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CNF
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Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus
#26833265 - 07/19/20 09:19 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Good evening,
I'm having trouble with some previously successful spawn.
I cloned some wild oysters to cardboard back in December 2019 and had some really great results - vigorous colonization in less than a month. This was done in a sealed bucket. I didn't layer the spawn uniformly, rather I shredded the cardboard and crumpled it up with pieces of the oyster fruit body inside. This led to lots of air space.
I moved houses and left the bucket in the garage. I recently found the buckets and the mycelium looked the exact same. The buckets were sealed and had maintained moisture levels inside. The cardboard is 100% colonized, smells delicious, and has a rubbery feel to it.
I took some of the spawn and tried to do a large cardboard expansion in a large black tote with ample holes for gas exchange. This time I layered the cardboard and spawn flat until the tote was full. So far, nothing has happened. The mycelium on the original spawn is still white and squishy but has not spread. There's no bad smell or signs of contamination. It has been 5 weeks and the temperature in the garage ranges from 75 to 90.
What could be wrong?
Did I need to do something to the mycelium prior to using it? Did the layering process limit the gas exchange?
I appreciate any help! I'm new to this and look forward to hearing your suggestions.
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bogdancev
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: CNF]
#26833491 - 07/20/20 12:38 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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My colonization happens in 2 weeks, but I mix spawn and substrate thoroughly with my hands.
Can you go to the shop and buy oysters to clone them? Can you buy commercial spawn?
This way you will know that your strain is already selected by the lab people to be fast and big. What you took from wild mushroom is unknown.
Then doing it on cardboard is also not a thing. Nowadays you can clone on agar, read Pasty's plates tek. All you need is Pressure Cooker.
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CNF
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: bogdancev]
#26833759 - 07/20/20 07:33 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks for the info. I previously took some of this spawn and transferred it to agar and BRF successfully.
My goal with this project was to recreate something I read in Tradd Cotter's book about using mycelium to recycle things that would normally be trashed.
I guess my next question would be how long does spawn stay viable at ambient temperatures? Also, does the substrate have to be compact and void of all air pockets?
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Forrester
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: CNF]
#26834529 - 07/20/20 03:49 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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You talk about throwing oyster chunks in with cardboard in your first grow, but then talk about spawn - what are you using as spawn?
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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CNF
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: Forrester]
#26835648 - 07/21/20 08:19 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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I started out by taking wild oyster fruit bodies and mixing them with cardboard in buckets (Dec 2019). The cardboard colonized well enough to be used as spawn for some BRF cakes and agar plates (Jan 2020). The BRF and agar plates have been very successful in innoculating other substrates.
My reason for posting was to understand why my second, and most recent, cardboard expansion was unsuccessful. I have been doing a good amount of reading on these boards and it appears that I may have suffocated and overheated the mycelium. The original cardboard spawn seems healthy. However, in trying to expand it to a larger amount of cardboard I mistakenly compacted the substrate and exposed it to very high (>85°F) heat.
My goal with this second expansion was to inoculate large sheets of cardboard for the purpose of building and outdoor wood chip bed.
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Forrester
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: CNF]
#26836615 - 07/21/20 05:16 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Ok, that's what I thought, so you're still using stuff from your first grow as "spawn".
I'm gonna venture a guess that it's because your "spawn" is 7 months old.
I'm putting spawn in quotes there because I would really hesitate to call it spawn - spawn usually refers to freshly colonized grain or similar, not multiple times expanded, stored for long periods substrate pieces.
If you wanna grow that way again, I think you're gonna have to get some new mushroom chunks, or make actual spawn.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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CNF
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: Forrester]
#26837638 - 07/22/20 07:32 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks for the info! What kind of shelf life should I be expecting? I've read on here quite a bit about shelf life under refrigeration, but not much about it at room temp.
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Forrester
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: CNF]
#26838674 - 07/22/20 03:59 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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For that kind of spawn, I really can't give you an answer. If using grain, you really want to use it soon (like a day to a week after colonized) or it starts to get really consolidated and have trouble breaking apart.
Sawdust spawn is different, since it's wood and you can smash it up without destroying it like grains.
But for expanded cardboard, I really don't know?
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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Quadman
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Re: Cardboard Bucket Tek Question - Pleurotus ostreatus [Re: Forrester]
#26846941 - 07/26/20 10:12 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Just my thoughts. You cloned a mushroom in Dec. There are cold weather oysters in my area that inly fruit in cold weather, like 50°to down to freezing. Growing in summer would be a problem. Use this variety in winter.
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