Steaming and Inoculating

The team with grain spawn and substrate bags.

Today was our second to last day here in Makeni. We dedicated the morning to meeting with our advisor and more thoroughly outlining our grant proposal. This was tedious but productive, as we were able to start the appendices by the afternoon.

After working on our computers all morning, we went to World Hope and did a lot of inoculating. We inoculated two grain jars and six substrate bags with oyster mushrooms. We placed all these inside of our MPS to incubate. We also looked at our previously inoculated bags and found a lot of growth. This is a good sign for our spawn and MPS. When we put all the substrate bags inside the structure, we noticed dampness on the ground and decided to place the bags on some leftover wood we found, because we know that the substrate should stay more dry during the incubation process.

Substrate bags with mycelial growth.

We also filled up our second barrel with water and tried steaming the structure. The glue at the junction of the hose and barrel wasn't a very strong seal but we wanted to try steaming once before we leave. For this, we lit a wood fire beneath the drum and let it burn until there was no more water boiling inside the drum. The steam will sit inside the structure and pasteurize the substrate logs. Tomorrow we will inoculate with straw mushrooms.

Steaming the straw mushroom room.