------------------
-From a registered Mad Scientist

"From a certain point of view"
-Jedi Master Obiwan Kenobi (also a Mad Scientist tm)

Does God worry about overlay when these sacred mushrooms are fruiting in nature....? Of course not! Overlay is an added stress to most ppl learning and working with casings, I wish this has never come up and to the depth it had, but its time to put in some time and give my views on "overlay".

Forget overlay, in all my experience overlay only effects the casings and certain strains from time to time.
OVERLAY IS NOT BAD it just doesnt give you optimum performance from your casing. The mushrooms are still going to fruit,, just not evenly. You'll be spending a little more time harvesting, instead of all at once, count on an extra 24-32 hours. Thats it. Its not bad. Its just a slight delay.
It amazes me how fast these things in depth technicalities spread and scare ppl as if a lot of new ppl working with casings are not worried enough already.

Most of the time I dont worry about putting the extra casing soil over those first high spots. It doesn't always happen anyway if you keep a nice even casing soil. The only time I do this anymore is when the mycelium is growing to fast from the corners of my casings.
Using full 1/2 pint cakes as my substrate instead of 1/4 cakes. When I use full (1/2 pint cakes) for my substrate, the casings are very tall, were talking about a 3"-4" pieces of solid colonized substrate.
Since this time of year, at the farm, I dont use containers anymore. (mind you, I have found greenhouse growing rocks !!!, take it outside if you have the resources, you wont be disappointed.) In a greenhouse, or outdoor nature patches, as you see on The Spore Works site a lot, and other random pics I and others post.. your substrate is not confined to a container. This simulates nature as well.

Does God worry about overlay when these sacred mushrooms are fruiting in nature....? Of course not.

When casings are done indoors.... and out..the low empty places were filled with crumbled cake or the low empty places are filled in with casing soil.

Lets see.. where was I going with this. Oh yeah.. the new buzzword. Overlay. Yes.. the mycelium does come to the surface faster in some places then others. Keeping a semi-even layer of substrate, then a nice even layer of casing soil helps even more in keeping the mycelium comeing to the surface at once. But once again... in nature.. nobody is there daily putting down fresh casing soil and the mushrooms grow just fine.

Perhaps I should elaborate on that a little more in the 50/50+ casing tek, I just didn't want it to be technical and in depth. Keeping it simple, yet effective.

So I guess my point being.. and why I spent so much time writing this about overlay, is NOT to worry about it, for now.

Work on understanding how the mycleium network grows and establishes itself amongts the casing soil first. First hand experience and a lot of personal experiements and research will teach you this.

Success is the most important factor here....especially with those new to casings.

DONT LET THE WORD OVERLAY STRESS YOU OUT TO MUCH, IT PLAYS SUCH A VERY SMALL PART IN THE WHOLE GROWING/CASING PROCESS.

-peace-

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited February 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited February 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited February 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ryche Hawk (edited February 06, 2000).]