No I don't eat mushrooms I'm not familiar with. I do grow my own mushrooms. It's a skill I'm learned during shelter in place but just a novice. Here is oyster mushrooms I grew.
For the last year or so I've been working with a Washington 502 producer/processor. Because of this I've had to up my cloning game. I've always been okay with cloning but with my tiny cellar grow I only needed a couple of clones at a time. So I didn't care about having them all root. Now with the amount of plants needed I've had to figure out how to be very successful at cloning. It took me months of experimenting to find something that worked. This is what I finally settled on. First I use ProMix BX because it has less of that perlite than ProMix MX. I've always used clear plastic cups that I've drilled a hole in the bottom. So this turned out to be a variation of what I've done for decades. The first thing I do with the cutting is lightly scrape the bottom part of the stem. The idea is to rough it up but not peel off the outer layer. From there I dip it in to an cloning mix. I use Clonex but others will work. After dipping but before putting into the ProMix I dust the Clonex with a mycorrhizae product called BioAG VAM. I press the ProMix tightly around the cutting. It is tight enough that I can lift the cup up by holding on to the cutting. That's the physical process of taking my cuttings and getting them into the ProMix. But this is the big change that I've made. I make special water. This is where a lot of my experimenting was done. First I lower my pH down to 5.5 on the water I use. Then I make a gallon by adding about one quart of kelp tea. I brew the kelp tea by setting it on top of my halide light for days. I also add about a cup or so of aloe vera juice. The finally ingredient is two tablespoons of salicylic acid. I keep the cuttings in a humidity dome that I spray daily. I don't spray the cuttings directly, just the dome itself. My last cutting of 54 I got 52 rooted in about two weeks. This is what they look like after two weeks. As always you're free to ignore or use.
52/54 is incredible, nice work and thank you for sharing your experience. You said that you used 2 tbsp of SA, can you recommend a particular product? That's interesting, I didn't know you could purchase salicylic acid by itself. I would love to hear more about your experience scaling some of these organic practices in your new gig. I have had a lot of time recently to catch up on Tad Hussey's podcast and it's fascinating to hear about how people apply the practices we've learned on these organic forums to large commercial operations. As you've eluded to, you really need to put every practice and input under the microscope when considering bringing it to scale. It's all about creating an efficient and effective workflow. Have you run into other challenges?
I ordered the salicytic acid from Phyto Technologies. Tad is who introduced me to the grower I'm working with. Scaling up has been challenging. Trying to figure out the optimum plants in the room is still being experimented with. Getting the timing down from cloning to transplanting to flipping is also under observation. Finding the rhythm is still a little elusive. It's quite a difference growing in my cellar and growing in five rooms. Also, meeting all the regulations with the Liquor and Cannabis Board requires a lot. Finally getting the product to market is the easiest part. Who doesn't like The One?
Those are very pretty looking mushrooms. Must be fascinating to watch them grow. Do you make you're own substrate to grow them in? There is a gourmet mushroom grower here in town that grows year-round and sells their spent substrate as compost. It makes for a great "browns" material for compost and it smells super funky and mushroomy.
I do the whole process. I begin with either spores I bought or tissue clones I've taken from mushrooms. I put that to agar and grow the mycelium. Of course I make my own agar. From there I put the agar mycelium to grain that I've prepared by sterilizing. Once I get a jar of mycelium I finally put it to substrate that I've mixed and either sterilized or pasteurized. Then I wait.
I've been doing some breeding at the recreational grow site. This is a cross between The One and my old male pollen. I've had the pollen frozen for over 5 years and it is still producing seeds.
Today was harvest day for the petite Pakalolo One. This lady was only 19" in height but she produced a number of nice buds. I was experimenting to see what type of production I could get from smaller plants. The idea is to grow on two levels these smaller plants. Just imagine what over a hundred of these plants in 2 gallon pots can produce. I think this will double our production with the same number of rooms. Here is what the main bud looked like. Fat and big!
Pakalolo One a cross between my old males and The One. Pakalolo Queen a cross between my old males and Goblin Queen.
I had a visitor today - Clackamas Coot. It's always nice to see him even though we live hours apart. He stopped by to check out my Pakalolo One. I get to grow three medical plants here in the PNW. These girls are almost eight feet tall right now and I expect them to flip in the next couple of weeks. I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have an early fall with the rain and fog that will cause powdery mildew and bud rot. It's always a gamble here whether the girls finish off before the weather turns. Coot and I have sampled the girls grown under the lights and the quality is good. It will be interesting to see how the sun does with this breeding.
Your journal was an interesting read Pakalolo. I've learned some new things. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and saving us the headaches of making avoidable mistakes.
Sorry I took so long to respond. I've been so busy getting my grandson up and running with his commercial mushroom business. I'm glad you found some value that help avoid many of the mistakes I made over the decades.
This summer I'm growing a Pakalolo Queen. This is a cross between SG1's Goblin Queen and my old males. I'm also putting out The One to see how she does in the sun. And like last year I'm growing a Pakalolo One. Jeremy over at the BuildASoil YouTube channel grew some of my Pakalolo One seeds for season 3 if you're interested.