretically know of some spawn that's doing quite well....... 
Principles which apply:
1. Mushrooms are approx 90% water. 2. An established mycellial network can withstand a low concentration of Hydrogen peroxide in solution with its water. 3. Mycellium actually begins to convert Hydrogen peroxide to sugar/food after a little while.
Theory:
Using a slow water-diffusing membrane of some sort, sterile water and Hydrogen peroxide solution will be fed to substrate/casing at a rate moderately mimicking the natural uptake of the mycellial network, thus feeding/nourishing the thirst of a colony indefinitely.
Examples of porous mass for diffusing water:
1. Compacted Polyfill 2. Aquarium airstone 3. Dish sponge
Essentially any porous material would work that would satisfy two main issues. 1) Able to allow mycellium to colonize it to some extent, and 2) Deliver water/peroxide/nutrient solution in a reasonable manner.
Potential problems:
1. Overwatering? 2. Contamination fed into colony through plumbing 3. Mycellial network overcolinizing watering element; preventing further water passage; clogging 4. Substrate becoming too acidic over time. 5. Mycelliam network becoming exhausted over time due to malnutrition
Counter arguments to above problems: (in order)
1. If water were administered to such a casing set up in this fashion as I picture it, it would soak through from underneath, more like in nature..hard to imagine overwatering this way since no standing water would be on the surface threatning overlay and other crap from overmisting.
2. Hoping that using the correct amount of Hydrogen Peroxide would be sufficient.
3. Just the right material would need to be used to dispense the water to the network. It would need the right ratio of internal surface area (porous part) to external surface area (the surface that you might touch with your fingers before sterilizing and installing it. Maybe compacted polyfill in a tube/activated charcoal combination...charcoal has approx. 4 acres of internal surface area per g or kg?? Its rediculous. Don't know the charge/polarization of Hydrogen Peroxide.. The Myc. would easily penetrate the packed polyfill and use it to wick up water and take it into its circulatory system.
4. In addition to adding a measured ratio of H2O2 to feeding water, maybe a non-caustic base, soluable in water, and non-reacive with H2O2 could be added as well.
5. The biggest issue I see..Malnutrition over time. Well, I have a few ideas, however open to more. After a number of flushes, one could theoretically clean up the colony real well, and then put it back into a feeding/incubation state and begin to feed it a liquid diet through the plumbing system (the growing/fruiting chamber would need to be suitable to both, and easily interchangeable..not hard) Possibly part of the spent substrate could be carefully cut out and replaced with fresh spawn or uncolonized substrate. Maybe a way to add on new colonies and let them attach.
I'm kind of a mad man when it comes to experimenting, but I think that's part of the fun in it all. Aside from the artificial environment conducive to growth/fruiting, I think such an operation could easily be assembled for under $30, easily.
Comment, discuss please, I'm sure there's lots of stuff I didn't think of.
-------------------- "Whoa! ...did you just see that too?"
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monstermitch
Growing in Bags Doesn't Work


Registered: 02/10/06
Posts: 3,911
Loc: Arizona Bay
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: Ducky]
#5721169 - 06/06/06 11:06 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure


Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: Ducky]
#5721204 - 06/06/06 11:13 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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A quick search will reveal that this thread comes up every month or two and has for years. Usually, it's a weed grower or former grower who wants to apply that knowledge.
However, mushrooms don't grow hydroponicaly. Mushrooms eat their food, not convert chemicals into food. You also don't want to feed or supplement your mushrooms after they begin fruiting. If you do, they stop fruiting and go back to expanding mycelium.
For fruitbodies to form, you need a constant rate of evaporation from the substrate. This evaporation, or loss of moisture is one of the pinning triggers along with full colonization, proper humidity, light, and increased air exchanges. If your substrate is holding a regulated amount of water, it won't fruit. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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Ducky
Governor ofRhythm


Registered: 05/09/06
Posts: 71
Loc: on a boat somewhere
Last seen: 17 years, 8 months
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: RogerRabbit]
#5721297 - 06/06/06 11:38 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Interesting. Never actually grown weeds, but good guess!
-------------------- "Whoa! ...did you just see that too?"
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fastfred
Old Hand



Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: Ducky]
#5721482 - 06/07/06 12:33 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Good writeup. It'll be interesting to see how your experiments progress. I've never known water content to be that much of a problem though.
If you use perlite with substrate in direct contact with it, it will serve much the same purpose. The mycelium grows down into it and can reach the bottom layer of water. However it doesn't seem to do anything amazing. You still get about three good flushes and then it becomes more efficient to replace the colonized substrate rather than continue with the spent substrate. I don't see any way to overcome that problem.
-FF
-------------------- It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy The difference between the substances doesn't matter. This is a war on consciousness, on our right to the very essence of what we are. With no control over that, we have no need to speak of freedom or a free society. -fireseed "If we are going to have a war on marijuana, the least we can do is pull the sick and the dying off the battlefield." -Neal Levine (MPP) I find the whole "my drug should be legal but yours should be illegal" mindset disgusting and hypocritical. It's what George Bush and company do when they drink a cocktail and debate the best way to imprison marijuana users. -Diploid
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Ducky
Governor ofRhythm


Registered: 05/09/06
Posts: 71
Loc: on a boat somewhere
Last seen: 17 years, 8 months
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: fastfred]
#5721692 - 06/07/06 01:33 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Thanks! I'm starting to love playing with perlite. Right now I have a few shot cup sized cakes on different materials, one being perlite, one vermiculite, etc.. The one with perlite is pinning all over the perlite surrounding the base of the mini cake, however only a few pins are actually on the cake its self! Maybe this is normal, as I'm a first time cultivator, I wouldn't know.....I meant that was my friend's buddy, I don't do anything illegal.
-------------------- "Whoa! ...did you just see that too?"
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fastfred
Old Hand



Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: Ducky]
#5733194 - 06/10/06 03:32 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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SWIM says that's perfectly normal. He says it loves to pin right off the perlite and that it will start to pin off the cakes in a little while.
-FF
-------------------- It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy The difference between the substances doesn't matter. This is a war on consciousness, on our right to the very essence of what we are. With no control over that, we have no need to speak of freedom or a free society. -fireseed "If we are going to have a war on marijuana, the least we can do is pull the sick and the dying off the battlefield." -Neal Levine (MPP) I find the whole "my drug should be legal but yours should be illegal" mindset disgusting and hypocritical. It's what George Bush and company do when they drink a cocktail and debate the best way to imprison marijuana users. -Diploid
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure


Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: fastfred]
#5733310 - 06/10/06 05:28 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Your cakes should not be sitting on the perlite or yields will suffer. You want to put them on a jar lid or something to separate them from the perlite and its moisture resevoir.
You'll get far better help with these questions in the cultivation forum. This forum is dedicated to experimental mycology, not growing. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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fastfred
Old Hand



Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: RogerRabbit]
#5734669 - 06/10/06 03:52 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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I disagree. Why would yields suffer from being on the perlite? I say it improves yields. How could additional moisture access for the cakes reduce yields?
The fact that it pins off the perlite before the rest of the cake even gets to pinning should tell you that it helps. I've seen the cakes totally covered with pins and a half-inch ring of pins around the cakes coming out of the perlite. Everything that comes off the perlite is bonus.
Now I'm not saying that I know for a fact that you are wrong, since I have never done a side-by-side controlled experiment, but if my memory and subjective analysis of yields and pinsets is right then I would say direct contact definitely helps. It definitely pins faster with direct contact.
If you have done controlled experiments or are at least a little better at tracking weights and recording them than I am, I'd like to hear your theory on how additional moisture access reduces yields.
-FF
-------------------- It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy The difference between the substances doesn't matter. This is a war on consciousness, on our right to the very essence of what we are. With no control over that, we have no need to speak of freedom or a free society. -fireseed "If we are going to have a war on marijuana, the least we can do is pull the sick and the dying off the battlefield." -Neal Levine (MPP) I find the whole "my drug should be legal but yours should be illegal" mindset disgusting and hypocritical. It's what George Bush and company do when they drink a cocktail and debate the best way to imprison marijuana users. -Diploid
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure


Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: fastfred]
#5737289 - 06/11/06 07:01 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Direct contact is bad, and has been known for years and proved hundreds of times by growers who did it on their first grow or two before they realized what would happen. If this were a cultivation forum, lots of folks would have pointed that out by now. A steady rate of evaporation is required for a good pinset and growth. A soggy, waterlogged cake or other substrate is not going to produce well. In addition, the mycelium spends needless energy colonizing the perlite only to find no food there. It pins on the perlite because the cake has become waterlogged and can't pin due to its density, leaving the perlite the only place it can. Scroll through the mushroom cultivation forum and you'll find quite a bit of discussion on this. It comes up on a regular basis. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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Cepheus
Balance



Registered: 04/19/06
Posts: 8,266
Loc: the space between reality...
Last seen: 1 month, 20 days
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: RogerRabbit]
#5737911 - 06/11/06 12:50 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said: Direct contact is bad, and has been known for years and proved hundreds of times by growers who did it on their first grow or two before they realized what would happen. If this were a cultivation forum, lots of folks would have pointed that out by now. A steady rate of evaporation is required for a good pinset and growth. A soggy, waterlogged cake or other substrate is not going to produce well. In addition, the mycelium spends needless energy colonizing the perlite only to find no food there. It pins on the perlite because the cake has become waterlogged and can't pin due to its density, leaving the perlite the only place it can. Scroll through the mushroom cultivation forum and you'll find quite a bit of discussion on this. It comes up on a regular basis. RR
Amen. Putting a cake directly onto perlite can cause this to happen :
-------------------- "I only ever hope to reach equilibrium, in Nature's matrix, in line with the meridian" ~ Jehst
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fastfred
Old Hand



Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: Cepheus]
#5740263 - 06/12/06 12:02 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Interesting, thanks for the info. I guess it goes to show how subjective evaluations made a long time apart can lead to incorrect opinions. I haven't grown anything for years, and I would hate to be leading people astray. I used to use the direct placement method and it always worked well for me. I seem to remember trying one on a lid at one point and somehow came away with the impression that direct contact was better. However I certainly will defer to the experts on this one as I don't recall any carefully observed side-by-side comparisons and my record keeping at the time was poor.
I would point out however, that placing cakes directly on perlite is certainly not a disaster or major mistake. IME the myc colonizes the perlite about a half-inch, then pins directly from the perlite first, then pins from the top edge and bottom edge of the cake, then proceeds to pin fairly well from the entire cake. All during the first flush. Of course, I have never used a verm layer and usually used a number of non-standard methods without standard method controls, so YMMV.
I always figured that the cakes were well hydrated rather than waterlogged and that the wasted energy colonizing the perlite was balanced by better access to water and also similar to the energy of colonizing a casing layer. I also assumed that colonizing non-nutritive substrate helped initiate pinning. Anyways thanks for the input. I'll do a little searching to see if I can't come up with a side-by-side pic to illustrate the differences. Also sorry to enlarge an already off-topic thread with more off-topic info.
-FF
-------------------- It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy The difference between the substances doesn't matter. This is a war on consciousness, on our right to the very essence of what we are. With no control over that, we have no need to speak of freedom or a free society. -fireseed "If we are going to have a war on marijuana, the least we can do is pull the sick and the dying off the battlefield." -Neal Levine (MPP) I find the whole "my drug should be legal but yours should be illegal" mindset disgusting and hypocritical. It's what George Bush and company do when they drink a cocktail and debate the best way to imprison marijuana users. -Diploid
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hambone
nein vollständignude


Registered: 03/25/06
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Re: Hydroponic Casings [Re: fastfred]
#5740775 - 06/12/06 05:25 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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if a constant flow of water and nutrients would cause problems, then a burst of nutrients/ lime/ hydrogen peroxide in-between flushes may prove more beneficial. good luck with the experiments.
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