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Should You Dunk a Bulk Mushroom Grow?

2021-05-14T06:57:00-05:00

Why don't more people dunk their Bulk grows?

Monotubs or Bulk Casing grows (where you break up your jars or bags and mix with casing in a container or tray)

Is there a way to dunk this? Yes but with risks.

In theory it sounds like a good idea but there are some reasons not to attempt. We have done plenty of experimenting and trials and the results only yielded around 10%-15% additional growth on average.

Dunking a bulk casing has to be done with precision. (There are a few methods which we will discuss in future blog posts for those who are willing to risk) The big "cake" is much more fragile than a cake from a BRF 1/2 pint jar. Any tears or disruptions to the mycellium network can cause issues and set you back up to 5-7 days or sometimes permanent damage which can ruin your grow.

We always tell people it is possible to dunk, but not worth the effort and possible damage that can occur. The increased yield is minimal and only for people who are experienced and know the risks. All of our casing mixes have enough water content to provide 3 solid flushes.

Bulk grow supplies

Set up your next bulk grow with a Grower's Select mushroom monotub, ready-made CVG substrate and sterilized spawn bags.

Long-Term Mycelium Storage on Agar Slants

2021-05-14T06:49:00-05:00

You may have heard or read about using agar slants in many online communities or books. It has become a popular tool in preserving your mycelium for long term use. An agar slant allows you to store your favorite mushroom in a suspended state for up to 12 months! Here are the simple steps for using the agar slants.

Things You'll Need

· Colonized Agar plate with the mycelium specimen you want to preserve

· A sterile disposable scalpel or a hobby knife

· An alcohol lamp or a steady flame source for sterilizing the blade

· A Laminar Flow Hood (Recommended) or a quality Still Air Box

· Agar Slants

1. Clean Up

Start by cleaning the outside of the dishes / slants with rubbing alcohol. Ensure that your hands, scalpel and all other tools are clean. Wear nitrile gloves and a surgical mask to prevent contaminants landing on the fresh plate from your hands or breath.

2. Set Up the Dishes

Remove the Parafilm or tape. Set the dish or dishes side by side in front of the flow hood. It may be easier to set the new plate on the opposite side of your working hand.

3. Sterilize your scalpel

Start by flaming the scalpel blade until it is glowing red hot. This needs to be done between each and every transfer, so have a constant flame going on your work bench. This can be achieved most easily with an alcohol lamp, but you can also use a shot glass that is 3/4 full with rubbing alcohol. Just ensure that the shot glass cannot tip over while it is burning! You can also purchase boxes of disposable sterilized disposable scalpels for cheap on Amazon. Make sure the blade is cool before proceeding to the next step.

4. Make the Transfer

Quickly Open a dish and cut a pea size sample of mycelium. Twist off the lid of the slant and insert the mycelium into the slant. Make sure the piece of mycelium has a good contact with the agar inside the slant. Replace the lid and repeat. You should make at least 3 slants from a agar plate for storage.

5. Incubate

Allow the slants to incubate for 4-5 days. Watch out for any signs of contamination. You should see new growth similar to a agar plate. Once the mycelium has established and grown out across the slant you are ready for long term storage. Store the slants in a zip lock bag in the fridge. Do not let them freeze. After 6 months check on the quality and appearance of the mycelium. If it starts to turn dark, transfer to a new slant or petri dish.

Slants and cultures

Get pre-poured sterilized agar slants for your own strains, or a live culture on an agar slant from our lab.

Agar Basics: How to Work With Agar Plates

2021-04-27T14:57:00-05:00

How to work with AGAR- The BASICS

You may have heard or read about using agar plates in many online communities or books. It has become a popular tool in mushroom growing. Growing mushrooms from scratch requires being able to store and properly propagate mushroom cultures on nutrient rich agar.

The objectives are:
· Start with a sterile piece of mushroom tissue and transfer it onto agar
· Start from a spore syringe and grow out the best genetics
· Create multiple copies of the culture
· Avoid contamination of the culture
· Transfer clean mycelium to liquid culture for inoculating multiple spawn bags or jars.
Properly transferring cultures allows you to "grow out" mushroom different species for the purpose of making grain spawn. It also allows for the ability to "clean" a culture that has been contaminated.
Things You'll Need
· Sterilized Nutrient Rich Agar Plates
· A sterile disposable scalpel or a sharp knife
· An alcohol lamp or a steady flame source for sterilizing the blade
· A Laminar Flow Hood (Recommended) or a quality Still Air Box
· Parafilm or masking tape
· Spore Syringe, Spore Swab, Spore Print, Fresh mushroom tissue, or Liquid Culture

1. Clean Up

2. Set Up the Dishes

Remove the Parafilm or tape. Set the dishes side by side in front of the flow hood. It may be easier to set the new plate on the opposite side of your working hand.

3. Flame Sterilize Scalpel

4. Cool the Blade

Once the blade is red hot, cool it off rapidly by dipping into the agar on the receiving dish. Gently lift the lid off the dish keeping your hand on the back half of the lid, downstream from the rest of the plate. Try not to contact the very edge of your plate with your hands. Handle it minimally, and never remove the lid from the stream of laminar flow.
With the lid removed, quickly dip the blade into the agar near the edge of the dish. You will hear an audible sizzle. Quickly replace the lid back onto the receiving dish.

5. Decide what to inoculate the plates with:

- Spore Syringe: Lift the lid, squirt 1cc of solution and make an X with the liquid, close the lid and tape shut using Parafilm, Micropore tape or masking tape.
-Fresh Mushroom: Pick a fresh full size mushroom. Pull apart the mushroom from the bottom stem and tear apart in the flow hood or still air box. With sterile scalpel cut a small 1-2mm piece of inside tissue where the stem and cap meet and drop on the agar. Close and tape up.
-Spore Print: Using a sterile scalpel, scrape a small amount of spores around the entire dish. Make sure the spread out evenly. Close lid and seal with tape.
-Liquid Culture: Using the same technique as the spore syringe, make an X around the plate with the liquid culture. Make sure to shake well before using!

6. Incubate the Agar plates at 77-83 degrees

You will want to find a warm clean place to incubate the dishes for 5-7 days. You can grow them at lower temps but its best to strive for 80 degrees for optimal results.

7. Transfer Mycelium from growing Agar dish to new plate

Open the lid in the culture-containing dish. Hold it steady while you cut a small piece of agar (containing strong mycelium growth) out of the dish. A 1 cm x 1 cm piece will usually suffice. Once the piece is cut, stab it with your scalpel, and quickly transfer it over to another receiving dish, placing it at the center. Ensure that the culture piece stays in the laminar flow, preferably upstream of the plates.
The reason we transfer is to make sure there are no contaminates and also ensure we are transferring a healthy colony of mycelium. You can repeat this step as many times as needed until you have a healthy growing contaminate free sample growing on your dish.

8A. Transfer to grain spawn

You can transfer your healthy mycelium to grain spawn by simply cutting a 1cm x 1cm piece out and dropping it in the grain jar or bag. Make sure you do this in a flow hood or still air box. Work as fast as possible to avoid contamination.

8B. Transfer to Liquid Culture Jar

Transferring to liquid culture jar allows you to inoculate hundreds of grain bags or jars. Simply cut the same 1cm x 1cm piece from the plate and open the lid of the liquid culture and drop in and mix. Let the culture grow for 5-7 days or until a healthy cloud of mycelium is formed.

Agar supplies from our lab

Skip pouring with pre-poured MEA agar plates, start from a live colonized agar plate, or browse all agar and isolation tools. For clean transfers, work in front of a laminar flow hood.

What to Do With Your Used Mushroom Grow Kits

2024-03-14T06:24:32-05:00

Your grow kit just gave you a great harvest. Before you toss the block, know that it usually has more to give. Here are the best ways to get extra value out of a used mushroom grow kit, plus when it is time to let it go.

1. Go for Another Flush

Most ready-to-fruit kits produce two or three flushes, not one. Each flush uses up water, so the key is rehydrating the block. After harvesting, let it rest for about a week. Then submerge it in clean, cold water for several hours to overnight, drain it well, and put it back in the same fruiting conditions. Expect each new flush to be a little smaller than the last.

Growing in a monotub? The same idea applies, and our guide to dunking a bulk grow walks through rehydrating a tub between flushes.

2. Check for Contamination First

Before you reuse anything, look the block over. Patches of green, black, gray or pink mold, or a sour smell, mean the block is done. Do not open a contaminated bag indoors. Seal it in a trash bag and take it straight outside so spores do not spread to your next grow.

3. Plant It Outside

A spent block that is still clean and white is full of living mycelium. Break it up and bury it in a shady garden bed of moist hardwood chips or straw. Wood-loving species like oysters are the most likely to take hold, and with good moisture you may see surprise mushrooms in the spring or fall. Results vary, so think of this as a bonus rather than a sure thing.

4. Feed Your Garden

Spent mushroom substrate is loaded with organic matter. Crumble it up and use it as mulch around plants, work it into garden beds, or add it to your compost pile. It helps soil hold moisture and adds organic material as it breaks down.

5. Start Your Next Grow

Once a kit is finished, the best thing to do with it is use what you learned on the next one. Try a new species from our gourmet grow kits, or take the next step and grow from start to finish with an all-in-one grow bag and your choice of liquid culture.

What Not to Do

Do not try to reuse the bag itself for a new grow. Grow bags and their filter patches are made for a single sterilization and use. And do not keep a spent block sitting around indoors. Old substrate is an easy target for mold and fungus gnats.

Keep the harvests coming

Browse our gourmet grow kits, all-in-one grow bags and liquid cultures for your next grow.

5 Tips for Growing Oyster Mushrooms at Home

2023-03-01T15:28:01-06:00

Oyster mushrooms are the best place to start growing gourmet mushrooms at home. They colonize fast, shrug off small mistakes and often go from first pins to harvest in under a week. They do have a few needs that trip up first-time growers, though. Get these five things right and you will be harvesting clusters instead of wondering why your block went quiet.

1. Start With the Right Substrate

Oysters will grow on a wide range of materials, from pasteurized straw to supplemented hardwood sawdust. For consistent, heavy yields, most growers use Master's Mix, a 50/50 blend of hardwood sawdust and soy hulls. Straw is cheap and works well too, but it has to be pasteurized first to knock back competing molds and bacteria.

If you are brand new, skip substrate prep entirely and start with a ready-to-fruit block. Our Blue Oyster, Pink Oyster and Pearl Oyster kits arrive fully colonized, so all you do is cut the bag and give them the right conditions.

2. Give Them Plenty of Fresh Air

This is the number one oyster mistake. Oysters are very sensitive to carbon dioxide. When CO2 builds up, they stretch toward fresh air and you get long, skinny stems with tiny caps. If your oysters look more like a bouquet of stems than a cluster of shelves, they need more air.

Fan your fruiting chamber several times a day, or grow them somewhere with gentle, constant air movement. Oysters fruit best with far more fresh air exchange than most other gourmet species.

3. Keep Humidity High Without Drowning Them

Developing oysters want high humidity, roughly 85 to 95 percent. Mist the air and the walls of the chamber rather than blasting the pins directly, and keep an eye on the caps. Cracked, dry-looking caps mean the air is too dry. Yellow, soggy or slimy caps mean they are staying too wet or not getting enough air. A simple digital hygrometer takes the guesswork out.

4. Match the Variety to Your Temperature

Not all oysters like the same conditions. Blue oysters prefer it cool and fruit best in roughly the 50s to mid 60s F. Pink oysters are the opposite: they love heat and do well around 70 to 85 F, which makes them a good summer grow. Pearl and golden oysters sit comfortably at typical room temperatures. Pick the variety that fits your space and you will fight the environment a lot less.

5. Harvest at the Right Moment

Harvest oysters when the caps have opened up and flattened out, but before the edges start to curl upward and turn wavy. Twist or cut the whole cluster off at the base rather than picking individual mushrooms. Waiting too long costs you texture and fills your space with spores. Oysters drop heavy spore loads, so harvest on time and keep your grow area ventilated.

Store fresh oysters in a paper bag in the refrigerator and use them within a few days. Sealed plastic traps moisture and turns them slimy. Oysters should always be cooked before eating, and they are at their best fresh, so plan meals around your harvest.

Bonus: Go for a Second Flush

After your first harvest, let the block rest for about a week, then soak it in clean, cold water for several hours to rehydrate it. Drain it, put it back into fruiting conditions, and most blocks will give you at least one more flush.

Grow oysters with Myco Labs

Start easy with a Blue Oyster or Pink Oyster grow kit, or grow from scratch with oyster liquid culture and sterilized Master's Mix.

The Stages of the Mushroom Growth Process

2022-12-10T07:10:20-06:00

Mushrooms are neither plants nor animals. They're fungi, which are a kingdom all their own. Since this is the case, it might be wise for a prospective mushroom cultivator to learn more about the mushroom growth cycle. Doing a deep dive into the stages of the mushroom growth process is an excellent way to know more about how mushrooms work and can help you in your cultivation process. In addition, we'll go over how you can grow mushrooms at home. However, before discussing either of those things, we must define some terms. Read on below to find out more.

A Few Definitions

Before we begin any examination of the process, we have to understand mushroom cultivating terminology. Knowing common terms helps us gain a map of the territory before we embark.

Mycelium is the body of the mushroom. It's the mushroom body that you don't see as it's below the ground. Its mass is far bigger than most people would suspect.
Hyphae are individual fibers that take in food for the mushroom.
Spores are the reproductive unit of the mushroom that spreads for propagation. A spore contains everything it needs to create a new mushroom. Once a spore settles, it spreads its hyphae filaments to start the growth process.
The cap, stem, and gills are part of the mushroom's fruiting body. The cap houses the spores of the mushroom. This can consist of ridges/false gills, pores, or teeth.
There are spore-producing cells called asci and basidia.

The Stages of Mushroom Growth in the Wild

Now that we've got a rundown of different mushroom terms, we can start looking at some of the phases mushrooms experience during the growth process. There are four stages to know:

The spore production stage
The germination stage
The hyphae stage
The mature mycelium stage

The Spore Phase

When the asci break open, you can expect the mushroom to release its spores. Mushrooms with gills have basidia located on the underside of the cap. They drop to the ground when gills mature. They may also release into the air before settling and creating their hyphae. This helps them create their mycelium, which is where our next stage begins.

Mycelial Expansion

The developing mycelium absorbs nutrients while breaking down the organic matter that it consumes. During this stage, mycelium can grow to become gigantic. Mycelium can expand to encompass a small patch of grass or acres of land. Because it can expand so far, it naturally comes across various predators and competitors. Eventually, the mycelial body grows to a point where it encounters other mushrooms.

The Fruiting Process

Eventually, the sexual reproductive process forms the fruiting body of the mushrooms - the cap, stem, and gills - on a miniature scale. Over time the fruiting body grows into a fully-fledged mushroom, and the process starts all over again. In this process, a hyphal knot forms, the first point where the pinhead begins to sprout. As the hyphal knot grows, a baby mushroom called a "pinhead" forms. Eventually, the pinhead grows to a full-fledged mushroom, and you can start the process again.

So, what does this mean for people trying to grow mushrooms on a farm or on their own using mycology products like mushroom cultivation kits? Read on to find out.

The Stages of Mushroom Growth at Home

The mushroom cultivation process at home is very different from the process it goes through in the wild. To the best of your ability, you should recreate the conditions mushrooms experience to achieve the best results.

Mushroom Cultivation Kits

Luckily, mushroom cultivation doesn't have to be impossible since you can get most of your substrate and other supplies prepackaged. Your mushroom cultivation kit has everything you need to start the cultivation process. Kits contain substrate, jars, or grow bags you can put the substrate - which is your growing medium - in. Some include syringes for colonization, and a few come with chambers that allow you to hold the substrate effectively.

Add Spores to Substrate

In the wild, the substrate is the soil that the mycelium grows in. Luckily for you, substrates come in all types. You can use coffee beans, actual soil, fertilizer - the list goes on. Ensure your substrate and mushrooms are sterile and in a warm, damp area with roughly 12 hours of light. If you'd like, you can place an LED light on top of it that turns on and off at designated intervals.

Incubate for Some Time

After you spread your spores throughout the substrate - or inject them, if you have a bag - it's time to incubate them. You want to maintain a relatively mild humidity, and the area you put the substrate in should be a steady 70-75 degrees.

Keep in mind that higher temperatures can kill spores. Therefore, maintaining the temperature satisfactory for their growth is essential throughout the various stages of the mushroom cultivation growth process.

Lower the Temperature

After a while, the mycelium will appear on top of the soil. Lower the temperature to 55-60 degrees when you see this occur. Next, cover the mycelium with an additional casing layer of the substrate. This effectively reproduces the process of mycelial growth since mycelium grows primarily underground. After you've done this, you should see small mushrooms start sprouting.

Harvest Time!

It should take about three to four weeks for your mushrooms to grow before they're ready for harvest, which is when caps fully open and separate from the stems. Harvest them by slicing through the stem. Don't pull them from the soil, though: it could damage the mushrooms in the process. This is the same process you would use if you're foraging in the wild, effectively mimicking the conditions of the natural world.

The mushroom growth process is fascinating, whether at home or in the wild. Learning more about this incredible life cycle can significantly enrich your growing experience. Use these facts and pointers as you begin your next cultivation project. If you need help with supplies, we offer products for all your growing needs here at Myco Labs. Shop Myco Labs today!

Supplies for every stage

Start with liquid culture or colonized grain spawn, colonize in mushroom grow bags, and fruit in a mushroom monotub.