Well, some strains don't like to pin en vitro, i.e. in the jar. There was some discussion several months ago about pinning en vitro might actually be a mutation in the PF strain. I don't know... never bother with such thoughts myself.

Anyhow:
When the jars are 100% put them in the terrarium. Don't try to pin them in the jar unless your using PF's strain. The problem with pinning in the jar is that two things will happen:
1) You'll kill off some mushrooms when removing them from the jar.
2) You'll bruise the cake somewhere while removing it.

If you pull em' out at 100% and put them into the terrarium, you've alleviated the above two problems. Also the whole process tends to be a bit quicker, and overall you get less aborts.

I think you should try opening the jars and misting them a lot. The mycellium might shrink together from the walls of teh jars, but it will pin then. Just be Patient.

I am growing Ecuadorians from spore chicks if you want to know.

What I have learned now is that the Quart Jar method is really not very good, and its a lot easier to build a perlite terrarium. That is what I am going to do in my next attempt.

I usually wait until they pin in the jars, but if you've got 100% colonization of the substrate, what would happen if you took them out and they haven't started to pin?

This is going to be my first harvest ever! And anywho, the bottom line is that taking them out before pinning doesn't seem to have any negative effect on them, but then i've never yet had them pin in the jars.

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I always thought that "Stop, Drop, and Roll" was a way to save your life if you caught on fire, but then I realized my grade school teachers were advocating my later drug use.

It sounds good in theory but after trying it its not really very good, it seems easier to just to let them colonize pint cakes and make a terrarium.

[This message has been edited by Osidan (edited February 09, 2000).]

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I always thought that "Stop, Drop, and Roll" was a way to save your life if you caught on fire, but then I realized my grade school teachers were advocating my later drug use.

Regarding Lana's question. When you pull them out at 100% they do just fine. Normally I pull them out at 85-90% and case them. I'm also an impatient bastard, but find when I pull them out at 90% and case them they are fully colonized the next day... dunno why. (not the casing, the remainder of the substrate)

I've only grown PF's strain a few times, so I don't pretend to be an expert on that interesting strain. Oddly enough, I have never tripped on his strain before. Always had prettier mushrooms lying around, gave them away to buds. Though if I had some right now... I'd probably trip on them ... I have a bunch of substrate lying around but gave away the rest of my shrooms a couple days ago... bummer,
later