Wovendreams said:Wow, so beautiful!
I have loads of questions;
1. Manure...Can you just use any horse manure, if I go to a farmer or jump over to the nearest field with horses in and steal some of their poo, can I just throw it in the mix or does it have to be cured in some way?
2. Did you spray and if so how many times a day?
3. How do you sterilise such a large amount of substrate? Or do you not need to sterilise mono tubs?
4. Was this grown at room temperature?
5. Have you got any more photos of the setup?
6. How do you use the spore syringe in this type of setup and how much do you use?
7. How long was the overall process?
8. Does the room smell like horse? I am really funny about my room and could not live with horse shit smell. :|
This looks like such a better way to do it than the tub in tub tek, feel like I have wasted alot of time and money.
Sorry for so many questions but I believe the universe has bought this to me, you have had great success and I am looking for direct information to someone like you to help and guide me.
This looks bloody amazing, I get quite touched when I see happy mushrooms fully birthed, I am a bit weird though. Well done man, I had my first mycellium growth this week and feel like I did when I lost my virginity!
Those 3 on the lid are on steroids.
moniker said:This is great synchronicity as I was literally discussing starting a project such as this last night with some close friends of mine....
I have been growing mushrooms using variations of the cake technique for several years but have never really been satisfied with my overall yields vs. amount of work that I have to put into it. I have tried a few times to do what you have successfully done here but my single biggest antagonist has always been contamination.
Would you mind outlining the procedure that you used to sterilize your medium as well as the way that you add the spawn to the compost?
Your help would be greatly appreciated as I have some wonderful strains that I am currently working with...
THANKS!
Wovendreams said:3 i get all my substrate and spawn premade and pre-sterilized/pasteurized due to lack of room in this small apartment i dont even have a kitchen really to work with
OK, I am going to sound a little stupid but I am new to monotubs, I too have been using the Tit Tek you mentioned below so am stumped on how to make this work. I assumed that the manure was the substrate so am really confused now.
moniker said:Thank you for the advice obliguhl, I will definitely implement your suggestion.
Have you grown successfully using the bulk coir method yourself?
obliguhl said:moniker said:Thank you for the advice obliguhl, I will definitely implement your suggestion.
Have you grown successfully using the bulk coir method yourself?
Yes, of course...
I also forgot to mention, that it is very possible to crumble PF Tek cakes and spawn it to pure coir, or better coir with vermiculite. Cakes are very contamination resistant, that's what makes them great. Most cakes colonize fully and then you can be sure that they make good spawn. Seems to be a bit different with rye for instance. It all depends on how clean you are able to work. If you're in a very clean environment and are willing to be very careful, rye spawn is surely superior (and LQ). But you have to understand, that a failure could mean 2 months lost. This is what makes the PF tek so attractive, because it is basically foolproof and in 80-90% of all cases you will get some mushrooms.
Spawning to coir, possibly to several small "mini mono tub" to minimize risks is a good compromise, because coir itself does not contaminate easily. I had a huge amount of wet coir leftovers sit in a very moldy room for months with no sign of contamination....that was very impressive!
Some people like to add a bit of gypsum to their coir mixes to stabilize the Ph...while i have not tried that myself, it might be worth to look into it.