50/50 Casing Tek
Version 1.2
Here is a real easy casing mix that works great for cubensis. The original idea came fromWhite Rabbit, and my friend has modified it a little bit. he's had great success with this easy method, and he's sure there are even better mixes out there, but this does work well, and is easy.
At the end of this document, look read the update 50/50 Casing Tek Plus.
He uses plastic trays, bought at Home Depot in the garden section, there black,about 2 feet long, 18" wide and about 3 to 4 inches deep, very thin plastic. Youcan cut and tape these to fit the exact size of the bottom of your aqurium, leavingabout a 1/2" on all sides for the moisture to go around them and drip down theglass and not in your container. You want to use plastic tape and not masking tape or it will fall apart when it gets soggy. OK, now the fun part. Take vermiculite, mix in abowl with water until its real moist, squeezing excess water out, then drop about1/2" layer across the bottom of your container. Then take fresh cakes from thejars, chop them up with a knife real good, into little pieces, crumble this over thatlayer of vermiculte. About a 3/4" to 1" layer across.
Now, one of two choices: Either cover this with saran wrap and let sit for 24 to 48 hours before continuing on or skipping this recovery period. This part is very good if you found your cakes werenot 100% colonized and needs a few more days for the mycelium to grow over any uncolonized sections.If this does not apply, then move to next step.
Next, take a mixture of 50%peat moss and 50% vermiculite, real moist, once again squeeze out excesswater, then just lightly place it over the mycelium layer, about a 1/4" to 1/2" justso its cover the mycelium layer. Although you can still see the colonized cake piecesin the high spots. You can also use a little deeper layer, about 1/2" to 3/4" toallow for a stronger casing layer that will be helpfull for more flushes. Put your container back in your aquiruim right on top of perlite.Within about 2 days you'll start seeing the mycelium overtake the casing layer, you want to adda light bit of 50/50 mix over these first high spots so all the mycelium is coming to the surfacearound the same time.
Within a week it will be almost completly covered in mycelium, and the pinning willstart. Harvest time is usally 2 weeks after casing. Ideally, you should try and harvest your first flushall around the same time, or within a day of each other. Then put a light sprinkling of 50/50 mixback over the spots where you pulled the mushrooms from. Start misting this soil once a day to giveit backs its moisture, because it will start drying out. Then look forward to more flushes within a week.You will get huge flushes from this method. If somewhere along the way you start to see contamination in any part of thesoil, cut it out immediatly, and sprinkle it with salt or baking soda/water mix.
50/50 Casing Tek Plus
My friend has started adding %10 limestone and %15 crushed oyster shell to the over all mix and likes the results from this casing much better. The soil seems to give the mushrooms more support so when you harvesting your not digging out deep chunks of mycelium from the substrate, instead they pull out real easy from the surface. When mixing the casing substrate, a lot of the oyster shell and limestone sink to the bottom, so mix it and squeeze it real good when placing overthe substrate. Also, chopping up the substrate in small pieces is out now, he's found cutting the cakes in 1" thick slices, like acucumber and laying them beside each other in the bottom of the tray, then putting a few pieces of crumbled cakes in between the circles works better. He also started pressurizing his moist casing soil in quart jars first. Hope this info helps ......
Persistant, aren't you ;-}