First Time PF Tek - Ecuador (fruiting) GT (colonizing)

get another FC!

Very nice following the grow, Ive long wanted to dive in, but always worried my current residence is too unstable as heat/cold fluctuates too constantly to have a successful grow. But have been assured it wont be to tough to regulate temperature.

MASS97 said:

I'm subbed. X-mas presents on the way from microtech. I can't wait!!

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They came in the mail today!!! I'll be geting started this weekend!

Thanks for the comments guys. It's more fun having ppl follow along, especially with a few of us flushing at the same time.

HeatlessBBQ said:

get another FC!

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Probably gonna, but don't have any room left in my cab. I was actually thinking about getting another one of the same tubs and stacking them. It won't affect my airflow since all the holes are in the sides. Only thing is that the bottom one won't really get much light unless I hang it vertically. Overall, I think it would be better than just shoving it under the bed or in the corner somewhere. The temps in my cab stay pretty constant with the space heater and it's easier to keep clean. Once or twice I week I take everything out and give the cab a quick spray down with Oust.

thehairyllama said:

Very nice following the grow, Ive long wanted to dive in, but always worried my current residence is too unstable as heat/cold fluctuates too constantly to have a successful grow. But have been assured it wont be to tough to regulate temperature.

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I'd give it a try anyway man. I'm no expert, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. If anything I'd think that maybe your colonization times might be a little longer. In all honesty though I don't see much difference in colonization at the low 70's than I did at the low 80's. I actually have a small $20 space heater in my cab. On the lowest setting it keeps it in the low 70's and only kicks on for a few minutes every hour or so. Probably not the safest thing to do but I have myself convinced it's ok because I'm an electrican, haha. The walls are drywall which is somewhat flame retardant and there isn't anything else in there. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and you're out $15 bucks for the syringe and another $15 for the jars, verm and rice.

MASS97 said:

They came in the mail today!!! I'll be geting started this weekend!

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Cool man keep us posted. What strain?

yeah its been put aside for so long im collecting need items over the next month. So many teks and videos it would be a shame if not one jar makes it through out the process.

sonar said:

Cool man keep us posted. What strain?

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Cambodian, Mazatapec, African Transeki. A world tour of cubensis!!! LOL

Few pics of the 2nd flush. Not as many pins as the first, but these look much bigger and healthier. I'd say at least half of the first flush were aborts or developed really small fruits. It's only been a few days since the dunk and roll, so we'll see what happens. New pins are emerging every day.

One thing I've noticed is that the dunk really revitalized the mycelium. The bruising has disappeared and the mycelium looks like it actually wants to overtake some of the smaller grains of verm. I wasn't really expecting that. You can kind of see what I mean in some of the close up shots.

A single day's growth.

Gotta love how fast they grow when they get going!

The 3rd flush has just begun. After a 24hr dunk and roll 3 days ago, the cakes are showing their first new pins. Have a feeling these cakes might be on their way out. The 2nd flush came on strong and fast, but these seem like they are just limping along. Even the appearance of the pins have changed slightly. They are far less robust looking than the previous flush.

The GT jars have just finished colonizing and the 2nd set of Ecuador jars have practically caught up even though they were started a full week later. I mentioned this several times, but I packed the GT jars a little too tight and also may have made the mixture a little too wet. None have contams so I think they will make it. Just going to make sure I wait for pins to decrease the likelihood of contams upon birthing. There are a few specks here and there on a few of the GT jars that are having a tough time colonizing because of the density. Just going to have to wait it out and see what happens. It's a good lesson though to myself and anyone else following along about keeping the substrate loose. While at this point it doesn't appear to have cost me too much, at the very least it will increase colonization times. I'll try to get a few pics up showing what I mean. Until then, here is a pic of the 2nd flush about 3/4 of the way dry and a few of the cakes.




EDIT: Here's what I was talking about with the GT jars . Notice the area towards the bottom is are having a tough time colonizing. If the rest of the jars are any indicator, then it eventually will, but significantly holding up colonization. Keep em loose!

OK well I know there are a few of you fellas following along so I didn't want to leave ya hanging. My first grow is offically over. The 3rd flush was pretty uneventful so there wasn't really much to post. Only half the cakes even flushed. The ones that did produced small and few fruits. The ones that didn't flush actually started to contam so they got tossed and the last of them were picked over the last few days. The 2nd flush produced over 1 oz of dried fruits. Between that and the first flush, that is quite of bit of biomass, but I still thought I'd get a nice 3rd flush. All together, I pulled over 2 oz of moderately potent mushies from 8 cakes.

Good news is I checked the GT jars and a few of them have some pins forming so I think I'll be birthing them tomorrow. I picked up some aluminum loaf pans and some coco, so I think I'm going to try rez effect with a few of the cakes. Essentially, I'll be breaking them up and mixing with some moist, pasteurized coco. Might add a some verm in there too. To be honest, I've been pretty busy lately and haven't really had much time to research this as much as I would have liked, so I might hold off and do it with the second batch of ecuador I have going. They are about a week behing the GT so it will give me a little more time to figure out exactly how I want to do this. I have some really nice worm casting too and I'm undecided whether to A) make a casting/coco/verm bulk substrate, B) make a nutritive tea out of the casting and just use that to moisten a coco/verm rez effect, or C) just do a simple rez effect without the casting using just coco/verm.

Feel free to let me know what you guys think.

Finally birthed the GT jars the other day. They are in the FC now and have some small primordia developing.

I decided to use 4 of the cakes in a coco/verm/casting mix. 2 cakes per tray was enough to give me about a 50/50 mix of substrate and spawn. In less than 3 days, they completely colonized the coco. I think I'm going to wait another day or two to see some pins before casing and putting them in my FC along with the cakes.

hell yeah!!!

you should post how you made and what you used for your substrate mixture.

I didn't really measure but if I had to estimate I'd say about 60% coco, 20% verm, 20% castings. Broke off a piece of coco from the brick and hydrated it with boiling water. After it cooled down enough that I could handle it, I added the verm and worm casting and mixed them together. I kept the moisture content slightly above "field capacity" because the verm and castings would absorb some. After that, I covered with foil and baked the pans in the oven at 350 for about an hour just to be certain I killed off as much as I could. Once they cooled, I crumbled up my cakes in a big gallon bag and mixed it in. Put the foil back on sent back to colonize.

I was shocked when I checked them last night and they were completely colonized after 3 days. My intent was just a quick peek to see if everything was going well and to judge how far along it was.

I've been doing a little research and found when ppl do these sorts of trays, often times they pop the whole thing out of the tray and fruit like a huge cake.

sonar said:

Finally birthed the GT jars the other day. They are in the FC now and have some small primordia developing.

I decided to use 4 of the cakes in a coco/verm/casting mix. 2 cakes per tray was enough to give me about a 50/50 mix of substrate and spawn. In less than 3 days, they completely colonized the coco. I think I'm going to wait another day or two to see some pins before casing and putting them in my FC along with the cakes.

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WOW! 3 days? How and Why do you think you got such a fast colonization? 3 days is remarkable!!! Man, I'm going on 3 weeks and my jars are not even 50% colonized yet. I'm thinking about usung my last syringe to make an LC first, then using copious amounts of the LC to speed up the cake colonization. I like your little lasagna bulk tek idea and may do that instead of cakes though. Have you ever tried or had any success with LC as spawn?
Congrats on your Lasagana sized bulk substrate grow!!!

It'll be cool to see those big trays fruit. Looking awesome!

Well the GT cakes are fruiting for the most part. They look a lot different than the Ecuadors. The cap is much more pointed and they seem like they open up a little different too. I can't wait to try some!

I put those loaf pans of coco in the fruiting chamber this morning. I have no idea how they colonized so fast, but everything I read about coco says the mycelium love the stuff. It's been 6 days since I mixed it all together, so I figure I can start them fruiting. Let you guys know when something happens.

sonar said:

I didn't really measure but if I had to estimate I'd say about 60% coco, 20% verm, 20% castings. Broke off a piece of coco from the brick and hydrated it with boiling water. After it cooled down enough that I could handle it, I added the verm and worm casting and mixed them together. I kept the moisture content slightly above "field capacity" because the verm and castings would absorb some. After that, I covered with foil and baked the pans in the oven at 350 for about an hour just to be certain I killed off as much as I could. Once they cooled, I crumbled up my cakes in a big gallon bag and mixed it in. Put the foil back on sent back to colonize.

I was shocked when I checked them last night and they were completely colonized after 3 days. My intent was just a quick peek to see if everything was going well and to judge how far along it was.

I've been doing a little research and found when ppl do these sorts of trays, often times they pop the whole thing out of the tray and fruit like a huge cake.

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that what i did last time i did some trays, i pop them out and case in verm like a giant cake. works pretty well i get alot on the sides of the cake that would have been much amaller if they were still in the trays. just flip the tray over and set the giant cake on top.

My best cake yet. I'm really digging these GT. Glad I took a few print. Just hope they are clean and don't contam when I go to use them. I'm averaging about 1/8th per cake per flush. Not sure if it's a difference in genetics, or just the luck of the draw when using syringes, but these GT look a little different than the Ecuadors. The stems are much thicker and the caps are shaped a little bit different.

As for the loaf pans, it's been 12 days I believe and still not much going on with them. I think I'm going to give them a few more days then try popping them out of the trays. Either going to dunk and roll or maybe just DEC. Seems like I'm having excellent luck with the DEC on the cakes, so I'm leaning towards that. My concern right now is that the re-colonization along with almost 2 weeks of sitting out has dried them out a little even though they are in my terrarium at 95%+ humidity. Any thoughts?

Finally some action with the loaf pans. Still getting use to this camera so I apologize in advance for some of the blurry pictures.

I have 10 more jars that can be birthed any day now, so I'm thinking about using them in a monotub. Don't have any more room in my FC anyway unless I start stacking them.