OK wow, I’m going to have to do some reading on liquid cultures, that’s not something I’ve heard of before!
I’ve been attempting to grow blue and pink oysters – I started with a tiny sample from ebay, grew that out in rye and popcorn jars, then transferred to fruiting bags with pasteurized straw. The mycelium has grown out well in the bags, but in three attempts I have never gotten an oyster clump larger than about 4" tall before they stopped growing and started drying out. I’ve been spraying with water 3-4 times a day so I have no idea why they seem to abort. I think for the next round I’ll put them in the still-air box near a fan so they get a combination of airflow with higher humidity, otherwise I just have no idea what’s going wrong.
Oysters are notorious for needing tons of fresh air. The humidity is just to keep the caps from drying and cracking, and not an absolute hard requirement for development. If they are stunted, it’s the air. (I personally wouldn’t go without spraying or using a fogger, but it’s possible, is what I am saying.)
LC is the way to go if you feel like making the investment, especially for small growers like us. You need some jars and that is about it. I am doing a well rounded mix, but you can get away with just using corn syrup and water. You will probably need a pressure canner to sterilize the solution as pasteurization will not cut it. (I am sure there are methods out there that don’t use pressure canners, but I haven’t looked.)
For LC videos, there are tons of them out there. YouTube search for “Super Liquid Culture” or look through the videos by Mossy Creek Mushrooms for his formulas. At the end of the day, as long as the solution is clean and has sugar, the mycelium should eat it up. Malt and peptone are just helpful. In some cases, increased nutrients increase the risk of contam taking hold.
Well I have a decent canner, that’s what I used to prep the grain jars, so no issues there. Hell I even managed to start some button mushrooms off of stems from the grocery store, using nothing but boiled cardboard, and it was growing fine until I transferred it to a couple grain jars and got contamination in both of them… Funny thing was the cardboard mixture was prepped in open air and was clean, but by the time I had the grain jars I had built the still-air box so that transfer shouldn’t have had any problems. Ah well, it happens, but at least I know I CAN start things from stems.
When I tried fruiting my blues they didn’t do anything until I moved them over near a fan, then they took off a day later… and then stopped growing after about three days and dried out. That’s why I’m thinking maybe if I used my still-air box which has the large hand holes, they’d get the airflow but be able to retain some humidity in the box – or maybe not, it’s all guesswork at this point. I could certainly try putting a bag more directly in front of the fan but we only get about 30% humidity here. I’ve also considered setting a bag outside, I know the blues like it colder and we’re getting down near 50F at night (but then it comes back up to 90F in the day) and we have a lot of squirrels around so I think they’ll wipe out anything I grow before I get my share. There’s just not really a lot of options for me to try.
Experiment and keep trying! That is the only way to go, me thinks. There are a ton of things I read or see online that just don’t work for me. The basics never change, but everything else seems to. Hell, my current grow of “fun” mushrooms started to turn into blobs (a mutation where caps don’t form) because of CO2 levels that never bothered any of my other mushrooms. I fixed it by fanning them once a day.
Sound like you are in my part of the world, honestly. I am in Colorado and you are describing my conditions almost exactly. I am going to try some winecap mushrooms next March outside, but the squirrels will destroy them just like everything else. Sigh.
However, I do have a couple of grow tents in my basement that will allow me to control the environment really well. Also having access to a CO2 meter and a good humidity switch helps. (That stuff is expensive but I already had it for a couple of cannabis grows that I did a while ago.)
Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 1 year ago
OK wow, I’m going to have to do some reading on liquid cultures, that’s not something I’ve heard of before!
I’ve been attempting to grow blue and pink oysters – I started with a tiny sample from ebay, grew that out in rye and popcorn jars, then transferred to fruiting bags with pasteurized straw. The mycelium has grown out well in the bags, but in three attempts I have never gotten an oyster clump larger than about 4" tall before they stopped growing and started drying out. I’ve been spraying with water 3-4 times a day so I have no idea why they seem to abort. I think for the next round I’ll put them in the still-air box near a fan so they get a combination of airflow with higher humidity, otherwise I just have no idea what’s going wrong.
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Oysters are notorious for needing tons of fresh air. The humidity is just to keep the caps from drying and cracking, and not an absolute hard requirement for development. If they are stunted, it’s the air. (I personally wouldn’t go without spraying or using a fogger, but it’s possible, is what I am saying.)
LC is the way to go if you feel like making the investment, especially for small growers like us. You need some jars and that is about it. I am doing a well rounded mix, but you can get away with just using corn syrup and water. You will probably need a pressure canner to sterilize the solution as pasteurization will not cut it. (I am sure there are methods out there that don’t use pressure canners, but I haven’t looked.)
For LC videos, there are tons of them out there. YouTube search for “Super Liquid Culture” or look through the videos by Mossy Creek Mushrooms for his formulas. At the end of the day, as long as the solution is clean and has sugar, the mycelium should eat it up. Malt and peptone are just helpful. In some cases, increased nutrients increase the risk of contam taking hold.
Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 1 year ago
Well I have a decent canner, that’s what I used to prep the grain jars, so no issues there. Hell I even managed to start some button mushrooms off of stems from the grocery store, using nothing but boiled cardboard, and it was growing fine until I transferred it to a couple grain jars and got contamination in both of them… Funny thing was the cardboard mixture was prepped in open air and was clean, but by the time I had the grain jars I had built the still-air box so that transfer shouldn’t have had any problems. Ah well, it happens, but at least I know I CAN start things from stems.
When I tried fruiting my blues they didn’t do anything until I moved them over near a fan, then they took off a day later… and then stopped growing after about three days and dried out. That’s why I’m thinking maybe if I used my still-air box which has the large hand holes, they’d get the airflow but be able to retain some humidity in the box – or maybe not, it’s all guesswork at this point. I could certainly try putting a bag more directly in front of the fan but we only get about 30% humidity here. I’ve also considered setting a bag outside, I know the blues like it colder and we’re getting down near 50F at night (but then it comes back up to 90F in the day) and we have a lot of squirrels around so I think they’ll wipe out anything I grow before I get my share. There’s just not really a lot of options for me to try.
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Experiment and keep trying! That is the only way to go, me thinks. There are a ton of things I read or see online that just don’t work for me. The basics never change, but everything else seems to. Hell, my current grow of “fun” mushrooms started to turn into blobs (a mutation where caps don’t form) because of CO2 levels that never bothered any of my other mushrooms. I fixed it by fanning them once a day.
Sound like you are in my part of the world, honestly. I am in Colorado and you are describing my conditions almost exactly. I am going to try some winecap mushrooms next March outside, but the squirrels will destroy them just like everything else. Sigh.
However, I do have a couple of grow tents in my basement that will allow me to control the environment really well. Also having access to a CO2 meter and a good humidity switch helps. (That stuff is expensive but I already had it for a couple of cannabis grows that I did a while ago.)