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  • #420
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Hi guys! I’m happy to be the first post on this new forum, and glad to be learning about growing mushrooms. This will be my second hobby experience, having been successful been growing shitaki on oak logs behind our urban home for a few years (using plug spawn from Paul Stamens fungiperfecti.com)–no, this isn’t a ‘plug’ for him (pun intended) but I am interested in learning about cultivation for small-scale home and possibly commercial purposes–your angle on reuse fits perfectly into my permacultural sensibilities. My family recently realized a dream of purchasing a small farm in Missouri; perhaps someday mushrooms will be the principal crop. Today we’re at the beginning footsteps of that journey. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the world.
    Regards,

    Kris
    Saint Louis, MO USA

    #421
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    OK I just completed the seminar in short order. It was good in that it presents a very concise presentation, one that can has a better chance than a more verbose one of reaching a greater audience, and propagating this work which is a noble objective. I would definitely recommend this online course.

    A questions and a few observations:
    — Are the grow bags punched before incubation, or after incubation?

    Question. Have you actually built/used the apparatus pictured in the incubation module — i.e. the rolling “greenhouse” grow tent? Since the picture was not shown in the context of being used, the observer might be inclined to think this is either a stock photo, or might be a prototype that wasn’t part of your own trials, e.g. is it something you actually experimented with in the course of building your much larger operation? If so, then I think it would behoove us to see the shelves populated with grow bags and a person in the photo to lend credibility (perhaps you’re past that point and didn’t have the photo). Either way, presenting this slide leaves a lot to be desired for the beginner to start work in his or her basement. Your life experience is what people like me signed for, not theories. Of course, if my observation is erroneous, then please take no offense–it could merely be the presentation that arouses suspicion.

    Respectfully yours,
    Kris

    #430
    Adam
    Keymaster

    Hi Kris,

    Congratulations on being the first to post in the forum and great to hear you’ve completed the course already and enjoyed it! In answer to your very good questions:

    1) Are the grow bags punched before incubation, or after incubation?
    If you use the Unicorn or SacO2 cultivation bags, you would cut/punch holes just when you move them to the fruiting room, as the bags have filters on to enable air exchange. If you were using a plastic growing bag without special mushrom cultivation filters, you would need to punch small holes all around the bag before you placed it in incubation to allow for air exchange. The downside to this is it also opens the door for contaminants to get in before spawn run is complete, so it’s definitely best to use Unicorn or SacO2 bags if you can.

    2) Have you actually built/used the apparatus pictured in the incubation module — i.e. the rolling “greenhouse” grow tent?
    The very first grows I did 6 or 7 years ago when I was starting out as a hobby mushroom grower (growing Oysters on straw) used this exact setup of a 4 tier plastic greenhouse for the fruiting chamber. I completely take your point though that the stock image we used in that course slide leaves alot to be desired! The truth is that we didn’t have a suitable image of a greenhouse in use as it’s been so long since we’ve grown in this way. Here’s a link to the blog of a guy detailing how he made one with some photos showing how it looks populated with grow bags:

    Making a Bathroom Mushroom House (the good kind)

    Hope this helps and best of luck with the growing – let us know how you get on 🙂

    Kind regards, Adam

    #680

    Hi Kris and Adam

    I use this type of greenhouse as my fruiting chamber and it works really well. I keep it in the garage and use an humidifier as I live in Canberra, Australia and the air is often really dry. The humidifier holds a bit over 5L of water so I only need to fill it once a week. I have the humidifier at the bottom of the greenhouse and have cut a hole in the top to encourage airflow and prevent CO2 build up.

    I did the course run by the guy in the link you shared above, Adam. He has a Facebook group for people who have done the course which is more user friendly than the format of this forum, and they are still able to limit membership to those who have done the course. Might be something to consider for the future.
    Alison

    #684
    Adam
    Keymaster

    Hi Alison,

    many thanks for your experience, that sounds like a really good simple and effective setup 🙂 do you have a photo of it that you’re able to post here?

    Also, thanks for your suggestion for the Facebook Group – it’s something we’ve been looking into a bit as we’re not entirely happy with the forum format either. It’s useful to hear that you found the Facebook Group system better and something we’ll definitely take on board when we carry out a review of the course soon.

    best wishes,

    Adam

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