6 replies to this topic

[deadhead47]

Hello & Good Day to Everyone who comes across this (:

 

I am new to cultivating any fungus, only have had a few successes a few years ago and again a couple years ago, but did PF tek last time and for some reason just went straight to Bulk Casing with grain spawn this time.

 

So I set up an incubtion chamber using two 12gallon totes, bottom one filled half way with water, & an aquarium heater on the bottom.

Temp is set to 26C (76-80F inside the chamber).

 

Then proceeded to inoculate 2 - 3lb grain spawn bags with a MS syringe ( 5CC's each bag).

 

Waited 20+ days and no signs of growth, so I decided it was probly a bad culture and inoculated the same bags with a different strain and waited a little longer and still no culture.

 

Well, so now I have become enlightened that going spore to grain isnt a great way to be successful in germinating spores and have since obtained a liquid culture jar and inoculated the jar with yet another strain and FINALLY have success with mycelium cloud having formed.

BUT I also inoculated one of these original spawn bags that did not have success in forming cultures but have become quite soggy.

 

Here is the question (if youve read this far, thank you! im getting to the point :) 

Are these soggy bags of grain spawn just too wet now for a successful culture to colonize and be used at all?

 

Im thinking they are now shot out and I should move on and free up space in my incubation chamber.

 

Experiment:

- Inoculated the grain spawn bag with some of the mycelium culture and havent seen any signs of growth yet

[FunG]

Bunk spores suck...

I had problems initially with poor germination of golden teachers with the syringe I had received from a well known vendor, out of 12 jars only 7 germinated.

But, then i took my own prints and all i do is straight spores to grain....its actually super quick if you use 10cc's. But not the recommended way.

Back to your problem

The grain if it has a wet appearance is from a bacteria, so you are correct. The bag is toast. I'd remove it before it starts to stink.

[PJammer24]

If you have a spawn jar or bag that does not colonize after your first attempt inoculating, you are better off starting from scratch... The longer the bag or jar of grain sits around, the lower your chances of success with that batch... The moisture content can get thrown off over time and your chances of contamination increase...

 

Also, when I first started growing, I too constructed an incubation chamber... Incubation chambers are pretty much unnecessary and can end up causing your more problems... Your jars will colonize just fine at room temperature and you will only be adding a couple days to the colonization time... I inoculate mine and set them on a shelf at room temp and have great success... When you increase temperatures with an incubation chamber you are also increasing your chances of contamination since most contaminates thrive at higher temps.

[PJammer24]

To add to my previous comment... I can not say for certain what caused your spores to not germinate, however, I have had this happen in the past due to their being left in a hot car... A former vendor here on the site once left spores they were to send to me in their car... It was summer time and the heat rendered the spores inviable... Be careful about leaving things like that in the mailbox for an extended period of time in warmer seasons and in warmer climates.

[Wonky1]

FunG - Can you say anything more about "straight spores to grain?" How are you doing this? Many thanks!

But, then i took my own prints and all i do is straight spores to grain....its actually super quick if you use 10cc's. But not the recommended way.
 

[PJammer24]

 

FunG - Can you say anything more about "straight spores to grain?" How are you doing this? Many thanks!

But, then i took my own prints and all i do is straight spores to grain....its actually super quick if you use 10cc's. But not the recommended way.
 

 

By spores to grain, he is talking about multi-spore syringes... That is what he means by 10cc's, 10cc of spore solution. You can make a spore syringe using a baggie, a spore print, and water (i use distilled)... If you are using an SAB or flow hood, you could potentially go from a spore print directly to a grain jar but I would suggest making up a syringe...

 

Even better than using spores in your grain jar... Starting your spores on agar, which is actually super simple, allows you to weed out any contaminates and select aggressive genetics for an LC. You would then use that LC to colonize your spawn.

 

Growing from multi-spore will work but you will have MUCH better results if you develop a clone or start on agar first and chose the most promising sections of the culture. You get many more aborts when growing from multi-spore since there are so many potential genetic combinations and many of them simply aren't that prolific.

[Wonky1]

Thanks for the explanation PJammer24. I have used purchased spore syringes for my first couple of "trials", but can see that retaining spores for future grows makes lots of sense. And thank you for the guidance on agar. I'm going to do some site research to see if that's a good step for me....