Maximizing mushroom fruiting area?

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By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 10:42 am:

I just was wondering... Most of the pics that I see of cakes, the mushrooms are growing out of the bottom of the cake where it is set on the verm layer. Would it be a good Idea to cut the cake in half down the center, so that you have 2 half-cylinder cakes and then set the cut end down on the verm. So basically the cake will be cut down the center along its Z-Axis. This would make for more surface area to be sitting on the verm, so would this make more mushrooms? Does anybody have any thoughts on this or ever tried it.

By quote: (Quote) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 12:37 pm:

you might well see more pinning, esp. near the cut.
but be aware that more pinning does not guarantee a larger harvest, as the primary limiting factors remain.
you may just end up with more aborts, and smaller shrooms.

By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 12:46 pm:

What exactly does that mean? are you saying that there might be too many pins and not enough source of food, and that would make for small crops or what? I figured that if I had more of the cake sitting on the verm then I will have more 'shrooms, I only have 11 cakes so I am just trying to get a big harvest so that I can have mushrooms while my other 9 jars colonize.
I was also thinking of cutting the cakes in half along the equator, so that I just have 2 short cakes, and drilling an inner resivor in them and filling them with verm, then I would have 22 cakes instead of 11. I am using tall jars, so the cake cut in half along the equator would probably be about as tall as a standard "Low-Form" jar cake.

By quote: (Quote) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 12:57 pm:

i'm saying that more shrooms does not always mean more weight, it could express itself with more but smaller shrooms, overall yield remaining fairly constant.
the smaller the amount of substrate, the smaller the shrooms, generally.
so cutting cakes in half, etc. will generally give smaller shrooms, but more of them.
that's one reason to case, since it allows the cake pieces to re-knit together thru the casing material, effectively becoming one large mycellial mass, which can then support bigger flushes.

By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 01:08 pm:

Ok I see, but I am assuming that you are talking about casing with something other than verm. I thought that casing was only to give the cake a lot more water. And a steady supply of it too.

By quote: (Quote) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 01:13 pm:

a casing also provides structure, that is, a place where the mycellia can spred its' 'roots' and connect to other chunks of mycellia to become a network instead of small isolated chunks.

By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 01:27 pm:

Ohh I see so if I want to go for the "BULK" and good size of 'shrooms a casing is the best way to go?

By quote: (Quote) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 01:35 pm:

correct,
assuming one has the needed skill and set-up to fruit a casing properly.
it's nowhere near as easy as fruiting cakes,
and much more prone to contaminate.
but, properly done, a cased substrate will out-perform cakes in general.
however, cakes are substantially faster to fruit than casings, since the time needed to colonize the casing is bypassed.

By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 02:08 pm:

Thanks for all the great help Quote, now what do you recomend that I do so that I can get maximum dried weight with my cakes of PFC. Should I just leave the cakes whole or should I cut them in half, make IR TEK or what? I just want to know what I should be doing so that I can get the maximum fruiting. I should have gone with Hawaians, I hear so many good things about them, but I decided to get PFC because it was the easiest to start on and learn from.

By quote: (Quote) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 02:15 pm:

not to worry, the classic is a great strain, one of my all-time favorites, very potent.
my advice would be to stick to pf tek.
pin them invitro, then birth and fruit as pf describes.
once they've flushed, dunk them and return to fruiting conditions.

at this point, it's much more likely you will screw things up than improve them by making any changes to established tek.
just stick to tried-and-true methods and you won't go wrong.

By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 03:15 pm:

I know that, but I just want to have a big crop, My incubator only holds 12 jars. I got 2 syringes from fanaticus, shot up 11 of them then shot up 9 of them using my new tek (experiment) I just want a lot of shrooms my first flush so that I can trip with all my friends whom I promised I'd give them free 'shrooms from my first flush.
I think that I'll stick to the PF TEK and use the double ended casing method and maybe drill a hole in the cakes with a sterile bit and then fill them with some sterile verm then I'll shoot them up. How long to PFCs usually take between flushes? Should I even shoot for flushes, or should I just keep picking and letting the little guys grow?

By Lichen (Lichen) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 04:56 pm:

If you let the cakes sit in the growing chamber, not even cleaning the shroom fragments off after picking the shrooms, the cakes will continue to produce, in small amounts, without ever removing them or doing anything at all to them. BUT, they will also succumb to contams rather quickly this way. The very best way to go is to let the cakes flush, pick all the shrooms, and then clean, dunk, and re-case. It's usually a week or so between flushes

By quote: (Quote) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 04:59 pm:

everybody wants a big crop.
what you need to realize is that sometimes
the best thing to do is to do nothing.
it's what we call neglect tek.
unless you are careful, and know how much water to give, and how often to vent, etc.
you can easily end up with less than you'd have gotten just ignoring them.
any add-ons, such as the double verm. casing or the inner reservoir, add to the risk of contamination.
so my point is that if you go too far too fast,
you could end up getting very little at all.
happens all the time around here.

By jared (Jared112) on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 08:09 pm:

Well I am I guess an inexperenced grower, but I do know my stuff I've spent so many hours studying up on growing these mushrooms that it is not even funny. So do you think somebody like me would want to try the double ended casing or IR TEK or do you think I should just let the cakes sit in the fruiting chamber standard PF TEK?

By Patrick (Valence) on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 05:18 am:

I just read this post. Here Jared are pics of almost exactly of what you described in your first post Sliced Cake Tek

By Nan (Nanook) on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 10:23 am:

And there is more info in Flat Beds

By quote: (Quote) on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 12:09 pm:

if i were you, jared, i'd let most of my cakes fruit at least once straight pf tek, to get some shrooms fast and a few prints, then you could cut/crumble your cakes afterwards to your heart's content.

By jared (Jared112) on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 04:55 pm:

Thats A good Idea. I'm kind of a spur-of-the-moment type of guy, so I think I'll just wait and see what I want to do when the time comes... I'm always trying to get ahead of myself... oh ya a few of my jars are at 100% colonization!! WOOHOO
P.S. Are you saying that PFC does good with the flat cake TEK like what Patrick (Valence) did with his hawaians?

By Martaxus (Martaxus) on Sunday, December 02, 2001 - 09:26 pm:

FYI Jared, a cake usually can only support & grow to maturity a few (3-6?) large shrooms. An increase in pinning might only cause a high rate of aborts, and could slow/prevent nicely sized ones from growing due to the higher demand for resources. The size of shrooms is inversely proportional to the number of shrooms growing.

To get a higher # of nice shrooms you would need a larger resource base, such as the beds mentioned above.