Notes on Fungus Cultivation: Conditions, Harvesting, Moisture

What To Expect: 

• Should get solid white colony or a thin layer of popcorn.
• Sometimes a brown liquid will form and that's okay. 

Room Temperature:

• Keep your house at around 76 degrees (you can put a thermometer in there and a space heater). Walmart Battery operated thermometer / humidity measure tool.

Wetness:

• Conditions: Don't let it get too soggy and wet. It's not a plant.  If water is running down sides of tub its too much. 
• What To Do If Soggy: Use paper towel so not under water.
• When Using Spray Bottle: Twice a day a day by misting it and then fan it - mists the sides and holds up the lid. Like if you mist your hair. 
• Other Notes:
• If you have your moisture content in your medium properly when you started it’ll hold and not dry up as if it were sitting in the sun.

Contamination and Mold:

• Any Green Mold - Try to cut it out or scoop it out with a spoon, but usually its there at a level you can’t see and further than you think. 
• Once they pass the inoculation stages in the beginning, you can relax a lot more about contamination. Less likely to happen later. 
• One of bonuses of using a cake is it just molds one cake instead of the whole tub.

Issue With Using a Fan:

• Problem w fan is increasing chances for contamination 

Cleaning:

• Cleaning Alcohol - Buy 91% Sprays room with lysol Wetness So wet that the surface is soggy, too much humidity. 

Timeline:

• Pinning: Week Two: Within 5-6 more days should have little pin heads and ten sprout into little babies. 
• Harvesting: Once 2 inches tall, really watch them. Cuz you'll go to work and come home and ready to harvest. And then it'll start and you'll get 5-6 clippings over time. Best if you don't let them completely open up (some people go for it after the first and biggest one) so he does it a bit at a time, and then clips them out, and within 3 days it'll be harvested.

How To Harvest:

• Tools: Use a dental mirror to peak underneath and poke down between mushrooms and look at the underside.
• Veil Watching: When the veils start to tear. But if the veil is solid and then it could tear during the day and blow out. As soon as you see the veil starts to tear or when its almost see-through and sheer, go ahead and clip those. 
• Avoid Spores: If you wait too long it makes a mess and sprays spores all over your medium substrate nothing will grow there. They are very intelligent and this gives them the signal to stop growth saying we are done w that life cycle.