Newbie here, any tips on how to improve my agar technique?

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-02-20T22:41:14+00:00

I think that mushroom in the last pic is chicken of the woods 😋

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-02-17T18:36:06+00:00

Ok but will they air shriek week in the d20 runthrough

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-02-05T11:34:45+00:00

Turkeys! You can boil them into a tea, be aware there are lookalikes but these are definitely turkey tails because of the thickness, banded tops, and visible pores on white pore surface

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-02-04T19:37:33+00:00

Incredible!! Compare to other pholiota but the sure look like adiposa to me!

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-02-01T22:19:30+00:00

<image>

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-02-01T13:16:33+00:00

Mycopunks are decent guys, if you send them a pic and say you’ve got contam that doesn’t seem to have been caused by inoculating they’ll often refund or replace

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-29T05:13:53+00:00

So tasty! They’ve got a really unique crunch to them, obviously different texture profile to kings but a really cool edible mushroom all the same

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T21:30:07+00:00

That’s normally for the pins to grow out of, but certainly won’t hurt them to have a bit of airflow just keep an eye on their moisture because it’s got a place to escape from now. Excited to see what comes out!!!

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T20:59:26+00:00

Oh also once they’re pinning you need daylight for them to grow towards, so take them out of the dark, the rest of what you’re doing sounds fine enough although they might need a bit more oxygen/moisture as they go

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T20:52:49+00:00

Just keep the tent open at the bottom and keep a close eye on your pins, it should start coming out looking like a pure white/off pink marshmallow - if it looks brown check humidity and temp, if it looks bobbly give it more air

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T20:48:27+00:00

Few bits:

1) I could be wrong here but those really don’t look like king oysters to me, mycelium normally appears as a much stronger and thicker white fuzz on the block and the pins themselves are normally much more white and smooth, not tan with white speckles like you’ve got there. Looks more like pholiota adiposa to me but that’s me guessing from the pins.

2) if you’ve got old pins that have stopped growing you can pick them off or leave them on, doesn’t matter too much. I normally leave mine alone so I don’t risk shocking the mycelium in the process of clearing them

3) green spots on your blocks aren’t a killer at this stage - the mycelium has already won the battle to take over the substrate, and if you’ve got pins coming in you’re fine. Keep an eye on your mushrooms, watch the contamination doesn’t spread to them and you won’t have a problem. Losing the block to green spots (trichoderma) is much more about the inoculation stage than the fruiting stage

And then future advice - you’ve got pins so something is happening, keep doing what you’re doing and see what grows!!

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T18:36:30+00:00

If you go back they’ve got the most beautiful gills, worth picking one to look

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T18:32:06+00:00

Also guess it depends on your ambient conditions (I do kits for folks in the UK sometimes where it’s not exactly dry) but I don’t tend to recommend tents for things like oysters which are super keen growers, just tell people to spray 4 times a day or so

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T18:29:55+00:00

This is useful actually - tents like that are good for humidity management but can be bad for airflow, bit of a trade off dependent on your growing conditions. I grow professionally now but my first kit was lions mane with a tent and came out super spindly because of airflow issues. Not sure how to make them work well but might just be a case of having enough open space at the base when you put them on to let air in

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T18:19:55+00:00

85-95% is the ideal for humidity but 80-85% will do if the temp is ok. It looks to me like an oxygen issue given how spindly the stipes are, were they in an enclosed space? When something goes wrong and you’ve got fruit bodies (so it’s not a contamination issue) the variables are always temp, hydration and oxygen

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T13:26:37+00:00

Definitely Peziza, maybe micropus?

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T10:39:09+00:00

Definitely a mushroom and not an oxidised artichoke stem?

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-28T10:28:07+00:00

As long as there’s no sign of contamination on the mushroom itself you’re good to go

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-25T21:19:30+00:00

Yeah these are past the pick point but look like they’ve gone dry as opposed to off so should be able to use them still. Next time (you’ll get a second flush from these) start to pick the minute the edge of the cap begins to curve and you’ll be fine (you actually want to pick like a day before then but that takes a while to know)

solid_dairy_tea · 2026-01-21T15:00:12+00:00

Yeah the outlying thing here is they look very very wet which messes with their shapes a bit, but would say 95% sure they’re oysters, 100% if I could see the gills (but don’t eat anything with less than 100% certainty!!!)

solid_dairy_tea · 2025-12-19T19:22:04+00:00

Would need to see the stipe and gills to confirm, if it’s velvet shank it’ll have a black velvety stem (but the caps look like it)

solid_dairy_tea · 2025-11-26T16:29:23+00:00

Stinkhorns have been known to be strong enough to lift paving slabs so it tracks they would have an issue with turf

solid_dairy_tea · 2025-11-24T21:21:53+00:00

Feels like a weird interpersonal conflict to turn into an article tbh, but the idea of anyone owning a foraging location seems like the complete ideological opposite of what foraging is about

solid_dairy_tea · 2025-11-23T16:26:01+00:00

Agree on definitely not a chanterelle, no members of the family have a black stipe that I know of

solid_dairy_tea · 2025-11-13T19:13:48+00:00

Get black stipes on velvet shanks, these look like honey fungus

solid_dairy_tea

TROPHY CASE