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Velocity92C
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Registered: 07/22/06
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Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic..
#5888222 - 07/22/06 05:36 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I read the policy, to read through all the articles before posting any questions.. I've read all the articles but still have some questions that aren't discussed in real detail. if this post is against the policy, please delete it. I find the site very helpful and wouldn't want to limit my access to it. Anyway, here goes;
I've got plenty of questions here, so far so good but I want to know how to maximize the end result and speed it up a little possibly.
First off, ordered my vermiculite/BRF off the net, as well as the syringe from hawkeyes. standard cubensis strain.
anyway, bought the 1/2 pint jars from walmart, the tall ones not the short fat ones (which one is best?)
I mixed the substrate, and covered it with 2 layers of aluminum foil, and cooked the jars in a regular pot on the stove with a top for an hour and a half. let them cool overnight, cleaned and sterilyzed an area of my kitchen, took a shower and put on clean clothes and inoculated. this is where I encountered my first real problems. the syringe was sporadic, and would sometimes only shoot 1/4 CC in with a slight push and in one jar shot almost a full CC into a single side of the jar. so the 6 jars I did, in which I spread up the 10 CC all have different amounts. the other problem I ran into was I had no alcohol fuel or lighter, I lit a candle and used that flame to sterilize the needle. it turned it black and sizzled, but it seemed to work. anyway, I've got no incubator (yet), but the temperature in my apartment hovers around 73-75 degrees, and I read somewhere that the jars themselves add a few degrees.
it's been 6 days now since inoculation and just last night I started seeing the very first signs of growth, white blotches in the upper portions of 4/6 jars. it's very small but clearly there, not contaminated at all.
so I guess everything went over well, though I'm not expecting much yield from this since it's growing so slow. I will have a nice fruiting chamber to put them in, and will be cleaning it at least every other day, as I've heard you get bigger flushes with cleaner chambers. plus I'll be doing the dunk tek between flushes.
my questions are as follow;
where could I have improved my technique? I've ordered 4 more syringes, and even ordered 6 pre filled jars with substrate that are sterilized and sealed tight. they showed up today but I've got a week or so before the syringes arrive. one big question I had here was I'm gonna have to puncture the lid to inoculate, will a standard hammer and nail be ok, and do I need to sterilize those with flame or will alcohol/water be good? I'm lost there.
is the reason my current jars are growing so slow because they're not warm enough? I plan on building a makeshift incubator next check with the terranium heater and a couple big buckets. so my next batch should grow faster due to the warmth.
another question I have is how much light do they need to be exposed to in this stage (6 days since inoculation). some places I've read that you want them exposed to zero light, some place say natural room light is sufficient. currently I have them sitting on a bookshelf with a towel covering almost all of the light up but a little coming in just because I didn't know what amount was required.
are wide mouth or tall jars better? the original pf tek has the wide mouth, but the one I'm using has the tall ones.
and the biggest and most important question is how many grams can I expect to harvest per jar? I know it's going to be determined by a lot of factors, but how much on average ? I expected a lot more than what I've read (between 3-6 grams per jar) - and I'm talking about with all flushes included, I understand using the dunk tek can greatly increase the 2nd, 3rd and so on flushes.
anyway, any input at all is greatly appreciated. the guides available are spectacular, but they don't answer some of the noobie questions I have.
here's a pic of my progess so far.. it's growing towards the center of the jar.. hard to see but I can't get the camera to focus. I also noticed that it's not a bright white color, but it's only been there for less than 24 hours.
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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: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5888372 - 07/22/06 06:10 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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wide mouth
get rid of the towel. light isn't a factor yet. put them in a box if you are worried. you will not be able to guess how much you will get. depends on your technique. dunk, roll/case, and keep the parameters correct.
if the jars have a dry vermiculite layer on top, you can puncture with a hammer, just don't go deep at all.
make yourself a still air (glove) box. look into Liquid Culture.
read up on grains and bulk substrates.
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: monstermitch]
#5888474 - 07/22/06 06:28 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks for the replies.. what is a still air box?
Here's a link to the pic since it's messed up apparently;
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=main/7/20219265097.jpg&s=f10
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stormhalter
full metalalchemist

Registered: 07/10/06
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5888545 - 07/22/06 06:49 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Image still doesn't work
http://www.coylab.com/Isolation_Box_with_Mail.jpg
You can buy one or make one, search the site on the tutorial.
Edited by stormhalter (07/22/06 06:50 PM)
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: stormhalter]
#5888576 - 07/22/06 07:00 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Here's another try.. I could see the 2nd one but I guess others can't.. let me know if this one works.

The air box looks cool.. what stages would you need it for though? Inoculation? I don't think sterilization is my problem.. I wiped down the entire area real good and was very clean. I love the suggestions though, keep them coming.
Also, while I understand that the PF Tek is easiest the more I read about cultivation it seems like it might be the process that produces the least amount in the end. Once I've got the PF tek down should I consider a different tek? I'm looking for large quantities in the end, as I'm sure everyone is. Should I stop using the PF tek and go to a seperate one right away?
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5888663 - 07/22/06 07:38 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Also, is there anyway besides for an incubator to speed up this stage? I don't have the cash for an incubator until friday, rent and car payment/insurance wiped me out this time, lol. Should I wrap the jars in towels or stick them in the oven with the oven off, anything like that?
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royer
±±±±±±±±±±

Registered: 05/15/06
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5888719 - 07/22/06 07:55 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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also when you get fruit print your mushies and use the empty syringes you got left over and you wont have to buy spores any more unless you want a different strain. but you can trade your strain of prints for a different one in the marketplace.
-------------------- ================================================= if you have any questions please feel free to pm me , thx :-)
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Yamidude
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: royer]
#5888786 - 07/22/06 08:12 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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All I have used are the tall half pints and i have had 100% sucess.
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Yamidude]
#5888850 - 07/22/06 08:32 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Any ideas on how to speed this up without a full blown incubator? Does the growth in that jar look healthy? At second glance all of the jars have at least a tiny spot of growth, 4/6 have a splotch very similar to that one.
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creamcorn
mad scientist


Registered: 03/13/06
Posts: 2,962
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5888881 - 07/22/06 08:41 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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as far as speeding it up, you're really mostly past that point. a lot of it depends on how you prepare the jars in the first place.
a few considerations: yes, properly incubating helps significantly. there's lots of places in your home that probably stay steady around the 82-84 mark which is optimal, so get creative. the cupboards above your fridge. near the bottom of a hot water tank. behind your computer. etc. DONT JUST GUESS THOUGH. use a thermometer. if its over 86, stay away. higher temps slow growth down again, yet speed growth of possible contaminates, so its a lose-lose situation. lower temps are safer. optimal temps are best when you can carefully control them. you can build a proper tub in tub incubator pretty inexpensively, and you said you eventually want good yields, so it sounds like you'll get plenty of use out of it. do it when you can.
another really important factor is gas exchange. your jars do need to breathe a little. people are a little over-paranoid about contams when they start out, but the pf-tek was designed to make the jars extremely contam resistant, thus newbie friendly. (that's why you put a layer of dry vermiculite on top, it serves as a contaminate barrier.) loosen the foil so its not on tight so they can breathe. leave it there to act just as a dust cover so nothing directly falls in the holes. if you taped up your holes under the foil, lose the tape, and just loosely cover it back up with just the foil.
those factors aside, i've got a whole collection of tips in a thread in my signature you might want to take a look at. some ideas for next time maybe.
pf-tek is low yield when done as-is. you can actually take advantage of pf cakes as spawn, by crumbling your cakes to pieces, then mixing them with a bulk substrate such as poo, coir, compost, etc, and making a casing. you can multiply your yields this way. its a pretty smart way to go about it IMO, start with your cakes, fruit some as cakes, maybe make some small experimental casings by crumbling others. in the mean time you can learn about grain spawn, and transition to it as you get the hang of it. you'll find that its a lot less tedious to prepare, and you end up with bigger quantities of spawn that can lead to even bigger amounts of bulk substrate. its just not quite as forgiving from a contam point of view (i.e., designing proper lids, the neccessity of a PC, etc), there's a few more steps involved, and perhaps the hardest thing is weeding through the dozens upon dozens of possible methods to come up with one you personally like and works for you, but you'll have plenty of time to learn while you go through your first grow.
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: creamcorn]
#5888907 - 07/22/06 08:50 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks so much for the big reply... I've been reading and you're 100% right, I was terrified of contams, but I'm gonna loosen the foil on them tonight and let them breathe. Should I just leave it that way or loosen it for a couple hours a day?
I think I'm gonna see these 6 jars through to the fruiting chamber and experiment with casing a little bit on the next batch. I've got 4 syringes in the mail, and between now and the time those syringes develop I plant to learn how to make my own prints/syringes as well. This is all so much fun, I haven't been so excited about something in forever.
a few more questions, should I dunk before the first flush being a complete noob? I understand it'd probably be hard to mess anything up dunking but I'm just so clueless. after reading your threads from your signature I'm just the kind of person you reference, so worried about everything. I guess I should just relax a little, huh? 
would it be worth it for these 6 jars to go ahead and build the incubator? I don't have a lot of cash but I guess I could spare 25 bucks. I'll definitely need it in the future anyway, so I'll probably go get the stuff for it tonight.
anyway, thanks for the great advice - keep it coming
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creamcorn
mad scientist


Registered: 03/13/06
Posts: 2,962
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5889228 - 07/22/06 10:42 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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just leave it loose. it'll be fine. some do not leave anything on their jars and leave the holes totally uncovered, allowing the verm alone to keep contams out, and that works. i personally prefer some sort of dust cover at least so nothing directly falls in, but you'll definitely run into MORE problems by not allowing them to breathe - many contams thrive in anerobic environments, while mycelium just hates it.
definitely dunk before your first flush, and again each time between flushes. colonized cakes are pretty hearty things and can take a beating. not that i'm suggesting you beat your cakes point being dunking is pretty low risk in the scheme of things and enormously beneficial.
an incubator will shave a few days off things. its not necessary if you can't afford it at the moment... so you decide if its worth it. they'll colonize just fine even at room temperature. it should be on your eventual to-do list though if you're looking to colonize as quick as possible, and plan to do this for a while. (the other benefit of an incubator, is holding your colonizing substrate at higher than room temps so that when its time for fruiting, they experience a decrease in temperature. this temp drop is one of the triggers that tells your mycelium network its time to start pinning. so its again good to be totally optimal, but a lack of a proper incubator won't hurt things significantly, as long as you're patient about the time differences.) but like i said if you're a little creative you can probably find somewhere a little warmer than room temp around the house to help you out for now.
and yeah, relax a little. everyone makes mistakes. things sometimes go wrong even when you do everything right. don't get discouraged if/when things go wrong, its part of the process... and mistakes and failure make great learning experiences. a lot of what we talk about here is the absolute optimal ideal conditions... few things in real life are optimal or ideal (especially in nature, where mushrooms have grown since before man), so if you have to skimp or lack in certain areas, its not necessarily a recipe for disaster
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princestoadstool
Pot Head


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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: creamcorn]
#5889376 - 07/23/06 12:02 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Your question about an incubator... Put them in a shoe box on top of your fridge. This works wonders for me - usually, most of my jars are completely colonized within a week or so. And as for the pic, it looks plenty healthy to me. My jars usually look like that at the inoculation sites too. It will turn a brighter white once the mycelium grows a bit.
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: princestoadstool]
#5890284 - 07/23/06 11:51 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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well I think the breathing worked wonders for a few of the jars.. all of them grew a little more overnight but 2 of them really started to show.. I'll post pics in a little while. this is so exciting, thanks for all the advice. also, is there more heat on top of a fridge? are the kitchen lights being on going to be a problem or should I cover it with a towel?
I'm relaxing the more I read on this forum, so glad I found this place, so much good information going around. I'm going to be reading more about liquid culture today, since it seems to be pretty popular as well.
anyway, thanks again for the help, I'll have pics of the progress up soon.
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5892586 - 07/23/06 09:57 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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didn't have time to take a pic today.. good growth throughout the day, much more than the days before.. one jar is almost 30% colonized.
a quick question... in all of the jars the white growth is turning bright white but is very fuzzy looking, almost looks like mold. is this normal or is this a sign of contamination? no foul smells at all. I sure hope it's normal because I dunno how I could've been anymore sanitary.
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creamcorn
mad scientist


Registered: 03/13/06
Posts: 2,962
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5892611 - 07/23/06 10:05 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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well it depends on your interpretation of "fuzzy" 
as long as its white, you're probably ok. some contams are white but they change color when they sporulate (like green molds), you'll notice your jar stall, then suddenly change color. it usually looks lumpy though, not fuzzy.
really hard to tell anything without a picture... so here's a picture of one of mine:

are you talking about that feathery, threadlike growth maybe? if so, that's a sign of really healthy mycelium 
(that jar is only 5 days old btw, was done from an LC, so yeah, its definitely worth looking in to. )
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nuk1m
Dutchman


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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: creamcorn]
#5892993 - 07/24/06 12:27 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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man creamcorn that right there is colonizing at it's finest ^^ so aggresive looking
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: nuk1m]
#5894249 - 07/24/06 12:44 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Ok, after seeing your picture it looks better - WOW though, your jar is so much more colonized and aggressive looking than mine. Mine's just creeping along, lol. It's threadlike and feathery though so hopefully it's fine.
Anyway, I'll post a pic up here in a little bit. Kinda embarassing how tiny my growth is after 8 days compared to most people's but like I said, I'm a noob and this is all cool as shit anyway.
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creamcorn
mad scientist


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Posts: 2,962
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5894279 - 07/24/06 12:56 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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haha im just a showoff.... have made so many brf jars its not funny and got it down to an art, and that particular one is growing a clone from an LC, so you'll get that much more rhizmorphic growth pattern earlier on than when you inoculate from spores.
if you have white and only white growth at 8 days on a first try, regardless how far along it may be, pat yourself on the back. you don't have to look through too many posts to see lots of people struggling to get even that far, and you're past the hardest part of the grow IMO
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: creamcorn]
#5894296 - 07/24/06 01:01 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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There's a pic of one of the jars.. all jars have similar growth.. everything looking good so far? It'll probably take extra long for it to colonize the whole jar considering how long it's taken. Oh well though, this weekend = try number 2 and I'll have an incubator this time as well + I'll be trying LC.
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creamcorn
mad scientist


Registered: 03/13/06
Posts: 2,962
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: Velocity92C]
#5894333 - 07/24/06 01:18 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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yep that looks good 
it will thicken up and whiten up as it goes.
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Velocity92C
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Re: Brand new to cultivation - some ?'s and a pic.. [Re: creamcorn]
#5898011 - 07/25/06 12:10 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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a new pic;

progressing slowly but surely, all jars now show growth on multiple sides but some of them don't seem to be growing fast, maybe a centimeter a day. will these jars completely colonize or do some jars never fully get there?
I'll post a new pic each day showing the progression. new spores should arrive in a few days, then I'll start a whole new batch of jars, and a LC.
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