Can you use mycelium to generate new jars?

[citizen5]

I've been trying to learn how to grow shrooms and I've found so many variations it's crazy. I read somewhere that you can take a jar with full mycelium growth and use it to inoculate new jars so you never really need to mess with spores once you have a good jar. Does anyone know more about this method? It seems like you could have perpetual growth this way. Other sources say the myceluim is very sensitive and not even to touch it very hard. The source I read said you should put a myceluim rich jar in a sterile blender with more sterile brown rice and then split into more jars and by doing so basically clone more jars. Also interestingly people are drilling out holes in the top of their cakes after the first flush and inserting steril water into the hole to rehydrate the cake and getting more abundant flushes. Is anyone doing this? Please post.

[Scentless Apprentice]

I read somewhere that you can take a jar with full mycelium growth and use it to inoculate new jars so you never really need to mess with spores once you have a good jar. Yes that is correct. The source I read said you should put a myceluim rich jar in a sterile blender with more sterile brown rice and then split into more jars and by doing so basically clone more jars.I wouldn't reccomend this. There's too many chances for contamination. There will be enough as it is. Also interestingly people are drilling out holes in the top of their cakes after the first flush and inserting steril water into the hole to rehydrate the cake and getting more abundant flushes. Is anyone doing this? Well I tried cakes once, with a poor yield. And I'm sure it was lack of water. But I posted a thread on the casing method give that a read.
http://www.thegrowreport.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=2706

[Zeke0]

Where are you getting your information from? Of course you can use mycelium to innoculate new jars. There is no need for a blender, just pour a few grains in the new jar. This must be done in a sterile glove box or under a laminar flow hood, otherwise it's instant contamination.

Also, cakes can be rehydrated by just soaking them in water overnight. Drilling a hole seems absolutely pointless It's just harming the mycelium.

[cereus]

You can actually do an inoculation without a glove box or flow hood, but the chance of contamination is obviously high. But to my experience enough boxes do not get infected to get the job done, just have some patience and do throw away any suspicious looking jars. First do the agar plates, then inoculate enough jars or what ewer you use to suite your need. The number of times you open the jar and expose the mycelium to contaminants is the most important factor of success, if the mycelium is just exposed the one time when you inoculate it from say agar the chance is good that it will be contaminant free when fully grown trough. one decilitre of rise/rye grain may give you enough mushrooms to trip dozens of times. but if you need to have a big crop use that decilitre to inoculate up to 20-50 jars/bags or what ewer, that is the time when you really need sterile environment. There is also a technique developed using hydrogen peroxide to sterilise the whole growing media prior to inoculation, but it is mainly used with wood and straw loving mushrooms. this method is probably great for the hobby grower that do not like all that sterilising and working in sterile environments.

[Zeke0]

You can actually do an inoculation without a glove box or flow hood, but the chance of contamination is obviously high.

Then why even suggest it? I could fuck a bunch of nasty hookers without a condom and maybe I won't come away with an STD.

But to my experience enough boxes do not get infected to get the job done, just have some patience and do throw away any suspicious looking jars.

This is just a waste. Why not do the best you can to ensure the majority, if not all come out uncontaminated?

[cereus]

I just mention that it is possible to grow mushrooms for the lacy to, and do you really need a kilo of magic lying around. if I were to grow commercially I would invest both time and money, but as a experiment to see if it is possible it is just as well to try it as basic as possible. I kind of knew you would kick on my comment, cleanliness is such a holiness in mushroom growing, but as it gives greater rate of successes, strictly speaking it is not necessary to the careful experimenter.

ps I hope it is not hostility I sense from you zeke It's just a friendly comment in a friendly forum among friends;):)

[Jesse Lou]

Hey citizen,

If you really want to have something that gives you the ability to inoculate a LOT of jars. Start reading about "Liquid Cultures". It's been well proven.

[Zeke0]

I just mention that it is possible to grow mushrooms for the lacy to, and do you really need a kilo of magic lying around. if I were to grow commercially I would invest both time and money, but as a experiment to see if it is possible it is just as well to try it as basic as possible. I kind of knew you would kick on my comment, cleanliness is such a holiness in mushroom growing, but as it gives greater rate of successes, strictly speaking it is not necessary to the careful experimenter.

ps I hope it is not hostility I sense from you zeke It's just a friendly comment in a friendly forum among friends;):)

Sorry dude, I was in a bit of a bad mood that day. I see where you're coming from.

[Scentless Apprentice]

did your batch get moldy? ha ha :)

[Lethal_Hobo]

I'm gonna give just crumbling up my old mycelium cakes and adding them to the new jars a try. The only thing i'm spending money on this time may be a can of lysol.

[cereus]

As long as the cakes are healthy it may work great, but the myselia may have entered a new stage after fruiting. It is like regenerating a finished flowered cannabis plant it may work and it may not, anyway some of the vigour is lost, it have done its job. The best idea is to plan ahead, when you are inoculating your jars from your agar plate or from you first generation spawn or syringe, you also inoculate a new agar plate or test tube with low nutrition content so called water agar, and put it in the refrigerator, it will last ages there. Then you always have vigorous myselium to use, the other way is to take spore prints and do the whole proses from the start.

[Lethal_Hobo]

So I did try crumbling my old cakes up and placing them in new jars half filled with verm/Brown rice flour.

90% of the mycelium has given up, one jar seems to be housing some mould.. and thats about it.