I’ve been posting this on reddit, so forgive me if you’ve already read about it…
I have long had an interest in trying to grow my own mushrooms, but recently started doing a lot of reading to learn the process. I had intended to start out growing a couple types of oysters on cut straw, but while I was collecting supplies and waited for spawn to arrive I ran across an article talking about cutting up clean cardboard, boiling it to sterilize, and seeding it with chopped mushroom stems. I figured this would be a great way to practice and see how much contamination I would get.
Besides the oysters, I wanted to also try cremini/button mushrooms. One of the local grocery stores has them in a bulk bin which appears to not be processed, and it allowed me to pick out some that looked like they came straight from the ground with obvious signs on mycelium still on the base. Great! So I set everything up, drilled some air holes in a small food container, added the cardboard and stems, and put it away in the closet. And then a couple days later I read that creminis actually want a rich mixture of manure and/or grain to grow on. Well crap…
The point was still to watch for contamination though, so I let it continue. A week passed without contamination and I was happy that it appeared I had cleaned things pretty well (and we’re talking a very hasty setup on my kitchen countertop in open air). On Sunday, I spotted some white fuzz. Oh boy, this could be it, the experiment is almost over. But then I checked on Monday… and it’s not just fuzz, I have actual STRANDS growing across the cardboard. Could it be?!?
Well, today it’s still looking pretty promising, and I’m seeing more coming out from various points in the cardboard. It’s hard to get a good look at everything because of the humidity, but today is day 12 since I set up the container and there are no greens, blues, or reds anywhere. I am hopeful, although frankly amazed at what seems to be happening.
In the meantime my oyster spawn arrived but it was less than expected so I have picked up some quart jars and am waiting to receive some rye grain. I have blue and pink oyster spawn which I will split between two jars each to expand before trying to move it to grow bags with straw. It will take a little longer than planned but I’ll get there. And I’m waiting for my container to be fully colonized with the unexpected spawn (or to see a definite sign that it is NOT mycelium) and then I’ll get that transferred to a grain jar as well.
However it goes, I’m having fun!
Inoculation was done via grain spawn. I had received 10 grams of spawn from ebay. The spawn itself seemed fine, this was for pink oysters which I split between one jar of popcorn and one jar of rye. The jar of rye is still clean and the spawn is growing in both jars. The white spots actually reminds me of something I see occasionally on fresh sweet corn (which I believe is another type of fungus?), but it just seems weird that it is only appearing in this one jar.
I checked again this morning, the white spots are still there but haven’t gotten any worse, and the oyster spawn is growing. Maybe the oyster spawn will out-compete whatever the white spots are? I know contamination isn’t supposed to get through the fiber stuffing in the jar lid but I went ahead and moved that jar away from the others to reduce the risk of spread… just in case.
So, how is the situation with the white spots? Did they end up being benign?
Not good. The spots themselves have not changed, there’s still the same amount everywhere, but it seems to be greatly inhibiting the growth of the mycelium. There ARE some places where the mycelium seems to be winning and slowly transferring to the popcorn, and in those places the white spots are disappearing, so I’ll give it more time and see what happens.
Meanwhile in the other jars… one of the rye jars has reached the stage of getting that dense white look to it and is nearly ready for a shake&break I think. The rest of the jars are getting pretty heavily filled in, so now I’m a bit confused as to when exactly I’m supposed to do the shake&break? I had thought it was when the light fluffy mycelium reached about 40% of the grain, but now I’m wondering if I’m supposed to wait until the more dense white stuff reaches 40%? Or at this stage does it even matter if I shake it a couple times, or just should I just leave them alone to fill on its own? Regardless, I definitely have several jars that will be ready for fruiting bags soon.