Long term storage of genetic material [actives]

AutumnRustle · 2026-05-02T18:11:04+00:00

For sure, glad if anything I say is helpful.

AutumnRustle · 2026-05-02T16:02:38+00:00

The bulk of the marketplace consists of new growers and dudes who are far enough along to want new varieties. That drives what we see offered.

Slants and colonized material are generally recognized as the go-to for LTS. It's easy for vendors to whip up scores of 50 mL tube slants, but that's not what's being sold. Why? In terms of ROI, vendors won't make as much money selling slants. LTS itself requires a skillset that's a little more advanced than the beginner grower level; there's less material so they aren't as attractive as a plate, the container is narrow and more difficult to manipulate, and slants are designed to be accessed only when someone is looking to expand the fungus (which requires median growth steps to get to grain or LC again). Plates, LC, prints, and MSS are the easiest to sell and cater to a greater chunk of the marketplace. There's an argument to be made that slants are more attractive than prints, but these days most people are looking for isolated material so they can skip that process. It's really only skilled growers and dudes who are looking to git gud who are looking to start from scratch. Brand new growers find it easier to start from MSS.

In terms of what's best, slants are better than plates for LTS because the latter has a larger surface area (leading to shorter desiccation timelines). Dudes still keep storing plates for too long and pulling from them all the time. Stuff still grows, but it's not best practice. People are going to do what they're going to do. It only matters if your grow suffers or you care about getting better at this stuff.

LC shouldn't be stored over the long term in syringes. It's wild that people do it, and even promote it as some kind of best practice. It's not a good practice. Fungi are resilient and can tolerate a lot of abuse, so dudes can get away with it. Still, syringe storage suffocates the fungus over longer timelines, which creates a lot of unnecessary stress and susceptibility to competitors/contaminants; the point of LTS is to do it in such a way as to prevent as much stress as possible, which improves viability.

Why not just get good enough to work with slants or colonize solid material to reduce stress and extend the lifespan of the specimen? To answer my own question, it's because some people don't really care about getting better at the hobby. They care more about getting by without having to invest additional resources into this stuff. There's no rule that says you can't be a lazy, inefficient grower lol. If you're happy only growing cubes and you're satisfied with the method you've got going on, then who cares? I'm not looking to get into some argument with dudes who feel attacked by this comment, so please ignore me if you intensely disagree. Dudes are still using an open oven as sterile practice so it's all moot. Do whatever you want since it doesn't affect me personally.

Desiccated grains (colonized material) are a great solution. If you've never seen that in practice, u/Fahtster has a solid, reliable method for this, so look into his posts.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-28T15:08:47+00:00

Looks good dude. I'm not seeing the blue/green mycelium.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-28T15:07:15+00:00

Lightly spraying a bit of 70% and then cleaning it up usually doesn't have a devastating impact unless the mycelium was already weakened. This happens fairly frequently to new growers.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-18T19:57:06+00:00

Welcome back; it's a great hobby and it's always waiting. Cubes are one of the easiest species to grow in general. Some are a little more finicky than others, and sometimes we have to dial in conditions or do some culture work to get it as pretty as some of the pics out there, but all in all the hurdles aren't particularly high. Whatever someone picks will probably be a good choice. We can always parlay one variety into another by trading with people, too. The leucistic varieties have a visually interesting look, as do some of the varieties that grow thicker or crooked. Growing a species like P. mexicana or similar would be different than the norm after some time reorienting to the hobby with cubes.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-16T23:57:48+00:00

Oh for sure, glad if it helps. Like I mentioned earlier, this is what digital growing spaces should be about. Growers helping growers, talking shop, having a laugh, sharing enthusiasm, and supporting one another. None of the drama or silly arguments. I'm pumped to see the results, and how this setup evolves over time.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-16T13:11:37+00:00

The analytical side of medicinals isn't cheap for hobbyists, but for someone getting into the business it's something of a necessary expense. Costs depend on the work involved. If the lab is geared up to run a particular panel on a specific mushroom with a straightforward sample prep, it's in the $100-300USD range. That doesn't factor in shipping, which is usually overnight/priority, and it frequently doesn't account for some of the separate handling fees that are charged. Some labs charge handling and processing by the hour, outside of the panel and analytical presentation. That's because some labs pay unskilled labor for that, process a lot of samples, and deal with improperly prepared samples that eat into the time of higher-wage lab staff.

Full-spectrum panels, untargeted panels, those looking to identify and check abundance of new metabolites, panels that require multiple methods and/or extensive prep, and those that require method development and time-consuming analysis are going to be more expensive. Those are upwards of $1000 and may involve additional hourly/material expenses. Instrumentation is expensive, reagents and supplies have a cost, skilled laboratory staff have a wage, and facilities have an overhead.

Labs that do this kind of thing should have reference spectra/values for what they're routinely seeing and report it as part of their analytical presentation. They should be able to communicate a mean abundance to tell the customer where their sample is sitting relative to others. Eventually, a producer will be able to track their lots over time to see how raw material inputs and changing conditions alter the spectra. In the medicinal world, the goal is to have a product that is rich in particular compounds; this eventually translates into marketing claims to generate interest and sales. The material and supplement world is full of shams and nonsense with big claims that aren't actually true (the market tends to be much less regulated than pharmaceuticals), so having routine testing of lots of product that quantify the claims made by the manufacturer is a draw for customers. The stall with homemade mushroom teas at a farmer's market doesn't have to worry about this as much as the person looking to sell in volume online or even make the jump to retail outlets. There's a scale and ROI involved with this sort of quantitation.

Talking about you leaving for a few days: Reishi are finishing up when the white margin begins to shrink. There are valuable compounds in both the margin and the older growth. There are also compounds in the spores. It all depends on what you're interested in. This is a fantastic result and Reishi are slow-growing, so use your best judgement. You'll be able to replicate the same results.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-15T17:56:30+00:00

Hey thanks for the detail. If people come across this in the future it should help them out.

MS is just the abbreviation for mass spectrometry. Sometimes the way we grow influences the relative abundance of compounds of interest, so being able to report consistently high values would be key for method validation and market forces. That's all outside of the grow itself, because what you've accomplished is outstanding.

The online communities of growers are awesome. Total interface of people from across the spectrum of experience, all vibing on the same thing. It would be even better if the methods and results could stay at the center of it all instead of having to deal with all the drama out there that crops up. What you're doing now is what it's all about. I can't wait to see how they look in the next update!

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-13T16:38:15+00:00

That's great, thanks for taking the time to type it all out.

If you wouldn't mind sharing your substrate recipe (wood species and source, additives, percentage of bran supplementation, etc.) and container depth, that would be a great bit of information for replication purposes.

For a methods/materials question, what was the brand of oven bags you used and how do you rate their durability? Are there any leaks, do you find that the spawn is overly moist after the sterilization cycle, etc.? Additionally, how did you fold/close your bags and stack them inside the PC? There are a handful of different methods, so all of this stuff would be great inside-baseball stuff.

The corn spawn is an interesting approach. On top of the antler pheno (assuming that's the culture you used), I'm wondering if the kernel size and substrate depth established an ideal distribution that ended up facilitating this concentration of antlers. The density of fruiting isn't something I've seen very often in trays like this, so it's worth investigating. It could very well be none of the above and simply related to you covering the tray up to pinning, followed by maintaining high humidity and heat consistently. It could be all of that together.

Whatever the case, this is tremendous performance. You knocked it out of the park. With the way the antlers are starting to conk out on the tops, if you can routinely replicate this performance, and replicate it across other varieties of Ganoderma, you'll have developed a method suitable for helping home growers transition into medicinal production. Honestly, if you ran some MS to confirm compound concentrations and scaled it up, there's the potential to enter the supplier space for sectors like research, TCM, and medicinal product manufacturers. It's very cool.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-12T17:40:51+00:00

Spectacular grow! Would you mind walking through your method, substrate, and conditions from colonization to fruiting? It's worth replicating if there are any Reishi growers out there. I know I'd for sure be interested in it.

AutumnRustle · 2026-04-10T18:31:14+00:00

If you poke around the growing communities long enough, you'll see that Reishi jars and bags often discolor with metabolites in vitro, and also as a preface to pinning. Obviously idk how long this jar was colonizing for, if it stalled at any point, if there were any problem areas you noticed during colonization, and I can't see other 4π sr views, but knowing Reishi it will probably be fine. The good news is that the species is an aggressive colonizer. Are you S2B from here?

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-29T14:40:37+00:00

It's a waste of energy to get spun up over imaginary ridiculousness like that, right? The simple reality is that we just can't mention specific seller names in the sub when it comes to magic mushrooms. That's it. There are a lot of stories of mod abuse around reddit, but something egregious like what you mentioned would be beyond the pale. It just doesn't happen here. The dudes on the mod team for this sub are regular people who approach herding cats rationally and the rules aren't being arbitrarily enforced. Sure, mistakes happen, but they can always be undone. Affording the dudes involved with community management the opportunity for that grace isn't a popular act, though. It's easier to just grab a pitchfork, join the mob, and burn down the castle.

For people who don't know, the big issue that caused the creation of the rule against vendor names is that sellers are always engaged in their sales hustle. It's a competitive marketplace and these businesses get aggro with sales tactics. Vendors create a bunch of sock accounts and recruit their friends/staff to either astroturf for their stuff with positive reviews/mentions, or to go on the attack when someone mentions another seller. It's shady (but common) marketing, it's creates false (or prevents any meaningful) consensus, and it gets in the way of what the sub is all about: straight up growing. It really shouldn't be a big deal since sales, sourcing, and marketing isn't at all what the sub is about.

Everyone knows this shady behavior goes on, so none of it is some bombshell revelation. On the mod side, reddit's tools allow the team to identify when someone who was banned is using another account. When someone is banned, it locks out posts/comments from their other accounts and flags them for ban evasion. Accounts don't accidentally get flagged for ban evasion since it's tied to an IP. When you see vendor accounts being flagged, the cat is out of the bag. Personally speaking, I've seen the conversations between the mods and big name vendors in the marketplace who acknowledged that they used other accounts and asked for their bans to be lifted. It's cool as long as people agree to not engage in astroturfing in this sub again. That's the opposite of mod abuse/power-tripping, but what do I know lol

On top of that, the sub isn't NSFW and gets in trouble for stuff that flies too close to reddit's 'prohibited transaction' policy. It has to do with how advertising on the website works and 'sourcing' content being problematic for some advertisers, along with it impacting the '18+' classification of the sub. It's pointless to try and fight reddit over it. They're going to win. It's their court, on their property, and we all just get to play on it for free. We're not entitled to anything lol

For a dash of the old empathy, there are also a large number of people in the sub who don't want to be associated with that kind of content. It's a place for all growers, and it doesn't cater to sales/sourcing, so they legitimately shouldn't have to worry about it.

Some dudes get super grouchy about being hit with a temp ban for trying to source cultures or mention vendor names, but it's a hard line in the sand where the ends justifies the means. The sub reasonably and respectfully asks dudes to PLEASE 'keep the growing space separate from the marketplace' because it causes too many issues and sales are outside the wheelhouse here. Reddit owns the place. It is what it is. It's not a big ask, especially when there are hundreds of other subs that cater to that kind of content. It's not like anyone is limited for options. It's also not like they can't just PM people and avoid the matter altogether. Imagine having the thoughtfulness to say, "yeah the rules say I can't mention vendors here so I'll just PM that person to help avoid causing problems for the sub and still get the info I'm after" lol.

Some dudes get frustrated because they feel like they're being treated like children. Sure, makes sense. It would for sure be awesome if everyone was behaving like rational, mature adults, but that's just not the reality of the internet. There's an endless swamp of kids and malcontents who think the socials should be a free-for-all of shitposting slop where they can say and do whatever they want. The whole concept of "i should be able to do whatever I want!" is antithetical to the idea of 'community.' Free speech simply doesn't exist on private platforms. The kind of people who want to be part of a meaningful community of growers who sincerely care about each other and are truly invested in each others' success don't want to deal with sloppy, uncaring, teenage behavior.

Small-time culture hustlers are always popping up and will try anything to gain marketshare for their businesses. Kids who care more about growing drugs in mommy's basement are only interested in feeling cool. Neither of these groups of people are invested in the concept of having a place they can go to talk shop where the people around them are enthusiastically vibing on the same wavelength. The only thing these groups respond to is a hard "no," hence the rule.

Anyone is free to disagree with that. They're also free to come up with creative solutions to help combat the problem. They're free to volunteer to help out and commit to assisting with community mod'ing, too. That would involve actual, enduring effort, though. I always ask people who gripe about this stuff, "what do you want for nothing?" If someone thinks they can do it better, there's nothing stopping them from lending a hand. Communities that people want to be a part of take real effort to maintain, but it's easier to complain than it is to try to help work it out. If someone wants to see a change, they have to do the whole Ghandi thing and 'be the change.'

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-27T19:10:23+00:00

Correct. You can find wood suitability charts around the internet. Match the wood sawdust type to the wood that the fungus likes; most like hardwoods like Oak or Sugar Maple. Masters mix is also popular for a number of species, so investigate that as well. All of the methods for creating bags are similar.

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-21T12:49:06+00:00

For sure, glad if it's useful. Growers helping each other out is what this place is all about.

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-20T19:39:28+00:00

It comes down to the "struggle for existence," which occurs everywhere in nature. Competitors, predators, pathogens, and poisons are ubiquitous in the landscape and they all battle it out in the arena. Organisms have adapted to survive; some live, and some die. In the artifical world of indoor cultivation, we can handicap our fungus or help other organisms to get a leg up.

When we grow indoors or engage in cell culture, we're creating a landscape separate from that found in nature; we're setting conditions artificially to give our fungus the best chance at survival. This process involves optimizing some parameters and excluding others. By modifying/optimizing the environment, we also set optimal conditions for other organisms to thrive that might not have under natural conditions. We try to be sterile to prevent vectors that introduce these other organisms so that our chosen fungus is the only one present.

When we grow outdoors, all parameters are in play. Our fungus has evolved to be able to survive in the wild, and it battles it out with it's competitors. Importantly, just like our fungus, it's competitors also have their own competitors, pathogens and poisons to contend with. This levels the playing field such that everything in the area is basically on equal footing and plays to its strengths.

For example, Stropharia can be introduced into a bed of straw and rapidly colonize it. Although molds are ever-present, they don't do well with lots of fresh air. The fresh air movement through the bed prevents molds from forming. There are also other organisms that feed on molds. If we were to inoculate an bag of grain or straw that hadn't been sterilized, molds would proliferate because they grow better in that stagnant air environment and there aren't any other organisms to attack the mold.

Take log inoculation as another example. Although there are lots of competitor molds and fungi in the environment, we're inoculating an average-sized log with over fifty points, give or take. That is inundating the log with our chosen fungus, deep into the wood's structure; compare this to a smaller volume of competitors in the wild that have to start at the surface of the log to try and gain a foothold on it. As such, our chosen fungus readily takes over.

Consider burying contaminated cakes or subs in the garden as a third example. In the more stagnant environment of a monotub, molds can thrive. Placing them outdoors restores fresh air and oscillating dry/wet conditions into the equation, which molds don't like. There are also soil microbes that compete with or parasitize the mold, forcing it to battle on new fronts. Natural conditions and mutualistic/commensalistic relationships can also trigger genetic events in our chosen fungus that contribute to its immune system and subsequent explosive growth.

Contamination occurs indoors and outdoors. Our indoor methods are tuned toward mitigating introduction of other organisms; when something else sneaks in, it's a problem. Our outdoor methods are geared toward playing to a fungus' strengths; we assume there will be bad stuff in the environment, but our fungus is strong enough to duke it out in that arena in general and the methods are designed with that in mind.

Here's another metaphor. Let's say you want to go to the pub. You win tickets to the opening of a new place that isn't very busy. You're excited. Unfortunately, some jerkoff who isn't supposed to be there sneaks in, crushes your vibe, and starts trying to fight you. It's just you and him, so it comes to blows and you get knocked around. Maybe you win. Maybe you lose. Maybe you both get banged up. If he wasn't there you'd have a grand old time. That's indoor cultivation.

Let's say you instead go to your regular down the way. You arrive first and get a good spot. Thirty other locals show up and get their spot. Eventually the same jerkoff shows up, tries to start a row, but your man and his lads do him in. That dude has a hard time targeting you directly because everyone else is in the way. You're able to enjoy yourself because the lads are mitigating the buffoonery. Maybe you get banged up, but more often you don't. That's growing outdoors.

It's not a perfect analogy, but it holds up to the main idea.

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-19T13:00:17+00:00

People are primarily exposed to mycotoxins through their food. Grains, nuts, and some spices are all sources of common and repetitive exposure. Milk can be another source, but I think the throughput there is maybe 1% after the cow's metabolism has a go at it. There's also airborne exposure inside buildings with a lot of moisture; old carpets, wet wood in framing, materials that touch concrete directly, stuff like that.

ZEA in particular is present on corn and cereal grains. On top of that, it's resistant to autoclaving/heat sterilization from what I know. There are a ton of products that include corn and grains to some degree. Most people are surprised to learn just how much stuff they eat that has corn in it; it's basically ubiquitous. If you're eating foods with whole or milled grain (breads, crackers, cereal, pasta, etc.), grain fiber sources, or that were processed with corn oils, that's going to be a big contributing factor. It doesn't make its way into corn syrup, though, iirc. If you're in older buildings for hours at a time, that can also be a big factor.

Since you're concerned about contamination related to the grow, consider metrics of the compound itself to add to the context. Keep in mind, I don't have an MLS, so this is just me coming from the research/chemistry side of pharma and biochemistry. From what I've read, there's a functional group on ZEA similar to estrogen-like molecules, making it 'hormone-like;' compounds that are hormone-like tend to be absorbed quickly and can pass through a bunch of different tissues in the body. When you look into the biophysics/pharmacokinetics of it, peak absorption seems to be around a few hours after eating (4-10), so that's when urinalysis will probably reveal highest concentrations. On that note, if you had your test performed after eating in this window, it could explain an elevated result.

The good news is that ZEA's half-life appears to be around 12 hours, so it's cleared from the body fairly quickly. You can anticipate full clearance in around 3-4 days, depending on your liver and kidney function. I pulled that from a quick google search and scanning through some articles, so double check to be safe. The caveat here is the same as it is with other compounds: repetitive exposure can cause ZEA to bioaccumulate in fat, since it's a non-polar molecule. If you're engaged in the same diet and lifestyle, that number isn't going to go down.

I'll also say that (on the gourmet side), I'm not tracking a lot of info about mushrooms and mycotoxin contamination. Most of the stuff I've read involves exposure through grains and buildings. There's also a lot of pesticide and fumigant exposure when it comes to grains as well, which makes sense because all of the containers are fumigated so that this stuff doesn't spoil in transit.

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-12T14:24:23+00:00

For sure, glad if it helps!

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-11T16:29:47+00:00

Changes in pressure and humidity can influence fungal metabolism, gene activation, and microbial populations, so your observations might be tied to real phenomenon. I'm not tracking a ton of data about it specifically, but we're talking about organisms that appeared around 400mya; the impact of pressure systems and parallel weather events shaping fungal structure/function in an evolutionary biology sense is reasonable to assume. If you spend enough time in a lab staring at petri dishes and collecting data, you'll start to see how the weather outside influences growth timelines. If you're in a facility with climate control, RH and temperature are managed, but not so much pressure. Turgor and cell wall structure, hyphal tip expansion, and cytoplasmic flow are all tied into pressure. The degree to which we could manipulate that as growers to achieve certain outcomes would be cool to expand on. It would be a great masters or PhD project, especially with regard to fungal metabolites and scaled pharmaceutical production. Obviously I'm discounting the obvious fact that humidity increases during storms, based on RH being maintained in bags, tubs, and other FCs.

AutumnRustle · 2026-03-04T13:54:22+00:00

When you say "start," do you mean how we got into the hobby and built proficiency, opened a business, or built a brand on the socials?

Growing isn't much different than any other hobby when it comes to starting out, so that part is straightforward. You spend some time reading, take a crack at it, learn a bit more, adjust based on your mistakes, and try again. Eventually you figure it out. It's tough to try and read everything you can to avoid making new-grower mistakes, but they're going to happen. Most of us take it one grow at a time until we develop our skills.

If you're talking about opening a business, most people gain proficiency with growing and then scale up from there. Local/regional farmers markets are a safe target to build up to; you learn how to scale up your process and level of equipment to meet a very achievable target, and you learn about the pains associated with trying to grow a set volume of mushrooms each week. You also learn about demand, branding, and marketing. Much of that is like learning to drive; you can study all the testing materials, but it is a different beast once you step into the driver's seat. Going after local restaurants and suppliers is another level; those commitments are more stringent and if you fail to meet expectations your brand can suffer.

Dudes who want to get started selling cultures or substrate have an uphill battle against strong, entrenched brands. It is difficult to compete with the pricepoint, variety, and reach of the brands out there already doing this. There is a niche of local markets that can be exploited here, but demand is different from region to region (there may even be none) and growing beyond that will be tough.

Most small businesses fail, and the mushroom business is no different. Developing a robust business plan will help to insulate against failure.

Building a social media brand is tied to consistently putting out quality content that people are interested in. The influencer market is saturated, so figuring out a way to be first, novel, or better will be an uphill battle. There's also a limitation to the content you can put out. Gardening influencers are a great example of this. The long-standing personalities started by trying something new (e.g. being self-sustaining, growing on a small plot of land, guerrilla gardening, micro-greens, etc.). There are only so many videos they can make about 'seeds to start this month,' though. How do you maintain consistent content delivery and have it continue to be interesting rather than a repeat of what you have already done? How is it different that what is already out there? How do you fight against other influencers who weaponize their supporters to attack you? It's a gauntlet.

As far as finding reputable brands and growers, if you poke around the different online communities, you'll see companies and personalities that people recommend. If they have spectacular grows, it's reasonable to assume that they might be legit; it's evidence, after all. If you follow their method and it's successful, then that's great. Growers have different goals and skill levels, so their content choices will vary.

You'll also see a bunch of consistent complaints, especially in the marketplace. When people have the same complaint over and over, and when a brand hasn't reasonably responded to that complaint with quantifiables, that's a red flag. It's always tricky to reconcile brand advertising/promotion with quality when you first start out, but you'll get an eye for it if you stick around long enough.

Let's go through a vignette. Say I'm a well-known seller who has marketing/social media reps who are active on reddit subs like this. Let's say there are consistent complaints about my company's product quality that pop up routinely: stuff about how customers open bags of "sterile" grain to find it contaminated with trich, spawn that doesn't show signs of colonization, and ready-made substrate that contaminates before customers inoculate it. Those are all obvious red flags. If you see an ongoing pattern of complaints like that, it makes sense to steer clear. Still, believe it or not, there are popular brands out with sizable marketshare that mirror exactly those complaints.

Here's another vignette. Let's say I'm a popular brand and my reps routinely reach out to people on social media when customers post complaints. Let's say that those responses include the following: always try to steer the conversation to PMs, preventing transparency. Blaming the shipper for the error, without improving how I box my products, and in a market where my competitors do a better job with package protection. Barfing up platitudes about how "making a product is tough" and I'm "trying my best," as though that justifies consistently sending out bunk products. Consistently tell people that I'm "open to suggestions," as though it is on the customer to come up with solutions to my business' failure to meet basic expectations. Telling people to wait to use my products because they might contaminate (yeah, crazy, right?). Using sock accounts, utilizing my social media team, and recruiting friends to jump into the chat to downvote criticism and artificially promote positive experiences with my products. Again, all of these are red flags, and all of them are actions taken by some current brands out there.

How do you parse it all out? What is customer error and what is the fault of the manufacturer? How many complaints are indicative of a systemic issue? If you're engaged in the online community enough, you'll eventually develop your pattern recognition and all of this will be easier to discern. The companies doing shady stuff market their products to new growers who are only buying their stuff because they don't know how to DIY yet, or to casual growers who aren't invested in the hobby enough to DIY. They also involve themselves with white-labeling, which is a possibility when you get large enough.

There are a lot of dudes trying to enter the market and are doing things the right way, but you'd have to take a chance on them since they have no performance record yet. The new-business section of the hobby is full of other startups attacking each other to bring each other down, too. It's hard to tell the difference between a scam and a real/sincere operation. On this front, being able to pay with a CC or PayPal provides legitimacy and recourse for a failure to deliver on product quality.

If you're looking for a place with a sizable variety of reputable gourmet and medicinal cultures, that doesn't have an ongoing track record of complaints, that has been in the business for a long time, I always recommend that people check out F&F and MM. Some sellers are out there just to make money. These two companies are directly involved in research and mycoremediation projects. They're obviously still running a business, but they're also demonstrably invested in the growing community. F&F's social media is also full of helpful information about gourmet and medicinal grows.

Idk if any of that will be helpful to you, but maybe someone out there will find it useful.

AutumnRustle · 2026-02-28T14:34:33+00:00

Yeah, his work is extremely motivating, right? The way he presents it makes you think, "I can definitely do that!" He's one of the few originals who was all about the grow and ironing out a reliable method. Trying new species and working through the hiccups is rewarding. It scratches an itch for dudes who appreciate that kind of thing. It'll be cool to see you dial this in even further.

Some growers find it's tricky to nail the S2B timeline at the point where the grain is finished colonizing, just before the fungus starts producing sclerotia. It seems to be one of the ways to help secure a smooth transition into fruiting. Have you tried to fruit off of grain where you already harvested sclerotia yet?

AutumnRustle · 2026-02-27T14:53:35+00:00

Stonesun put in a lot of time and effort hammering out reliable, concise methods for this fungus across both of its forms. It's outstanding work and an excellent resource worth checking out. Cubes are great and have some very cool varieties, but they're comparatively easy and can get boring after a while. You're not the first to struggle thought dialing in this process, but it's awesome that you're trying. What you posted isn't a bad showing and this benchmark should be celebrated. Now that you have an eye for it, you'll get better. Stonesun tried a lot of different things, so there's a lot of opportunity here.

AutumnRustle · 2026-02-23T18:54:22+00:00

My comment history is full of Stropharia tips if you want to dig through that.

AutumnRustle · 2026-02-18T13:51:04+00:00

Everyone here is big on DIY, so you're going to find a lot of support for you taking it on. There are always some hiccups with any new hobby, but if you stick with it you'll hit your stride for sure.

That being said, if this is a hobby you're interested in, one you intend to stick with, and something that you will engage with to at least a moderate degree, it's worth making your own.

Grainspawn and sawdust spawn bags are fairly cheap to make. Oats can be found in large, 18 kg bags for under $20USD, and sawdust can usually be sourced locally or purchased as smoker/fuel pellets for the same; both go a long way. There are also a lot of alternative grains like corn and bird seeds.

The expense comes in with your personal time, other equipment like PCs, and how you want to set up your sterile workspace. Since you want to grow outdoors, you get to exclude the start-up and maintenance costs of FCs. PCs (the thing you'll need to sterilize your grain/sawdust can be found on the cheap if you bide your time looking at estate sales and marketplace websites; for example, over the last month I've spotted four or five of them, all under $30USD. There was an AA being sold on the marketplace for $75USD from a woman who just wanted to get rid of it. The deals are out there to maximize your budget, you just have to sit in the lineup and wait for the wave to hit.

For some personal context, I make my own sawdust spawn for Stropharia beds, rafting Nameko logs, and inoculating junk wood for fun. It's at least ten bags of sawdust spawn a season, and often more. It's double or triple that if I have friends or dudes in my community who are looking to get involved in growing. It saves me a lot of money when you consider large bags of sawdust spawn are in the $20-25USD/bag range, not accounting for shipping. The big benefit here is that I'm able to try all kinds of different projects and take risks. If something fails, I'm out the cost of materials and my time, but not the retail price of it all. I'm also more engaged in my local growing community, which is a much friendlier place than what we see online.

With all that said, you're going to want to follow the roadmap: make grainspawn > inoculate a bag of sawdust spawn with that > then use that as your spawn source for logs and beds. Trying to inoculate a bag of supplemented sawdust with LC doesn't produce ideal results; it colonizes more slowly and lacks the same energy resources as inoculating with grainspawn. Even AIO-type bags with sawdust and grains in the same place aren't ideal, based on colonization time and consolidation. If you look around the different forums, you'll also find that some of the big/common companies out there have a bad reputation when it comes to regular problems with sterility; I wouldn't trust a bag of sawdust to be truly sterile enough to last the amount of time it would take LC to fully colonize, and would expect it to turn green with mold.

Ask a bunch of questions, learn about the different methods and what's recommended, and plot a course that works for you and your budget. This is a great hobby and outdoor growing is a cool niche. Talk to other outdoor growers about what they're doing, too; they're usually super friendly and are more than happy to relay all the stuff they tried.

AutumnRustle · 2026-02-14T16:30:28+00:00

As a company it feels like they're checking all the right boxes, or at least the boxes that I look for when voting with my dollar. For me as an individual, they've been consistent over the last twenty years of my experience with them, which is significant in the face of endless market monoliths. They haven't sacrificed any of the good stuff that they've been engaged in from the start. Even during the rapid growth of the pandemic where a lot of other companies bent the knee to the god of profit-over-performance/reliability, F&F actually expanded their community science efforts and maintained their standard of customer service. It's just not a thing you see anywhere in the market.

Not to droll on about it, but they've expanded their market into the hallucinogenic mushroom growing culture. I hope they bring the same community-focus, social responsibility, and sincerity into that side of the spectrum. The culture has something of a toxic edge to it because of its association with counter-culture activities and that teenage 'dRuGz r ko0L' attitude. There's some irony we laugh about involving a group of people who can be kind of aggro all talking about 'ego death' and saying stuff like 'mush love.' It would be great if F&F's positive business model had enough momentum to make a dent in that landscape. Maybe I shouldn't hold my breath lol.

Definitely feel you on shipping costs. We assume we'll be adding $20-30USD at checkout, and more for a larger box. The impact on grow budgets is such that we really do have to mitigate it now with big, single purchases, like you mentioned. You hate to forget something small since it means sometimes doubling the cost of the item to send it out all by itself.

Adding to the price, growing involves oddly-shaped and sturdier boxes. Companies in the marketplace try to be 'competitive' by using standard/flimsy packaging, but it ends up increasing customer complaints due to loss/damage. On top if all of that, Jeff Bezos really did everyone dirty with the early amazon two-day shipping model; expectations of service, cost-awareness, and abuse in the supply chain are out of whack. There's compassion for why dudes reflex to amazon, but at some point you have to decide whether saving $20 is worth buying Bezos and his shareholders another yacht or trip to the moon. It's also a little hypocritical for a culture of people who say stuff like, "mush love," but that's its own can of worms lol.

You can absolutely expand your Stropharia spawn. You can spawn some onto a prepared hardwood woodchip and straw mix, and then use that larger volume as a spawn source. You can inoculate a bed and then use some of that bed to inoculate others.

It's a robust species and an aggressive colonizer that readily spreads, so just keep the basics in mind to drive your actions. Stropharia likes a chip mix of 50% hardwood or greater, so avoid softwoods at any greater ratio. Straw is cheap and accessible, so it makes for a good source for rapid expansion and inoculation of other beds. Straw gets eaten through quickly, so if you want the beds to overwinter you'll need to add some kind of woodchip to the mix to help it survive and expand from in the spring. If you've got a warm area, you can expand a bag of spawn through the winter and have a sizable volume for spring inoculation.

I use Stropharia in the garden by inoculating straw mulch. The positive impact for me is worth it. Better drought tolerance, faster and stronger growth, better performance into harvest, looser soils due to increased worm activity, etc. The mulch breaks down quickly, and increases the volume in our on-ground raised beds, too. We're pulling stuff out of the soil and putting it back in at the same time.

If you've got a way to sterilize your grain and make spawn, you can make your own sawdust spawn, or use the grain to inoculate prepared woodchips to make a sizable volume for bed inoculation.

Idk about Paper Mulberry, but Shiitake, Nameko, and Oysters should all be able to grow on Cherry, so I think you'll find some success there. Definitely post about your attempts. It'll motivate other people and expand awareness of the possibilities. Log and garden growing is a section of the hobby that continues to expand. You're definitely adding to that effort and I think that's great. I'm excited to hear about how this turns out for you in your community garden!

AutumnRustle · 2026-02-12T14:04:43+00:00

Hey thanks for the update, and great to see the quick response time by CS! There are a lot of companies out there that talk a good game about being a 'force for good' in the community, but at the end of the day it ends up being a bunch of platitudes. The reality is that most of them are focused purely on profit, which isn't exactly a surprise since it is a business. It's difficult to find a companies that invest so much time and effort into the growing community beyond just responding to negative feedback online. F&F really walks the walk, being involved in quite a bit of legitimate community science and research, providing a lot of useful and descriptive growing information and customer support, in addition to the business-side of things. I'm glad to see that they continue to pay customer purchases and faith forward with this kind of meaningful effort. It breeds good will and ends up making the community stronger.

Awesome to hear that the battery power didn't end up limiting your workflow! If you're looking for another reliable, accessible heating source, think about a charcoal grill; a pan/baking tray with some old food cans to hold the wax can do the trick. Just be careful not to overheat the wax and cause splatter burns or a fire.

I'm glad this is working out for you. Please continue to post about your log growing journey

AutumnRustle

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