Call me the Phish The Blasphemer !!
But I say sterilize ALL your substrates. Ive had nothing but great success by killing everything in the pressure cooker.90 mins for qt jars. 2 hours for 4-5lb bags
Of course a clean living space helps a lot to keep contamination at bay.
what kinds of substrate are you using when you sterilize? If you are using non-nutritious substrates such as coir and verm, pasteurization is less important since there is nothing nutritious for contams to colonize. Proper pasteurization also becomes less of an issue when you are using high spawn ratios.
I sterilize my substrates, which are always manure based, when working with cubes and mexicana. I sterilize horse manure, ccm,and even Moose poo with tam rates so low,nearly non existent , that you probably wouldn't believe me.
Coir, CCM and Coarse Verm 1:1:1 is my go to for all my actives.Never Fails !!
I almost always spawn/sub at a 1:4 ratio also.
AND I ALWAYS CASE ALL MY SUBS... ALWAYS.
Ive always found pasteurization a crap shoot at best and a pita to boot with as many failures as successes, Ive been committed to sterilization for many years now, with bran enriched wood based substrates for non actives included.
Edited by Phish, 05 January 2021 - 09:34 PM.