The Peroxide Experiment.

One of the goals I have in starting a mushroom farm is increasing my knowledge base and sharing that with anyone else who is interested. There is a lot of information about mycology out there. Hell, I only live a few miles away from Paul Stamets. 

But I have trust issues. I can read all the studies and understand all the chemistry, but there is just something about performing experiments yourself that seals the deal. So, I have a few ongoing right now and plans to share all those here and on my eventual website. The first I'm going to share is about peroxide.

I believe R.R. Wayne, PHD pioneered much of this research and I do owe quite a bit of gratitude to that. But again, trust issues. I've read a bit of his material. 

The theory is that hydrogen peroxide will not damage healthy mycelium, but will kill the bacteria and molds that will cause contamination in your grow. I recently bought a golden oyster kit from Root Mushroom farm and had one of my kids grow it out. The boy, who shall remain nameless, grew it less than enthusiastically. So it grew out pretty poorly and ended up contaminated. I tried to salvage things by creating a liquid culture so I could try again, but my technique was a little lacking that day or whatever and the culture was contaminated too. 

Eww.

Now, if I'd have thought about it, I would have performed an experiment with that, but I didn't do you get this one. 

As soon as I saw mycelium growing, I inoculated a couple of grain jars and waited. I checked the grain jars before I checked the liquid culture and spotted the contamination. 

Again... eww. 

I was not happy about this. So, I decided to try to salvage the spawn. That picture on the picnic table was taken July 28th. Shortly after I took the picture I poured in some peroxide. Without getting too scientific, I poured in "enough". It was enough to see that the peroxide had contacted the major spots of contamination. Then, I waited and watched. 

I took the next picture August 1st. 

You can see that the mycelium has greatly overtaken the contamination. I was still a little unsure and waited some more. I took another picture today August 5th.

It appears as though the mycelium has almost completely forced out the contamination, but not entirely. I plan on fruiting this bucket away from my main grow area out of a sense of caution, but I think it might make it. Just because science, I dosed again tonight with peroxide. Again, I used "enough." 

Time will tell. Hopefully this will be enough evidence for me and I can start using peroxide as a saving factor in contaminated grows in the future. Of course, using a flow hood instead of a cruddy still air box would be nice, but I ain't made of money. 

Someday. 

So... I mean yeah, but why?

Why a mushroom farm? Why would a successful blogger/entrepreneur/nurse/playboy want to settle down and start a mushroom farm?

Believe it or not, a lot of it is about waste and helping people. 

It's weird. I'm a nurse. I worked emergency room for years and now I work in pre and post op. Yet, I frequently don't feel like I'm really helping people. I help some individuals now and again for sure, but mostly it feels like I slap on a few bandages and toss you back out there with a chuck on the chin and a see-you-next-time-around-champ. 

But creating fresh, local food that is good tasting and good for you? That sounds like something everyone could use. Mushrooms are tasty and filled with good stuff that helps keep you healthy. It can serve as a wonderful accompaniment to meat helping people reduce their meat intake and still enjoy their food. I love eating meat, but it is problematic on a lot of levels.  So, if I can help with that I think of it as a win. Also, many mushrooms, like lion's mane and reishi have medicinal properties that can help people with the quality of their lives without having to spend a lot of money. And, on top of that, creating food locally helps reduce transport costs and reduces the pollution burden of getting necessary food to people. 

Speaking of pollution...

One of the things that I hate about working in the medical field is all the waste. Everything has to be single-use plastic wrapped and sterile. Since it is all corporate controlled and geared toward the most profit we tend to waste a ton of packaging and plastic because it is cheap to produce. The huge pile of plastic refuse I leave in my wake on a normal work day is not sustainable. I feel guilty every day that I am a part of this system. But, I have to eat too.

But, most of all, I decided a long time ago that I would never be happy working for someone else. The idea that the product of my labor supports a huge administrative and executive structure irks me. When I ask a supervisor or boss a question about what I do, I shouldn't get an answer about policy. It's done that way because it's the smartest way we could figure out to do it. 

Over the course of the next few blog posts, I'm going to describe what I have planned and how it fits within the above framework. I'm trying to build something here that is useful, healthy, sustainable, and beneficial to the environment. Hopefully it can turn a profit too. 

Only time will tell. 

  

Adventure Nickel Farm

Obviously this blog has not been active of late. Neither you nor I have been here. But, since this place does exist and has some history, I might as well use it. 

We are starting a mushroom farm. 

I'm going to use this blog, at least until I get the website up anyway, to talk about all things mushroom farm. 

We've been mushroom geeks for some time now. I have the receipts too. If there is even a small chance I can make a go of mushroom farming, I should at least try, right? Besides, it's an adventure. 

So, I'm starting with oyster mushrooms, because they are easy, and lion's mane because they are cool. 

I've had some success so far. But I'm still learning. I have some experiments that I want to share with like-minded mycophiles. But for now, I will settle for getting an announcement done. 

I'm telling the world. You just get to be one of the lucky first few to hear it.