Growing bags

Hi Rose,

welcome to the forum 🙂

If it’s your first bags you may be best using smaller filter patch bags holding just 1-2kg substrate. These are the small 4T Unicorn bags which tend to hold around of just over 1kg substrate each and can be bought from ebay Canada:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/10-Small-Mushroom-Substrate-Grow-Bags-Pre-Sealable-New-/180684355180?hash=item2a11a0766c:m:mgX__vM8sSKumJDLn6RDpKQ

You can just seal them with zip ties, string, paperclips of even tape if you like – or you can buy a bag impulse sealer if you start to do alot of them.

Spawn can be kept in a household fridge usually for up to a month if it is fresh – just try to make sure it’s not stuffed in next to lots of other items, to make sure there’s enough airflow around it keeping the temperature down.

Best of luck with the first bags – let us know how yo get on!

Adam

Hi Leisha,

thanks for your note. We do grow in different volumes ranging from just under 2 kg per bag to 6 kg / bag up to 12 kg/ bag. We have success with all of these using mix from the course and use Unicorn bags for the 2kg only.

The largest bags of 12 kg would come close to 20 cm in width and colonise fine. This is more a result of the mix and whether the mix has enough access to air in the colonisation process. Only when overfilled or too dense would you get into trouble.

With regards your Unicorn bag question I am wondering which bags you are referring to? If you can let me know with a link that would be great.

Best wishes,

Eric

Hi Adam

These are the uniforn bags i was looking at http://unicornbags.com/store/product_info.php/cPath/26/products_id/72/osCsid/ba15c7996f95ae817581e0ea854533fc

however since posting this, they responded to me with a quote for shipping to Australia which was one and a half times the cost of the bags! Don’t suppose you have any other suppliers for unicorn bags that you could suggest? Having had a look on the supply list I couldn’t actually find unicorn bags on any others.

Thanks

Hi Leisha,

You could try the jumbo bags your current supplier stocks: http://www.aussimushroomsupplies.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=97&product_id=614 These look to be a little bit bigger than you currently use and I’m sure would be fine for air exchange if you didn’t overfill them.

Or possibly worth a try with their column bags too: http://www.aussimushroomsupplies.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=97&product_id=614 These are similar to the ones you were looking at from Unicorn. At 30cm wide, they are a little on the big side and could potentially have problems with enough air exchange to the centre of the substrate, but may be worth a try.

Alternatively you can make your own, which is what we’ve started doing recently. You can buy rolls of layflat poly tubing, like this (UK seller):

https://www.polybags.co.uk/shop/standard-layflat-tubing-7-15-wide_c1015.htm

Cut lengths of around 2-3ft, zip tie the end, and then fill with substrate and zip tie tightly at the top as well. Then poke a series of 1cm holes in the bag every 10-15cm around, before placing in incubation. We’ve found that tubing of around 20-25cm when flat (which becomes about 15-20cm when filled) is the ideal size.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by Adam.