By Admin (Admin) on Saturday, May 19, 2001 - 11:29 pm: Edit

Posted by 'Nanook'
First off I want to thank everyone who posts here
for their wonderful technical insights. This has
been very educational in more ways than one

I will try to be methodical and brief:

1) It seems logical to me that the more nutrition
you put into a cake, the more fruit you will get
out. I have found two additives that _appear_ to
work very well in round one.

a) Soy Flour. Soy flour has ~35% protien by weight
providing a rich source of nitrogen and amino acids.
I added one heaping tablespoon of soy flour to each
1/4 cup BRF. I adjusted the water upwards a few CCs.

b) Manure water. Manure provides an excellent source of
Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorus in addition to a
complete set of biological trace elements: molybdenum,
boron, selenium, zinc, copper, iron. I went out and
purchased a 40 lb. bag of composted cow manure. Mix up
one pint of manure in one quart of water with a slotted
spoon. Break up the lumps completely, stir to bring organic
material in suspension. Stop stirring and let the heavy
stuff, sand, ect. drop to the bottom and decant off enough
suspension to wet your Verm/BRF. I would absolutely use a
pressure cooker to sterilize, composted manure will harbor
any number of high temperature bacteria and mold spores.

I plan to use manure water to soak my straw in Oldtimer's Straw
Tek.

2) Water delivery. If you want big heavy flushes you need water.
The Max Fruit formual (55 - 60 CCs water), Dunk Tek, and double
end casing with verm is essential in my opinion. On top of this
I have noticed that the heavier fruiting cakes drink more. This
makes sense as fruiting dehydrates the cake. I use a syringe to
wet down the casings every day after the dunk. If stipes get too
fat and wet, simply back off with the water, but it looks like it
is better to be a bit wet than a bit dry. These cakes
_drink_ when pinning and fruiting.

a) Aborts. You will have them, but you can really cut down on the number
of aborts by casing the tops of the cakes with 1/4 inch of fine verm
and dripping clean water from a syringe to keep top and bottom layers
of the verm soaking wet for 24 - 48 hours after birthing.

b) Fruit size. As cakes go into pinning, concentrate water on those cakes
with heavy pin sets. Slower cakes, or cakes that are not well pinned
won't need much extra water, but those cakes that are going to produce
heavily will drink 5 - 10 CCs of water a day from the casing while the
fruits are setting and growing.

I guess that covers it for now...

Nanook

By Admin (Admin) on Sunday, May 20, 2001 - 03:52 pm: Edit

When you are birthing jars do you ever see mycelium stuck to the glass? How about a free mycelium syringe, or four, as part of your birthing process?

Wash hands with alcohol and birth the jar in a clean still area, or a glovebox. Instead of letting the cake drop out the bottom, loosen the cake and ease it out holding the jar sideways. This prevents contams from dropping into the jar.

Tip the jar up slightly and inject a syringe full of sterile water into the bottom of the jar. Stir up a mat of damp mycelium into the water with the tip of the syringe, then suck up. They keep in the fridge for several weeks so far, and they inoculate like gangbusters.

Nanook

By Admin (Admin) on Monday, May 21, 2001 - 12:18 pm: Edit

When maintaining cakes it is important to carefully pluck dead and torn tissue with a clean instrument. Leave clean wounds and pluck off aborts when you harvest. You can certainly pluck shrooms with your fingers, but you should not use your fingers to pick at the cakes. Get two stainless steel forceps and a tall glass of sanitizing solution with a hunk of scrubby pad in it. Alternate forceps when you move from cake to cake cleaning them up. If tissue gets impacted in the forceps, simple pinch them on the scrubby pad. Don't get your fingernails involved with these tasks.

Forceps firmly grasp jar lids too, it makes it a breeze to pick up a cake from a crowded box without getting your hands in there doing damage.

Prevention is the best cure guys, but tips like this are important if you ever run into contam problems.

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Wednesday, May 23, 2001 - 09:53 pm: Edit

A tablespoon of powdered non-fat milk to the BRF media provides calcium, simple sugars, and protein (nitrogen). So far I am adding (to Max Grow PF substrate) 1 heaping tablespoon of soy flour and I am using manure water with good results. Jars inoculated with PF substrate with soy/manure plus powdered milk are going on strong in the colonization phase.

Nanook

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Wednesday, May 23, 2001 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Inoculation needles for mycelium:

Take a syringe needle and drill out the press fit aluminum base holding the stainless steel needle (I clip off the needle first). At any good hobby shop you will find small diameter brass and copper tubing for under a buck. Cut off a four or five inch section of brass or copper tubing and epoxy it into the old needle base. This makes a nice tool for handling mycelium solutions where things can get a little chunkier.


Nanook