22 replies to this topic

[Oldpunk]

Hey y'all . been pretty busy but I think it's about time to start some new projects. I have been here for just about a year now and have learned so much....and yet barely scratched the surface. So I dug out last years agar supplies and figure I will start playing around and try to learn some new tricks.

I've been getting a bit jealous of some of these flow hood builds lately but still don't have a dedicated space for one. Maybe I can start scavenging for parts over the winter. But for now. Let's work with what we got.

My first new flavor is gonna be mexicana A. I know a few of you got the same one. Thanks Don. I tried some tampanensis last year, but didn't get great results. I've got more of that same genetics and I'm hoping to have a ghetto fabulous Martha constructed soon to give them a different fruiting condition.

Enough jibber jabber. Here's my first agar experiment for this year.

Mexicana A strain.

On MEA no pour



On bird seed grain water



On PDA



There's not much to see yet. It's only been a couple days in a cold garage. But I had 3 different agar mixes left so I tried a little of each. Looks like the PDA is starting to fuzz up first. And I kind of like this comparison germination just to see what happens.

[Arathu]

Sprinkle and sprout.....there's fungus amongus.....

 

I like to use a streaking pattern so the odds become much better............ that I'm expanding what intended to grow

 

I have plans to set up a nice incubator to keep my plates and other cultures in.......

 

I'm going on vacation (staying away from work before they take my vacation days) over the holiday......I'll probably pour some plates....

 

I have a few cultures that need to be revived and expanded....good stuff man

 

A

 

.

[Oldpunk]

A few days later.....

MEA still not taking off


Grain water showing a bit


PDA still in the lead.

This one has a little slime at the edge.


And I transferred a piece from a dried up Cambodian isolate while I had the SAB out. It looks to be coming back a little.

[MushLuvR]

Looking Good in Here... Agar has it's Own rewards... fun to play with and isolate, or just clean up and make sure your culture is CLEAN.  Nice Job!

[Arathu]

Agar is definitely the bomb...... transfer away from what ever ails ya.....

 

Stick the transfer to the wall of a inverted plate close to but not touching the new agar surface.....let some mycelium make the leap itself and then continue transfers......

 

There's demonstrations all over Topia of many different techniques that work.....don't hesitate to try simple brown rice flour agar....can't see through it too well but that didn't stop me...

 

So many things we can do this way....very cool....maybe they'll give me another stimulus check and I'll get an incubator......hah

 

A

[Oldpunk]

Whole lotta blurry pics . Not sure why I couldn't get to focus. But it looks like I've got plenty of options.

MEA and Grain water are a bit slower.


The PDA is almost ready to pick a couple transfers before they grow into each other.

[Oldpunk]

MEA blew up .



Grain water getting there.



And PDA is ready to transfer I think.

[rockyfungus]

how'd ya do the grain water?

[Oldpunk]

how'd ya do the grain water?

I just strained it and filled my 500ml bottle after cooking grain for jars. Then used the same amount of agar powder as usual.
Had to try it after you were talking about it some time back. After seeing the side by side comparisons I might add a little bit of nutritional yeast or sugar on the next try. The straight grain water seems to run a lot slower. But it still works.

[rockyfungus]

You need to dilute it down. It’s most likely too nutritious. Yeast is great additive. Little goes a long way.

[Oldpunk]

T1 cups of Mex A



I used the MEA and one grain water germ plates to start some MS grain jars.

[Oldpunk]

And some Cambodian reaching out from the agar.

[ElPirana]

Looking good Oldpunk! I love working with agar.

[Arathu]

Look.....fuzzy wedges! 

 

A

[Oldpunk]

Took a few minutes to transfer agar to grain tonight. Always cool to open up my box to some nice specimens.

Mexicana A

Cambodian

And a nice even Golden Teacher clone

[Oldpunk]

I was playing with the agar again and noticed how badly I flopped the wedge around last time .

It's kinda cool lookin though.

[rockyfungus]

Zipped down and got good stuff to grab. 

[Oldpunk]

So I decided to try making rye grass seed agar last week. And I've put a couple transfers to it but not enough time has passed to see if they're happy with it. But this one is cool. I made a Tampa LC over a yr ago and did not refrigerate it. Now I'm getting no growth whatsoever.....i thought I had lost the genetics which sucks. I found a year old dried up Tampa agar plate and decided to try it.
Last night I looked and happy to see it fuzzing up a bit. Now I just gotta hope it will like the RGS agar

[Oldpunk]

Checked out the RGS agar and I'd have to say the mycellium is all right with it.

Cambodian


Year old Tampanensis


And a good example of a good sample contaminated

[bezevo]

the revived Tampa Plares look good .!

 

Is your next  steps  a few RGS  jars for stones and few jars for Spawn for fruits ?

Oh and some LC ,?

 

Good Luck with conntinued succes with reviving The old dried out Tamp plate .  ,

 

it will be interesting to compare to the MEX-A strain .with this strain of Tamp Awsome  

 

bez  !