Mushroom Mould?

[Zakalwe]

Hey folks, I've had one of those growkits going in my flat for the last couple of months, trying to get some P. Cubensis. All's gone well until today when i went to see if any more were ready for picking and two or three have worrying coloured stripes running down the edge (picture below in NSFW box). The colouring is the blue-green hue that denotes cellular damage and the degredation of psilocybin in contact with oxygen.

What I'm wondering is, is this a sign of mould or another infection? The temperateure in the room they were being kept in dropped very low yesterday due to an unexpected cold snap and I had to move them to a warmer room, could this be a sign of damage caused by frostbite?

If it is mould, will my having removed the affected shrooms prevent others from being affected at all, or they all likely to succumb now? Is there anything I can do to help them?

Here's a picture of the mushroom's I've removed, thanks to anyone who can offer some advice.

NSFW:

 

[Solipsis]

Very hard to tell like that, even with a good picture like this. Does it smell bad? You could cut it with a knife and see if it's only superficial or if it goes deeper and if it has a fucked up moldy texture.

You could try to cut the bad part out.

Visit the shroomery for this sort of thing, they can help you out loads better.

 

[Zakalwe]

No bad smell and it seems to be superficial, there's no discolouration or 'black goo' at the centre which are the supposed symptoms of mould according to one of the FAQs on the Shroomery. I'll keep an eye on the rest of them, thanks for the advice. I may create an account over at the Shroomery and ask there, I know there's alot of elitism over there about growkits though, they don't approve at all.

 

[greenmeanies]

it's hard to tell from the pics, but by your description (no odor, sudden change in temperature) it is very likely simple water stress. mushrooms are fairly fragile to sudden changes in temperature or humidity, so it sounds like these bad boys just got a little swollen and cracked, just like pruny fingers in the bathtub. some of the cells may have burst, showing you the blue oxidised coloration.

nothing to be worried about, just be sure to consume them pronto or dry with a vengeance. burst cells expose more surface area to air, so they may be less potent, but not by any real measurable quantity IME. i have seen mushrooms that froze in a cold snap, they turned so blue they were 100% black, yet punched you in the face still...

best to scrape off those chunky stembutts and try your hand at cardboard cloning, as vermiculite in you teeth is not the most delicious way to spend a trip


edit: actually, since cubensis is a warm-weather species, it is likely that by moving them to a warmer room, you actually stimulated a sudden burst of growth that cracked the fruitbodies. loss of water would make your member limp and dry, while yours look full and hard lol

 

[Zakalwe]

The room I moved them to was only warm compared to the room they had been in, where the temperature had dropped from the recomended 20-25 celcius to well into single figures. I've thrown out those mushrooms from the picture, the big one was diced to look for internal infection, the others I suppose I probably should have kept and dried. I was more worried about the rest of the mushrooms, as there's at least twenty more which are still less than an inch high but are growing on course to become like the couple I've picked so far, both weighed over 8g wet and were very firm and healthy. I'd be pretty pissed if what was looking like a very promising yeild was killed off all at once by a pretty freakish change in the weather. Thanks again for the help.

 

[greenmeanies]

one key technique in the world of mycology is isolation.

if ever you question the sterility or health of a growing culture, you should isolate it (to prevent contamination of the rest of the crop) and allow further inspection without destroying or ruining yield. sorry you threw them out

 

[Zakalwe]

How can you isolate one or two mushrooms without killing them anyway though? Surely without the mycellium feeding them nutrients they can't be 'replanted' like a cutting could. Or are you just referring to getting them away from the healthy ones? As soon as I saw the discolouration I washed my hands and plucked them out.

I'm sorry I threw them out as well, but the large one was throughly blued from being cut into pieces and the others were considerably smaller (though I suppose size isn't related to alkaloid content). It was worth it to make sure the others would be alright, none of the other twenty or so are showing any new signs of ill health, if that keeps up I'll be happy.

 

[Solipsis]

Isolation is not really practical unless you have different fruiting chambers. Otherwise it would just mean removing the contaminated parts and throwing it in the garbage to prevent contamination of all the rest. If some parts of the mushroom would still be edible, I think depends on how vigorous the contamination seems. If very minor, maybe save the healthy half. But better safe than sorry.

My personal experience is that mycelium can be very resilient and I have one tray that was made from partially bacteria-contaminated cakes but I surgically removed the good parts before crumbling and casing them in a tray. It has been a succesful tray and the mycelium obviously killed the remaining bacteria because the apple-y smell went away and I never saw any indication of bad stuff again. It's probably spent now though, spores all over the casing and shrunk up like a dry sponge even though I rehydrated it one time. There's like 4 shrooms coming out right now but they might be the last ones.

I'm probably a bit lucky though, if you see that your mycelium is weak and being overrun, or if you have mushrooms that are themselves contaminated I would be way more careful and cut that shit out and throw away lest you have to throw everything away if youre too late.

 

[Zakalwe]

Quite a few of my mushrooms aborted with the cold, I had noticed the green discolouration at the bottom of the caps but wasn't sure if it was definitely a bad sign. My suspicions were confirmed today though when I had a look and the healthy-looking ones had grown whilst the suspected aborts were the same size and had darkening/slimy tips. As a result another eight or nine have had to be removed. I'm really unhappy that I've had what looked to be a great yeild cut back so quickly by something beyond my control, but on the other hand it looks like all my remaining mushrooms are fairly healthy. A few have blueing at the bottom where mushrooms growing from the same areas of mycellium have been removed but other than that they seem to be fairly full of life. I suppose I should be greatful to have as many left as I do.

 

[greenmeanies]

did you throw away these aborts?

because they will knock you on your ass in numbers.
dry them ASAP or just eat before blue turns black.

 

[Zakalwe]

did you throw away these aborts?

because they will knock you on your ass in numbers.
dry them ASAP or just eat before blue turns black.

Thanks to my hesitance to pick them when I first suspected they were aborts, they'd gone black and generally nasty on the inside. I'll know next time though, I actually spotted them pretty quickly when they aborted but just wasn't confident enough to take action when they might have been fine. Do the mushrooms which are still relatively immature actually still have the same amount of psilocybin as the fully grown ones? I had heard that the alkaloid content is the same for a young mushroom as a mature one before, but if that's the case, why aren't they picked whilst still small in the first place?

 

[greenmeanies]

pins and aborts are more potent by weight than fully mature shrooms. i believe the major cause of this is because pins and aborts contain less water weight than mature fruits, thus more dry (alkaloidal) content.

for example,
10g mature fresh fruit = 1g dry fruit
10g fresh aborts = 1.2g dry aborts

read more on the fungal life cycle. psilocin, being a secondary metabolite of the normal respiratory processes that go on in the living mushroom, is only produced while the fungus is actively burning its energy reserves.

so while a jar or bag is colonizing, the fungus is bringing nutrients into its cells for later use; little psilocin is produced.
as the fruiting stage begins, the fungus expends large amounts of energy creating millions of new cell nuclei, and shuffles all these new nuclei into hyphal knots. when there are enough nuclei in one place, borders between them form, making a dense ball of complete cells with their own nuclei. by weight these cells are high in protein because they are mostly genetic material.
the next step is actually relatively simple, to inflate all these brand-new cells with water so the mushroom will stand up. pumping water takes energy, so psilocin is produced and accumulates in these cells.
finally as the fruit reaches maturity, basidia on the gill surface begin to mature and release spores. this process does not seem to produce psilocin, so a closed-cap fruit is generally the same potency as an open-cap one. some people say the taste of millions of spores (mmm, mushroom jizz) is not as pleasant as the mushroom itself, so they harvest before the veil breaks. closed-cap shrooms are also firmer and store better when fresh or dry.

so to answer your question...
pins and aborts DEFINITELY have higher dry mass / wet mass ratio when compared to mature fruits.
pins and aborts MAY have higher alkaloid mass / dry mass ratio when compared to mature fruits
HOWEVER, each pin or abort does NOT have the same absolute alkaloid content as a mature shroom that it might have grown into. 1g wet aborts had the chance to grow into 10g wet mature shrooms, and you should be hoping for 10g mature over 1g abort any day of the week.

also remember: each mushroom that reaches maturity takes energy and water from the mycelial network. this is why some shrooms will abort: the fungus sensed something about its growing conditions, and cancelled some fruits in order to conserve energy for a later fruiting, or to put more energy into a single fruit. in the commercial mushroom industry (white buttons and portabellas), it is common to deliberately thin out a pinset, so the fungus has the resources to support massive steak-sized boomers.

 

[Zakalwe]

Very comprehensive, thanks for taking the time to type out all of that information. I suspected that that was the case with the aborts, otherwise the standard method would just be to pick whilst the mushrooms were still very immature. I've been waiting until the veil breaks/in on the verge of breaking before I pick and will probably continute to do so.

 

[Sustanon]

Thats just the actives oxidizing. Try not to squeeze em that hard next time. There ready to eat

 

[Zakalwe]

Thats just the actives oxidizing. Try not to squeeze em that hard next time. There ready to eat

If you're referring to the original post/picture, the mushrooms hadn't been touched (by humans hands or otherwise), the colouring appeared spontaneously which is why I was worried.