138 replies to this topic

[hyphaenation]

Even by the next morning the jar that got the water-syringe treatment is recovering fast. The agar benefited also from the moisture re-hydration and is bouncing back.

This experiment is going better than anticipated.

 

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:13 PM.

[hyphaenation]

With semi-partial proper temps (still fluctuates over night especially) the original G2G popcorn jars are filling out , even since last night. The plan is to PC some half-gallon jars 2/3 filled with popcorn and when they cool G2G the freshly colonized popcorn in these jars into them. I'll try again for the 60/40 ratio of un'col"d to col'd to encourage fast colonization. The bigger one goes , the more chance of heavy losses if contams rear their head , so I'll take all steps to be as clean as possible when I go to transfer into the bigger jars. When those jars colonize I'll do a bulk grow of some sort(s) and resurrect the Redboy horse dookie thread. I have some new ideas to roll out and I'll tweak some others that worked before.

Here's the original G2G transfer jars:

Ever since I first used popcorn , I love the way mycelium "combs" over the kernals , like white fingers engulfing it. It's really , really fun to watch ... small wonders , eh!?

 

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:13 PM.

[hyphaenation]

A few things I want to do are:

- try this for growing out sectors of rhzo mycelium to grain
- mix with manure & fruit that and take a clone isolate
- grow that isolate from agar to grain in the same style jars
- G2G to build spawn
- Bulk grow and observe results

Also I plan on trying egg-carton discs (eggar) to use for cloning in place of the agar , because egg-cartons are easier for me to get than agar but also because its less of a rigamorol than making agar. Although I am enjoying agar very much , especially for germinating spores and sectoring out rhyzo mycelium.

[anticheffy]

Nice, missed this thread, been doing the same thing.

Miataki from store bought clones on wood/grain agar.

Great minds ?????

 

Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:14 PM.

[hyphaenation]

Right on Cheffy !

Good stuff.

I loves me my woodloving species ... in fact I'm not much a Cubensis grower to speak of at all.

Edited by hyphaenation, 30 December 2012 - 02:21 PM.

[hyphaenation]

 

Recovering agar-jar that got the mycelium-water treatment

 

 

 

Every morning there is significant growth. Soon they will be done.

What I'm doing different here compared to my normal routine is to not let the popcorn jars over-colonize. I have a bad habit of leaving jars for weeks longer than I should , just out of busyness/lazyness. This time I am transferring the grain as soon as it is ready and not letting the agar get overly colonized. As soon as these pint jars are prime I will transfer them into the half-gallon jars of well sterlized popcorn. When that's ready I will spawn to bulk and get my grow on.

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:16 PM.

[hyphaenation]

The comb-over:

 

 

These jars should be finished in the next day or two.

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:17 PM.

[hyphaenation]

The first few days of watching the mycelium-water innoc'd jars was none eventful... I almost got a bit worried that nothing was happening, as I couldn't see a speck of mycelium anywhere. This perplexed me because I had just injected 10cc of thick myc-water.

I moved them to a warmer place and now on day three or so I checked the jars and was happy to see white fuzzy growth everywhere evenly throughout the jar. I'll get pictures when I can, it will be easier to film as time goes on. For the moment its but a tiny white speck everywhere.I love semi-counting something out and it bounces back to suprise you.

Now hopefully its contam-free... Its kinda wild to see such explosive myc take-off, but it stage its cottony puffs of white everywhere which looks a lot like a certain green contam we know. Touch wood , its not trich.

Here's an attempt at a pic of the 10 cc super-inoc. Looks better in person , will update.

 

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:18 PM.

[psycheholic]

That trich can sneak arond in a Trojan horse, making you think you got things undercontrol.....then bam everything goes to shit. Thread is well put together hyph, with some very interesting ideas. I would like to see more of your eggar work, that seems to be more my speed.

[hyphaenation]

I would like to see more of your eggar work, that seems to be more my speed.

It's not for lack of egg-cartons ...

I've got a few stashes like these. The ones on the right are big egg-flats. I get them at local restaurants that specialize in breakfast.

 

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:19 PM.

[hyphaenation]

Update

The G2G jars are getting close to being finished. The myc looks good and healthy in those jars.

 

The little agar-jars that were instantly refilled are catching on decently and the agar is definitely growing good.

 

The 10 cc mycelium water jar op popcorn is really exploding with myc. As one would guess , about twice the growth as on the 5 cc myc-water innoc'd one. I'm now brainstorming a two step tek that first "milks" the myc and then "super-inoculates" grains and sub materials. One idea I have is to milk enough mycelium and use gravity to separate the thick layer when it sinks , and make a thick slurry of mycelium to spawn bulk sub materials with. The grain I'd use for mother-jars to milk and the mycelium I'd figure a way to mix with the sub material and drain ... long story short , spawning bulk with mass-mycelium instead of grain , IE: possibly less contamination while still having fast growth.

Just trying out ideas. I would like to get a jug of thick myc water , freeze it on its side in the freezer in a plastic bottle with a squirt-lid. Then put it in a room-temp bath to partially thaw it just a bit in the future and squirt that into a jar then return the myc-bottle to the freezer. I know already that Cubensis mycelium can withstand freezing and thawing , from watching jars I left outside. My thought is it might be possible to long-term store frozen mycelium water and use it on demand. even 20 CC's of myc-water could inoculate lots of grain. I'm going to run some tests.

 

 

Its like this everywhere , but the bottom of the jar makes a nice view-point for myc growth.

 

Jar is colonizing on its side , high and warm above cupboards.

 

 

Pending any contams the growth is phenomenal...

If for whatever reason it is trich (touch a 1000 trees) , then I'll retrace my steps and try again with greater sterility.

Fingers crossed.

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:25 PM.

[hyphaenation]

The second G2G I did at the heavy spawn-rate is just about done. It went pretty much as expected which was fast. Not sure whether I'll milk that jar for myc or spawn some horse manure with it.


 

 

5 cc mycelium-water on the left and 10 cc's on the right. I rolled both around a good amount after I injected the myc-water. Looks like i'll be using 10cc in future jars ...

 

Good news this morning , the myc is starting to go rhyzo in the two mycelium-water jars above. Not out of the woods yet , but its looking good so far.

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:28 PM.

[mosotogari]

Hyph, your frozen mycellium idea is super intresting. I would like to hear more about that. You mean you have frozen and thawed mycelium multiple times or is this just a hypothesis? In any case you are like a high level deity in the pantheon of myco-greats... I have read alot of your older redboy work and after reading this I think I am going to dedicate to readin your complete works on this forum... Amazing!!

[hyphaenation]

You mean you have frozen and thawed mycelium multiple times or is this just a hypothesis?

Yes , and yes.

I have indeed had jars of grain (particularly popcorn) outside , because they had cobweb , or some other contam or worry , and I had set them outside. Then before I could clean them up winter would creep in. I'm talking jars with their lid and even without. The next spring , 5 months later , I'd see the same jars that I had counted out for dead were brilliant white with mycelium . What's that ? You say even open jars of colonized grain can survive a harsh winter outside , unprotected .... yes , its true , I've seen it several times with my own eyes.

This is what I call observational mycology. Watch it and see what it does. This is what I do.

This anecdotal evidence tells me that quickly frozen mycelium-water jugs should work good , because I've seen mycelium survive constant thawing and freezing in harsh Canadian winter scenerio and still be viable. What I'm attempting to do is create inventions/innovations within a thread , whereby I go with an idea past the "O th" degree , pushing the envelope , while obviously absorbing ideas from others and incorporating them. The idea that say , that agar slants can be frozen and thawed is common knowledge , but to have the mycelium frozen alone in water is a variation on the idea that spawned this idea. This idea of "super inoculation" by flooding the jars with myc-water and draining them into more jars and so on and then saving the leftover end-result in the freezer for future projects is an on-going beta tek that is rolling around in my head , but what i like about it is ... get the idea in the morning during an on-going project and try it that evening in real time.

I have not done any agar work yet but your thread has inspired me to try.

This is only my second venture into agar ... I'm having fun though , and I noticed that there is a new brand of agar that sells in my local health-food store in 60 gram plastic pill bottles for under 10 bucks. This means several months of easy to make agar recipes in one bottle , especially if you consider expanding your spawn as I lay out in this thread.

What I'm working in on as we speak is a mycelium milker. This is equipment to aid in the pulling of mycelium out of the colonized grain jars that is as sterile wherever and whenever it can be. The idea I'm working towards is growing the mycelium-mother jars ... milking them of their myc and flooding other jars of sterilized grain , beyond the 10 CC that I've seen as successful , I'm talking flooding the whole jar , rolling it around , passing it on to as many other jars as desired and draining it well to collect the extra inoculant , then storing it.

I'll make a nice update tomorrow with the details and pics.

Edited by hyphaenation, 03 January 2013 - 02:32 AM.

[hyphaenation]

I am nothing but an inquisitive newbie who expands on the ideas of those who came before ...

I knew absolutely nada/zip before I came here , even with a stack of Stamets books. No experience , no peers. When I see myself beside the likes of Eatyualive & Freaky , and Buckaroo & Waylitjim , and Myc & Golly , and Dial8 & Lazlo , and TCO & Workman , and TV Casualty & Anti-Cheffy ... etc etc , I feel like the weakest link in the chain , with homework to do and socks to pull up.

I appreciate your help & comments. When the silicone dries tomorrow I can commence my first serious mycelium milking / grain jar myc-flooding (super inoculation)experiment with my new milking rig.

Cheers.

Edited by hyphaenation, 03 January 2013 - 03:01 AM.

[Cue]

For your myc milker have you considered a auto vaccinator for livestock?
http://www.qcsupply....e/syringes.html

[hyphaenation]

Mycelium Milking -part2-

I was going to re-inject 5 cc of mycelium-water into the 5 cc popcorn jar that was lagging behind a bit , but when i got up this morning it had grown quite a bit. To the point where I'll just leave it alone to colonize now.

 

 

10 cc grows faster , but 5 cc mycelium-water will also do nicely for a pint of grain.

 

The high-rate G2G popcorn jar is just finishing things up. I may or may not milk this jar , as its already a second generation G2G jar.

 

First gen G2G jars are totally colonized now. I will milk them tonight and observe how the well-drained jars bounce back. If all goes well I'll milk the mycelium and collect it , let them recover and then use that grain as spawn to manure , or possibly milk them a second time if it looks like re-growth is healthy.

 

 

These are the jar-lids for my mycelium milking machine I'm building. They double as breather lids that can be stuffed with poly. They are made out of sawed off lids of 2 litre pop bottles. I cut a hole and placed the bottom of the pop-lid through it , then I siliconed generously all around on both sides and let it dry completely overnight. Now I have threaded lids that can have a cap placed on them (for shaking etc) , and I have other caps with aquarium tubing attached to them , so one jar can be drained into the next via the tube. These parts of the milker I will sterilize before use. I even have adapter milkers that go from the larger lid to the smaller size (I use both kinds of jars).

The plan is to flood one colonized jar with an amount of clean water , then swirl it around and shake , place milker on jar of freshly colonized popcorn and dump myc-water into new jar allowing donar-jar to fully drain , repeat with as many new jars of colonized grain as i have , drain each well and at the end collect the left-over mycelium-water and store it in the freezer for later use. Also I'll save a bottle of fresh mycelium-water that hasn't been passed through the jars to see if there's any difference in quality.

I'll take some pictures tonight of my first proper milking.

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:31 PM.

[hyphaenation]

Gotta wait till morning to milk my mycelium jars. In the meantime I made up some more popcorn and a couple jars of amaranth so that I can milk the myc-jars and super-inoculate these. Also I have some cool equipment that has silicone doing the final dry. I'll be able to test a bunch of theories in practice starting in the morning.

[hyphaenation]

 

The mini agar-jar reloads are coming along.

 

Left: Heavy ratio G2G transfer ..... Middle: 10 cc mycelium-water inoculation .... Right: 5 cc mycelium-water inoculation

After 5 days the race between heavy-ratio G2G , 5 cc myc-water inoc and the 10 cc myc-water inoc to see who would colonize first is over. At first I thought for sure the heavy G2G was taking a commanding lead, but then days later the 10 cc myc-water inoc jar exploded and finished first by quite a bit.

I'm interested to compare the 10 cc jar to super-inoculated flooded/drained jars to see if the extra myc improves speed of growth.

 

The mycelium milking rig is very simple , made of stuff I had laying around. Threaded male end was sawed off of two litre pop bottles and then squeezed into the hole in the lid snuggly and liberally siliconed on both sides. The milking tube is drilled pop bottle lids with snug fitting aquarium tubing siliconed from both sides. I have a stainless steel screening that I'm going to cut round filters that go in top to prevent grain from leaving the jar. The milking equipment will be cleaned in soapy water , soaked in mild bleach water and sterilized before use.

 

These are new jars of grain that I am just now sterilizing. In the morning I will super-inoculate them with freshly milked mycelium. The two jars on the outside are Amaranth. Its a very small grain as you can see. I'm hoping it will be a good spawn candidate , so I'm trying it out.

Looking forward to mycelium milking in the morning.

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Edited by hyphaenation, 03 December 2014 - 07:34 PM.

[mosotogari]

I wonder if you could eliminate the need for a pressure cooker with your super-innoculations. If you maybe just hydrated your popcorn and boiled the jars you make for an hour let cool and super-innoculate... This would really open the hobby up for people who can't afford a PC but want to move into bulk....