19 replies to this topic

[YoshiTrainer]

Drying grains and agar are a good way to store and share genetics. It gives you the ability to store clones or even genetics that you're unable to get spores from. By using parchment paper, I've reduced my drying times significantly while still maintaining clean cultures. I first worked with parchment paper' while making ice water hash. You'd put your wet hash in parchment paper, put cardboard around it and a weight on top. The moisture would pass through the paper and be absorbed by the cardboard. I did something pretty similar with the agar and grains.

First I cut and prefolded the parchment paper with double or triple folds on the edges and tightly creased. I wrapped my pouches in foil and baked 250F for 60min. This may be unnecessary but I didn't want to take chances. When it was time, I shook the donor jar to break up the grains, removed a pouch from the foil, opened it up and poured the grains in. I closed the pouch up then, broke the rest of the grain clumps so they fit into a single layer. I wrapped the pouch in a double layer of paper towels and placed a 1/2 pint large mouthed jar on top. I swapped out the paper towels every other day because they'd get damp. It took 7 days for the agar and grains to dry.

The agar was dried much the same way as the grains above. The agar was cut down the center. Then, it was folded in half with the myc touching myc and placed in a parchment pouch to dry.

I also made jar lids with parchment paper, held in place with metal bands. These had less grains but took about 10 days to dry.









The agar and grains were dried open air, in a file box, being pressed by jars of PF Tek. What made me most optimistic was the fact the agar stained the inside of the parchment paper but not the outside nor the paper towels. I placed a dried grain to agar and a flake of dried mycelium to agar too. After about 10 days, both look pretty healthy and strong.





I was originally going to store some dry grains longterm in 5ml cyrovials maybe with some wine preserving gas? I'm thinking now, I may just vacuum seal them?

Edited by YoshiTrainer, 29 March 2023 - 05:00 PM.

[ItBeBasidia]

Fantastic!

How long were the dried samples stored? I wonder how long they can stay in that state and reanimate.

[YoshiTrainer]

Thank you ItBeBasidia! These samples were not stored very long, I was mostly testing whether they stayed clean. I've dried other grains and some are coming up on a year. I've started some that are months old with no issues, I'll report back as I test more. I've read of year+ still starting with no issues.

[ItBeBasidia]

I'm definitely going to remember this for culture swaps. I think being dry might make it more resilient to temps as well. Sometimes the mail sits in hot sun or freezing cold which isn't friendly to hydrated things. If you got extra on hand, I'd like to see how these fare in the freezer for a day or two. I bet they'd revive.

Edited by ItBeBasidia, 30 March 2023 - 01:08 AM.

[YoshiTrainer]

I'll have to give the freezer test a try! I have also started storing bits of agar in distilled water like Needles has been doing for awhile now.

[hyphaenation]

Speaking of freezers...

I made a discovery a while back that myc and stipe chunks can be stored indefinitely in Hemp seed oil in the freezer...

Unlike many vegetable oils Hemp oil cannot freeze. It stays liquid in a deep freezer. What I did was PC a small jar of Hemp oil (not entirely sure that was necessary) and when it was cooled I treated it as the water part of GLC extraction. I essentially poured the cooled Hemp oil into a colonized jar of Cubensis grain, shook well and then poured out of that vessel into a clean jar.

You could see the myc fragments floating in the HLC (Hemp liquid culture). I placed that in the deep freeze for 6 months. After that I removed and used to inoculated jars of popcorn. At first the jars looked greasy and I didn't think anything good would happen. After a week the jars were sparkling white with cube mycelium. It worked!

I also tried this with a small fruit of P.cyan ... it stayed in there for several years and never lost size or shape. I checked on it once a year. Unfortunately I was unable to put it to agar before my GF threw it out in a major fridge clean. I suspect it would have worked.

Here's one I just made today with store-bought Oyster stem-butt pieces.
 

 

            

Anyhow , Hemp cryogenics really works for preserving fungal tissue! Just needs some tweaking of technique and improvised equipment.

Here's some pics of the rig I used to introduce the Hemp seed oil into the colonized popcorn.

https://mycotopia.ne...-7#entry1100630

The Hemp seed oil and the mycelium milking-wheel are PC'd then in a SAB the milker is screwed on the colonized grain jar. That gets flipped upside down and screwed on to the Hemp seed oil jar. Once tightened that gets flipped and the Hemp oil flows into the grain jar. That gets shaken very well and then the rig is flipped back over to drain all the Hemp oil. Then it's unhooked , grain jar recovers. Hemp oil + myc marked and placed in deep freezer.  Later it can be deposited in a jar via a dropper or baster type tool.

Sorry to stray off of drying topic...

 

 

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Edited by hyphaenation, 30 March 2023 - 07:51 PM.

[YoshiTrainer]

Thank you very much Hyph for sharing that great information! That is pretty cool that the fresh mushroom hold up that way!

[fahtster]

Very cool thread!

I just revived a MTP culture that was dry for a year and four months. I think if it can go that long, it can go much longer

[hyphaenation]

Back on topic. I always noticed stray kernals of colonized popcorn would dry up and stay fluffy and brilliant white. Has that look like it can be stored and revived...

[YoshiTrainer]

Only one way to find out Hyph! :)

[fahtster]

A lot of ppl leave a few kernels of grains in the bottom of qts after spawning (with the lid back on ofc) and let them sit that way and dry. Popcorn definitely revives just fine. It’s the first grains I dried out and brought back to life

[Severian]

i've wondered about this for a long time.

 

thanks for sharing this.

 

the hemp-oil info is mega-cool too

 

 

far and away the most interesting thread i've seen in a while. 

[YoshiTrainer]

Thank you Severian!

Here is PEC4 agar that started drying 4/3 and is finished today, 4/7. I'll try to test it on fresh agar in the next few days.

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Edited by YoshiTrainer, 07 April 2023 - 01:15 PM.

[fahtster]

Beautiful

[FunnyFarmer]

Thanks Yoshi for the work you put into this, it answers a question I posed a few months ago. I've got quite a few colonized agar chips that I've been debating what to do with, pitch or keep cause I didn't know if they were still viable. I'll store them with the LC in the fridge as a back-up.

[YoshiTrainer]

Here are some exotics on agar put into parchment today. The bottom two are mini BRF/verm cakes.

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[YoshiTrainer]

So I peel back the paper towels and found these guys! They are 2 Pan bisporus agar pieces that had been stalled in the jar for over a month so not too surprising. It is interesting to me to see the mold grew through the parchment paper. This will also make for a test with the other parchment packs to see if they catch the green.

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[YoshiTrainer]

From the post above, the other agar pieces seem to have dried ok.

I've been slowly working through my collection of genetics, backing them all up. After cleaning up on agar, I scrape across the fan of mycelium and put that in 2ml of distilled water. I also noc up a jar of milo, let it grow out then dry it using parchment paper. Usually it just takes a couple days. Some of the dried grains get vacuum sealed, some go into 5ml cyro vials then sprayed with wine preservative (argon). The rest will get used and shared.

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[fahtster]

Nice man… feels good to have your cultures backed up in storage heh. Keep killin it!

[YoshiTrainer]

Thank you Faht, I've lost a couple cultures and doing my best not to loose more.