asexual reproduction of P. cubensis, a pictorial.

[mycelium]

Good evening.
I had to take a clone of a strain that I didn't have a clone of, and did amazingly well. P. cubensis var Oak Ridge.
Went to grab the burner so I could take pics for you guys and gals.
I don't have a lot of gear out, most shit is packed away, but I had some premade petri dishes, and some straws. I normally use a scalpel, but that was put away, and straws are pretty sterile.
The agar mix was 9g agar agar and 9g light malt extract, with 550ml water in a 1000ml media bottle, pressure cooked for 25 min at 17 psi in a presto 23 quart pressure canner. In a sterile environment, the pressure canner was allowed to cool, the media bottle was removed and allowed to cool until able to be held(no thermometer unpacked). And poured onto sterile petri dishes.

I am using a HEPA fan filter unit (h14 grade) but this above is a still air box, and is good for having a clean area to work

And, now that I am thinking about it, this is a small section, a mini roll, of saran wrap, cut from a whole roll, way cheaper and easier to use for sealing petri dishes

Slice a fruit in half lengthwise. Simple. Wear gloves, and use something sterile, I used a straw, and threw that straw away. The fruit I took was part of a huge cluster of fruits, which will cause that trait to go forward to the next culture

Use a fresh straw or scalpel, and cut a piece on the inside , not touching the outside of the stem .

Here it is. I was within 6" of the fan the whole time. I will do a whole thread on this one day

Deposited specimen on the agar and closed the lid

Wrap with the saran

And label it.

 

[Osmosis Vanderwaal]

I guess thats just the way it is. If someone knows a fix, Im all ears. Sounds like youve been at it a while. So you have a quarter taped to the weight I bet. Thats how I got my 23qt. Prestos to 17psi. There's new guys, who peobably have and 8 quart easy living pc that only does 10 psi, then there's the enthusiastic noob who probably has a 41 qt autoclave, I couldn't justify $500 for one though, when the 23qt prestos were about $100. 10 years ago I did 3 batches of (4#)-5 lb bags and ran 2-23qts, 1.5 hours staggered and tried to fir at least one run of10-1qt. Grain masters a day and a couple batches of agar in a week. Inwas growing and selling gourmet mushrooms at that point, petri dishes, mea or pda, your choice, 100mm and a 4" piece of parafilm with it. $1! I SOLD THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. I dont even remember now but I think I had 25 or 30 cents in one. $14/sleeve profit. There are commercial growers whomswear by and are still running strains i cloned from wild mushrooms there about G100 now id guess. Ingot burnt out on doing it all day and night every day. Not that i was always working b ut inwas always waiting to takenthe pcs to the flowhood iniculating grain, soaking grain,mwashing it bagging it weighing it... inwent throughb3 squirrel cage blowers the last year I was doing it The only reason inshit it offnwasntonreplacenthe blower and id end every night with hot jars lined up in front of it cooling for that early start first thing. What was really the nail in the coffin is a guy approached me about a partnership that was a FUCKING AMAZING IDEA! We were absolutely slaughtering it, I couldn't make enough petri dishes and bags of wood chips! Im not going to say exactly what it was, because there are literally 3 people in then whole country doing it, but it wasnt edible or hallucingenic mushrooms. My partner thought he should introduce himselfnto our competition. I said, " don't do it man, we have absolutely nothing to gain from her" He did it anyway, and she called the usda on us! They sent me a message telling me about the $10,000 fine PER OFFENSE, and there was no way I could meet their specifictions. #1, you must have an approved inspected facility, of course it has to be zoned commercial.

 

[mycelium]

I've been growing mushrooms for a little over a year, but a lot of that time I have been off of work due to an injury, and it became more than a hobby, it was what I invested a lot of time and research into.

Not gormet, not psychedelic...poisonous??

We went wilderness-ing the other day, looking for mushrooms, let the dog run off of the leash, hiking and shit, and found some 'dyers polypore' which is a mushroom you can dye shit with, so I am anxious to try that.

If I could get a business loan, I probably would set up a spot for growing gourmet mushrooms, and medicinal ones, because that is really gaining in popularity, and something I enjoy doing that I would like to profit from, legally.

 

[mycelium]

And thank you for fixing the photos and making them show

 

[madmoney69]

Monotubs tek was all my childhood

 

[mycelium]

Oh yeah, I have 3 quarters taped to my vent cover, that allows me to get up to higher PSI without the whole stove shaking like an earthquake.

 

[madmoney69]

Was intrested to grow mexicana or azurescens or how its called the different species which say hits different. Never tried

 

[mycelium]

And, after a few days (4-8) you see the mycelium going away from the tissue culture..take a fresh piece in the same sterile conditions, until the culture is clean and go agar to grain or agar to liquid culture

 

[Osmosis Vanderwaal]

Clearly you paid attention. Your aseptic culture technique is straight by the book with a little proven technology. The book is " the mushroom cultivator" that's a hell of a book, and 40 years later I never seen as comprehensive a mushroom cultivation guide.
At the end of my little mushroom career, I was selling Tremetes versicolor, Xylaria polymorphs, Fistulina hepatica, Chlorocyboria . There were a few others, but no one else went out there found them in the woods, identified them and brought them into cultivation. If you looked these up and read, you would see what they have in common

 

[mycelium]

I already know that one is turkey tail, so I assume it's all immune system mushrooms, or cancer mushrooms.
I actually have a culture of turkey tail (tremetes versicolor) .
I found chicken of the woods a couple months ago, for the first time, and it actually tasted like chicken!

 

[Osmosis Vanderwaal]

Tremetes versicolor is a popular medicinal mushroom, but I wasn't making supplements, which can get tricky because if you claim it does anything at all, it's a drug and they co trol that and if you suggest someone eat it, its food and another another arm of beurocracy controls that. The secret is the type of substrate they digest and what they do to it.

 

[mycelium]

Hmmmm, they digest lignin? cellulose? decomposer of stumps, logs....

 

[Osmosis Vanderwaal]

Oakwood is some good OG breeding stock. Its one of very few cubensis with a solid stem, which is always desirable. I see a lot of new guys out here trying to sell thier custom strains, but then they list thier methodology and its clear they didnt do thier homework,