I've cultivated shrooms once before about three years ago on cased rye. So after all this time i thought it's about time to pick up this great hobby again.
But this time I wanted to do it in a bulk way and i want to keep it simple but effective. So I decided to spawn colonized rye to straw without casing in a simple tub closed with see-through plastic on top tied with elastic band and two black garbage bags on top of that to keep it dark as long as the mycelium is still growing.
Dimensions of the tub are: HxWxD: 29x34x50cm / 11.5x13.5x20 inches
The moisture of the straw seems to suffice to keep the humidity high enough, the hygrometer constantly points at about 95% and I never misted or anything. Once a day I open it up to fan it with a piece of cardboard. When the shrooms appear I'll fan it twice a day because of the CO2 they produce.
I've used these three 1000ml jars of colonized rye that I had innoculated with palenque spores and kept in the incubator at around 27 C till they were colonized enough and spawned them at thursday the 5th of April to the straw.
http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1176478421
This is the straw spawned with rye 4 days later, on the 9th of april. The layer of straw is about 8-10cm / 3-4 inches thick.
http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1176478421
6 days after spawning on the 11th of april.
http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1176478421
This is what it looks like today, 8 days after spawning.
http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1176478421
http://mycotopia.net...=1&d=1176478421
As you can see, at this time the straw has colonized quite far so I hope that all goes well and that the first pins will appear soon.
