Mine are in loose verm/rice flour (MMGG). Seemed rather dry (what do I know) but after 48hrs I see Teeniest of condensation on inside of jars, so I should be ok.

My computer assisted temp control is 84 - 88F (28 - 31c) (by computer assisted I mean the box sits on top of my puter for warmth )

So far no signs of life, good or bad. Not that I expected any, but I just HAVE to look....

Peace
/Gadget

It would be cool to post progress reports every week or so since we innoculated roughly at the same time using same method. i plan to case using Shroom Wizards Tek.

What did you innoc with?

I also got some eq from him but i am gonna wait a week as i have 3 different strains going right now anyway

If enough cakes make it, I intend on simultaneously (sic) do a few straight cakes in perlight and the rest in Shroom Wizards casing method (that is the one using potting soil and verm, yes?)

I also have a full syringe of Ryche's B+ and about 4ml of Eq left over, I decided to start off small and work my way up, this way I can get over the learning curve w/o wasting my spore reservers.

Do we want to continue this thread for updates, or start a new one?

Thanks
/Gadget

PS Do all newbies have this unending urge to constantly keep checking in on there jars?

------------------
"First you get the money,
when you get the money you get the power, when you get the power you get the woman."--Scarface

T +72 hours and one jar has the faintest of white fuzzy stuff growing near the glass!!

Temp is staying between 84-89f.

Happy Dance!
/Gadget

I just completed day 10 of incubation, I've got 2 of 6 jars showing great progress (about 25% colinization against inside of jar.) Another 2 are at maybe 10% and last 2 show no signs of life yet.

On the upside, so far no signs of Contamination

I am a little concerned about the 2 jars with no signs of life, The only thing I can think is that on those two jars, I didn't inject the spores right up against the glass, so hopefully they are growing like mad, but I can't see it yet.

Let me know how you guys are doing!

Thanks
/Gadget

PS Temp has ranged from 83F - 91F, but usualy around 86F 90% of the time. (local temp has ranged from low 40's to mid 80's so temp regulation has been a little difficult)

My 10 jars are on day 9. All jars showing growth, anywhere from 1-2% to about 15%. Not going as fast as I hoped. Temp pretty constant at 82 degrees. About to case 3 jars of B+.

How long did it for your jars of B+ to become fully colonized?? Im on day 13 of my Jars of B+, most jars are around 30%

------------------
Peace
Blue

The Lizard,

Innoculated a small jar of malt extract broth this morning to use as mycellium water.

------------------
"My mind dont work if my spine dont jerk"
-Quote from Eminem-

~PanTrop~

Slow Growth = Cultivator Error....sometimes

So far no contam problems, 2 jars show no signs of life yet, maybe growing away inside, away from the glass.....

I took the tape off of 3 jars 2 days ago and I notice that those jars (with evident growth) show signs of thicker growth (like strands) than the still taped jars. Very much fighting the urge to untape the others, but I remain strong.

I believe I did fail to mention one deviation from standard MMGG procedure. I punched 4 innoculation holes in lid, but instead of having all 4 around perimeter, I have 3 around perimeter and 1 in center of lid. Oher than that I followed instructions to the letter.

So far, so good!

Peace
/Gadget

Sorry, forgot to add scale reference to the pic, those are 1/2 pint jars. I tried to follow the instructions as close as possible, only thing I did different was moving one of the four holes to the center, but don't think that should be an issue.

Thanks for the info, as I was wondering what would happen if you upped the canning jar size!

Thanks
Gadget

------------------
Peace
Blue

Also, I was thinking of taking my cakes and innculating straw. Is it cool to break up brown rice cakes for straw?

Although the pic appear grey, its actually fluffy white stuff. The jar in the middle was one of the jars I removed the tape covering the injection holes. The tape was removed about 3 days before the pic. Once tape was removed noticed EXPLOSIVE growth of thick strands instead of fluffy stuff.

Seems the Thick strands appear brighter white then the fluffy stuff.

Peace
/Gadget

You using wide mouth jars or regular pint jars?

Seems there might be some kind of growth speed advantage to the wide mouth jars... Go figure.

My jars are the short wide-mouth 1/2 pint. Today is day 18 and they are 100% colonized. My other 5 jars got screwed up somehow...oragne discoloration orbiting growth area, slow growth...going to have to toss them, damnit!

Another plus on of the jars that showed no signs just startet having fluffy white spots, took it 18 days to decide to start growing, but it did.... This leaves me with just 1 jar out of 6 that's still not showing any signs of life...yet

Mindquestor, didn't I read somewhere that Orange discoloration was a sign of excess water and that they would be ok?? Maybe take the lids off and let them dry up a little..

As it looks now, I am probably going to case 2 - 3 jars this weekend, when do you think your going to birth/case?

Peace
/Gadget
"God this is fun!"

This orange coloration is not just water damage...at least I don't think so.

I am going to case my other 5 jars on thur eve. Yeeehaaah!

Also I flipped the remaining 5 jars over to hopefully promote quicker growth on the very bottom of the jars, That was a good idea, yes?

Maybe I get lucky and get to case this weekend on day 22!

Peace
/Gadget

Well I was hoping to case today, but only 1 jar is 100%, perhaps next weekend, or maybe I will do a couple jars mid week.

As you can see, all jars finally show signs of growth, although couple took 18-19 days....

Peace
/Gadget

[This message has been edited by Gadget (edited December 24, 1999).]

I hope mine turn out as well as yours did!

later

------------------
"My only weakness is my thirst for knowledge."

Also I never see any growth, until I look and there is like a dime-size patch of mycelium at the inoculation points.

Sporechicks is a reliable vendor, and if you inoculated rigth after you received the spores you should be cool. Just have patience.

Cased mine 4 days ago. My jars were fully colonized after 18 days! I use the short, wide mouth 1/2 pint. I think they are much better than the tall ones. Took 32 days last time I used tall ones.

How many Jars did you case?

Definetly looks like Wide mouths are the best, all my jars are colonized on the sides, but on bottom growth slowed, and THICKENED. Real weird, Oh well, next time I'll do Wide Mouths.

Only thing I can figure that gives Wide mouth jars an advantage wouled be that they are closer to cubical, and regular jars are long and skinny....

Oh well, so I will be casing a week behind you

Peace
/Gadget

Wow, that was kinda fun! I found couple things VERY interesting.

#1 My wife hates the smell of shrooms.. Whoops

#2 When crumbling the cakes, I was surprised at their texture / consistancy. The texture kinda reminded me of a dense sponge, and it seems kinda dry, but it wasn't. I know that doesnt make much sense, but..

#3 I was also surprised that I could "snap" the cake in half cleanly with my hands, I had imagined that it would be more simular to a root structure, but it wasn't

Anyway, I used a plastic 8.5" * 11.5" tray for a case, I am a little concerned about its height, roughly 3" with the lid on. TIme will tell.

I painted the outside of the tray flat black, as MindQuester ran into a problem with pinnings happening underneath the top layer of soil.

I placed a 50/50 mixture of Verm/potting soil on the bottom (Shroom Wizard's tek) and crumbled (well really broke) 3 cakes into marble sized chunks.

Here is an image of the completed crumbled cake layer on top of the 50/50 layer, just before covering with moist potting soil.

Does this look about right?

Oh, another thing, 2 of my 3 cakes did not appear completely colonized before removal. (there was about a dime sized patch of substrate still showing on the bottom)

When I crumbled th cakes, the inside of cake WAS completely colonized! , and the dime sized spot on the bottom (of uncolonized substrate) was maybe .1mm thick. very odd....

Peace,Love, and Mery Christmas!
/Gadget

PS. Innoculation to casing time was 28 days, I still have 3 jars colonizing, 2 of which are only about 60% or so..

PSS. ZERO contamination rate, so far. (knock knock knock on wood)

i followed Prelligot's suggestion and took my casing out of its container and put it into a terrarium; now they can grow out of the side freely...about 15 good pins so far on my b+. My eqs were cased 9 days ago, so shouldn't be too long now.

That was a nice casing picture you posted. i think it will be very successful. let us know how it goes.

Merry Xmas...no better day than to do something you love!

Birthed the last 3 jars today. For comparison sake I decided to fruit the cakes in a terrarium.

Terrarium is styrofoam with ductaped, air tight lid and 1" of perlight on the bottom. Used 1 part 3% H2O2 and 9 parts water.

The case is on recovery day 4, already getting white fluffy spots showing thru top soil layer..

Think thats it for the moment,

Once fruiting starts will keep detailed records on harvesting and report back

Peace and Love
/Gadget

What am I greeted with when I pop the top?

NOOOOOOOOOO Green mold dead center of the case.

So I poured some straight 3% (store type) Hydrogenperoxide on it. Any other Ideas??

Other than the mold, does it look ok?

Please tell me its going to be ok (:

A close up:

Well, that sucks, but hopefully everything will work out.

Time line
Day 35 since innoculation
Case on Day 7 and unsealed today
Terrarium and cakes on day 3

Peace
/Gadget

I dosed it with H2O2 and sprinkled some Baking soda on it (found in other posts) and its not there this AM.......

But I will keel a close Eye on it, if it returns I will chop that section out....

keep us posted on your intervention. Hopefully you can still have a good harvest. I have heard others say they would just throw away the whole casing and start all over. If you are successful and get some good shrooms it would prove otherwise.

Won't be long now. I'm a couple weeks ahead of you and my two cases of eqs have about 40 2-3 inch shrooms. I'm noticing a little bluish green around some of the bottoms of the stems and am a little concerned myself.

Peace
/Gadget

My case on the other hand, which is on day 3 of open air, is quite. The Quarter sized blue/green moldy stuff is not visible, so hopefully the H2O2/baking soda/O2 increase may have killed it or at least suppressed it.

But I'm Stoked, I've got mushies growing "happy dance"

This has really been a great project so far, and should hopefully only get better within the next couple weeks.

Peace
/Gadget

You see, I had noticed that the section where the green mold had been was much darker than the rest of the case. At first I thought it was just from pouring the H2O2 on it, but alas no. So out of curiousity I gently turned a bit of the soil over where the green mold had been, SHIT!. Look at all the green shit, grrrrrrrrr. So I got sterilized a spoon and start digging.

Long story short. there was an area in center of case that was green all the way to the bottom, and about 4" in diameter. All the crumbled cake sections had rotted in that section.

On the plus side it was very easy to tell when I left the area of green mold, as the soil became very FIRM and there was BUNCHES of white mycaleum growth in it. Also the crumbled cake sections in that area were nice and hard like when I put them there

I filled the 4" hole in the middle of the case with moist potting soil.

Personal Note to self: Dig out any Green contams right away!

Peace
/Gadget

Another attempt? Maybe.

Better luck next time guys,
Spellbin.

Oh yea, and the 3 cakes in the terrarium got little shroomies growing like mad all over them!!!

Life is good!

My "terrarium" is like really weak, its a Styrofoam cooler ($1.99), has 1 1/2" of perlite in the bottom and the lid is (blush) suran wrap held in place by super sticky hair removal wax, water based. (duct tape sucked) I peel back the plastic wrap and ventilate couple times a day. I'm really surprised its working

Now the case isn't doing as well as I hoped, there is some confustion over wether or not to mist a Shroom Wizard case after pinning sets in. So I have opted to put the case in a $10 terrarium with inch or so of perlite in the bottom.

The problem seemed to me that the case was drying out, but advise is not to mist a pinning case.

I am also working on a time lapse animation of the case. So hopefully all will go well.

peace
/Gadget

I too am a little confused about misting the casings. The tek is pretty straight forward...mist 2-3 times daily. However, I believe I overdid it on mine. I'm taking Lizard king's advice and put them in a terrarium if I ever decide to do this again. That shroomazoid stuff has made me rethink posting results.

So I laid 2" or so of Perlight in bottom mixed with maybe quart of water and little H2O2 and placed tray/case on top of it. Then greased the top with Vaseline and covered with suran wrap.

This image is only 2 frames, one taken right after terrarium was sealed and the second one 3 hours later.

[This message has been edited by Gadget (edited January 07, 2000).]

Things I learned

#1 Cakes are MUCH easier and quicker than casings, for me at least.

#2 Green mold in casings sucks

#3 My case dried out like no tommorow, even after spending 24 hrs in High humidity terrarium.

A pic of the moment before "harvest"

Note the white/green overlay, Upon autopsy this stuf was stinky green. Also autopsy revealed entire case was bone dry. Dryer than the potting soil was when it came out of the bag. I misted my case 2-3 times daily, after about 5 days I gave up and put it terrarium, which helped shrooms that were growing, but did nothing for adding moisture to case.

After autopsy of case, I may have been able to salvage a couple chunks, which I put back in terrarium ontop of the perlight. Perhaps I will salvage some extra shrooms. I placed the remains of my beloved case in the flower garden. Who knows maybe it will live again some day

I also have an animated gif, covering the last 24hrs of the case, but its kinda large, 1.7 meg. If interested you can view it here. Its pretty neat IMO

http://members.theglobe.com/gadget69/end.gif

On the plus side I harvested one cake already and got 31g wet. The other 2 cakes are just about ready and should get another decent harvest, and maybe some more flushes after that

Harvest summary:
31g wet from 1 cake
15g wet from my sickly case (poor little guys, I'm sorry, I'll do better next time, promsie!)

Peace
/Gadget

[This message has been edited by Gadget (edited January 08, 2000).]

well wish my casings luck..
(i kinda wish i would have stuck with growing strait off jars)

-peace-

------------------
"My only weakness is my thirst for knowledge."

What type of case did you use? I don't think I will try the Shroom Wizard tek for a while. Thinking on the lines of something simple like Verm case.

And I'll probably start pasturizing/sterilizing casing...

Peace
/Gadget

How much light did you give your case/cakes?

-peace-

------------------
"My only weakness is my thirst for knowledge."

I just had a brainstorm, I take back what I said about the Shroom wizard case, I'm gonna try it again. My thought is that since my case was less than optimal (very dry) my shrooms could not defend themselves against the green nasty. So I think I will try one more time.

Good luck on your cases, keep us up to date on how they work out, very interested!

Peace

As you may know I birthed 3 cakes and placed them in simple styrofoam cooler with 2" of moist perlight on the bottom. Then placed bead of sticky stuff (hair removal wax, shrug, its was handy) on lip of styrofoam coller, then laid plastic wrap on top of this for a lid. That was 10 days ago

Yesterday I harvested 1 of the 3 cakes. The other 2 weren't ready yet. So I've been waiting to harvest last 2 till tops opened up enough to take a spore print from a couple. Well I looked in on them this evening and saw puple stuff EVERYWHERE

Anyway, I harvesed last 2 cakes this eve. took 2 caps and I am making spore prints from them. One print is on regular 3*5 card with glass on top. Second one is little different. I took one of the 1/2 pint jars, punched hole thru lid, inserted small nail and bent tip of nail to look like a fish hook. Then sterilized the thing in pressure cooker. I then took one of the caps and "hooked" it on the nail. Thus the cap is suspended from lid in a sealed jar. Should work....

Harvest summary, first flush:
Cake #1 31g Wet
Cake #2 47g Wet
Cake #3 53g Wet
Sickly case 15g Wet

SO, 52 days elapsed time, from licking stamp to 146g Wet shrooms! THANK YOU RYCHE!!!!!

Had I not screwed up my case I could have doubled that figure, plus I should still get a couple more flushes from cakes, and "Maybe" something from the remains of my case.

All that's left to do now is get a couple friends together, prepare our set and setting and experiance my FIRST trip!

Peace and love
/Gadget

On another note, I am throughly impressed with your success. i am going to use your idea of the styrofoam cooler and perlite; that is if I ever decide to grow again.

Bravo!

Next weekend I go Skydiving with my 80 year old grandparents, Their kids, and us grandkids. It will be all of our first time except my Grandfather who was a paratrooper. Thus my next free weekend isn't untill week from next.

I imagine my first trip I am going to go REAL light. Then baby step from there. I've never taken anything that has altered my perceptions of reality, and truthully it has me a little scared. Oh well, 1 day at a time.

Till then I'm just going to keep growing. Its very rewarding on its own. I just innoculated another 9 1/2 pints (6 B+ & 3 EQ) Sealed up my first spore print this AM.

Peace
/Gadget

------------------
-Jim Sh0e-

Gadget, how long did it take for yours to pin?

-peace-

------------------
"My only weakness is my thirst for knowledge."

hehehehe, MUAHAHA! Don't forget to pull the cord though.

heh, im still imagining what that would be like.

Cya.
Spelly

I hope that everybody will stay alive..I do not reccomend if your grands have any health or age problems...
But if you gonna do that tell us what happend

Spellbin

Crobih, Grandmother just got out of Kemo for colon cancer. She's doing real well, and this is something she has always wanted to do.. SHould be interestingm

Peace
/Gadget