First time growing CVG (Natalensis)

I'm looking for help, I believe I may have contamination or too much mosture / lack of fresh air.

Sent to fruiting on October 1st. Humidity 95-99% Temperature 22c Exhaust fan runs every 4 hours for 15min.

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated 🙏

Hey Chris!

1. Your cakes don't look contaminated. There is some yellowish looking mycelium, but it's kind of pigmentation or metabolites.

2. There is no water drops on the mycelium, which means everything is fine with humidity. Although I prefer to keep RH about 90% in a grow tent. Do you use humidifier?

3. Natals are a heat-tolerant species, so 22°C is great and real chilling for them.

4. Hard to say about CO2 level in tent, but on eye for such tent and relatively average-size cakes FAE every 4 hours for 15 mins should be enough.

Do you aware about agressive Natals' mycelium growth?

Do you know that they are tend to overlay?

Did you use casing layer based on peat moss?

I hope this example will shed some light on growing Natals ;) https://shroomok.com/en/wiki/Natalensis_grow_bag_fruiting_and_overlay_problems

I used more cococoir as a casing layer. I did press it all down, maybe a mistake.

yes I have a humidifier (AC Infinity)

I'm frustrated and concerned because I followed the CVG guide online to the T and my cococoir had way too much water. I squeezed out 10 cups of extra water before I reached Field capacity.

I hope you're correct in the thought that it's just metabolites. I guess time will tell.

I've also increased my exhaust fan a little more. thinking it might have been too low.

thank you very much for your response and insight.

I'll keep you updated.

You're welcome!

"I did press it all down, maybe a mistake."

No, it's not a mistake :)

"I've also increased my exhaust fan a little more. thinking it might have been too low."

Better to run it more frequently or a lil bit longer, but I'd use up to 30% of airflow power, since hard airflow may dry out the top layer and exhaust fan suck in more dirty air (it's another topic on how to make proper ventilation for tent). I'd also run a humidifier (20-30% of its power) while ventilating the tent.

Tell me please what is your tent size L x W x H? So that I can calculate its volume.

What type (or model) of fan do you have? What diameter? And if you know, what is the airflow capacity? So that I can calculate required air exchange and frequency for your tent.

You have 4 cakes right now. Would you mind choosing 1-2 of them for the experiment? Don't worry, I'll guide you! Let's make them fruit and compare results with the rest cakes ;)

My fan is a Hon&Guan 4 Inch Inline Booster Duct Fan with Speed Controller - 130 CFM.

While the tent is venting my AC Infinity humidifier turns on automatically as it's set to a fixed relative humidity. 90%

Yes I'm more than happy to experiment ☺️

I cannot express how grateful I am for your assistance 🙏

Great! Let's have fun :-)

I'll get back to you with calculations and step-by-step instructions soon

Fan Speed and Runtime calculations based on grow tent volume and fan output

TL;DR

For your martha tent volume 22.2 ft³ you need to run the fan at 15-10% speed for only 5-9 minutes accordingly to make 4-5 air changes. Once in every 4 hrs is fine since your tent is not fully loaded, there are only 4 cakes, I'd say it's 1/4 of its capacity.

Btw, do you use a timer or smart plug, or anything else for fan?

If you are interested in calculations, here they are. Maybe someone else will also find them useful and use as an example:

Grow tent volume

Your tent size is: 19'' × 27" × 75" (inches)

Convert inches to ft: 1 inch = 0.0833..

Tent Volume = 1.58 ft x 2.25 ft x 6.25 ft = 22.2 (ft³)

Required airflow for tent

Note: Here I calculate airflow per minute to match and compare with fan CFM (cubic feet per minute) output.

Let’s make about 4–5 full air changes (per hour), this will be enough to remove CO2 (diluted with fresh air as well).

Required airflow (CFM) per minute = (Volume × Exchanges per hour) / 60 mins

22.2 ft³ * 4 air changes/ hour = 88.8 ft/hour = 88.8 / 60 = 1.48 CFM (per minute)

22.2 ft³ * 5 air changes/hour = 111 ft/hour = 111 / 60 = 1.85 CFM (per minute)

So, you need approx. between 1.5–1.9 CFM to meet your air exchange goal

Fan output

Your fan output = 130 CFM (cubic feet per minute) at 100% speed

But for your tent volume you only need 1.5-1.9 CFM

At 15% speed:

130 x 0.15 = 19.5 CFM — it’s still 10x times more than you need

So if you turn on your fan at 15% speed for 5-6 mins this will be:

19.5 CFU / 60mins * 5(6) mins = 1.6-1.95 CFM, which is within your goal

At 10% speed:

130 x 0.10 = 13 CFM

So if you turn on your fan at 10% speed for 7-9 mins this will be:

13 CFU / 60 mins * 7(9) mins = 1.5 - 1.95 CFM, which is within your goal

As you can see, you don’t need to run the fan at full 100% speed and 15 mins is too much at any speed!

That's it :)

Check my prev. post pls, and our next step will be experiment with 2 types of casing layers.

First, you need to prepare the next ingredients**:

**Referral Amazon links for your reference. You can also find all the ingredients at any local gardening store

1. True pH adjusted casing substrate based on peat moss

• sphagnum (aka peat moss) - https://amzn.to/4n0k3fg

• vermiculite - https://amzn.to/3WCatUU

• slaked lime Ca(OH)₂ - https://amzn.to/4hpDj4R

2. Experimental casing substrate based on cacti soil
   In my experience, this pretty hard dense top substrate works wonders, stimulating fruiting on Panaeolus and Tampanensis!

Potting cacti soil - this one 1) https://amzn.to/3IZfG6f is simple and good enough
Or I'd mix 1) with this 2) https://amzn.to/473I0fC OR this 3) https://amzn.to/4h4SWyd

Important! Choose cacti mix without any Mycorrhizal Fungi

Let me know once you have everything listed above and I'll guide you with the preparation

Okay, I've read over the privious post's and my exhaust fan is back set to min.

Here is what I'm able to source locally:

Lonzony Succulent Cactus Soil Potting Mix 110g Natural Organic Potting Mix for Palm Citrus Grown from Walmart. https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Lonzony-Succulent-Cactus-Soil-Potting-Mix-110g-Natural-Organic-Potting-Mix-for-Palm-Citrus-Grown-in-Containers/7JQ7YYEJ0JRB

Worst case I could order from amazon although will take a few days to a week to recive.

Also I've contacted several local nurseries, so far no luck, once is able to mix their own stuff. they dont have slaked lime tho.

Okay, I have read over the previous posts and the fan is back to min. I like your recommendation on the organic premixed cactus soil... only one premix is available to me through Amazon and I feel it's a little on the pricey side. I think sourcing the individual ingredients would be my best bet.

here's what I've come up with: Calcium Hydroxide – Food Safe - 99% PURITY - 500 grams / 1.1 lbs - Canadian Company $29.99 peat moss and vermiculite I can acquire locally with ease.

I also have a 50 lb bag of cococoir and a bag of vermiculite. planning on just mixing it in an empty 5 gallon bucket that sterile.

No rush, buddy! Your cakes have proper fruiting conditions (FC) and they do their job in a grow tent.

It's ~11 days since FC (Oct 1), so quite possible some of the cakes may start fruiting through dense fluffy mycelium.

Would be great if you attach photos (each cake separately), so I can check them out once again in order to track the progress.

Amazon links I've shared were just to get an idea on what you need, since there are proper descriptions. But yeah, let's start with the ingredients that are already available to you in your location:

• If you already have vermiculite from making CVG, don't buy it — we only need 2-4 cups for now

• Peat moss - don't buy expensive or big pack — we need 1-2 cups for now

• Calcium hydroxide — food grade or not it doesn't matter — we'll need 1-2 tbsp. of ANY Ca(OH)₂. If you have cheap option for soil, that would be great!

• We don't need a coco coir yet, but it's always good to have it. Maybe we'll use it later...

• Regarding "Lonzony Succulent Cactus Soil Potting Mix" here is what concerns me about the ingredients listing. They stated "peat moss free" (huge letters on the front side of the pack), but in the description I see:

"Contains 75% Peat Moss, 25% Perlite, And Low Nutrient Components". Idk, possibly it's a copy-paste from the another product description and Idk what "Low Nutrient Components" exactly in there :D

You have to check the label by your own! Here are ingredients in the mix are good to have: peat moss, sand, compost, limestone, gypsum, vermiculite, perlite, different types of rocks and clay (like gravel, red/black lava rock, white rocks, black sand, green zeolite).

What to avoid? Fertiizers, mycorrhizal and bacterial additives. Just an example of one mix (see the pic below).

Remember! Casing is a LOW nutrient substrate. And what is good for plants (fertilizers, mycorrhiza, bacteria) can be bad or useless for mushrooms

Here are pictures of the cakes, starting with the top shelf, left to right.

The top two cakes seem to be excreting more metabolites or showing more stress than the other two cakes on the lower shelf.

Today I'll pick up some peat moss and I'll order the slacklime or calcium hydroxide.

Okay, think I have enough for a casing layer now lol

The mycelium on all the cakes doesn't look perfect, but Natal is prone to such changes.

I’m not 100% sure on this cake #2 as I couldn’t see the texture while I zoomed in the photo. I mean here:

Could you pls help me and check if it is powdery or not? Don't worry, it doesn’t look contaminated to me, but let's double check with the simple Qtip aka swab test.

The test is based on the fact that powdery mold spores are sticky and adhere to any surface they come into contact with.

To do the test, take a clean white cotton swab and gently swipe it over the contaminated areas. If blue/green/gray powder remains on the cotton swab, it is most likely mold. If the cotton swab remains clean, without any traces of color, then the mycelium may simply bruised or it may be a grayish mycelium.

OMG that amount of lime and peat moss would be enough to cover the entire forest 😅

Do you have cacti soil mix as well? If not no problem. We can already start with casing substrate.

1. Mix all these ingredients in a pot/bucket:

• peat moss - 2 cups

• vermiculite - 1 cup

• hydrated lime - 1 tablespoon

• cold water - 1 cup

Mix well with spoon or any tool. Close the lid and let it sit for 8-12 hrs.

2. Choose 2 cakes — I'd choose one from the top shelf and one from the lower shelf
   (Label them with permanent marker or put a sticker)

3. For cake from top shelf (#1 or #2). Take a fork, wipe it with alcohol and make scratches on the cake, like this (see photo):

Then apply casing layer about 1/3-1/2 inch (~1 cm) like here:

4. For cake from the bottom shelf (#3 or #4). Don't touch the mycelium and apply casing substrate about 1/3-1/2 inch (~1 cm) right on the mycelium.

Place them both back in a grow tent. Provide fruiting conditions and wait.

Let me know if you have any questions

I followed your directions, casing layer is a little thin probably could have doubled up but it's too late for that.

I tried scraping the mycelium top layer with a fork, that did not work well, just tore the mycelium off the top. I ended up having to somewhat stab it to disrupt it. The cakes have become super dense.

I tried cotton swabs on several different areas, nothing stayed on the q-tip so that's a positive.

thank you again for your help!

Good news on qtip test 👍

Oh, I made calculations for 2 cakes, but you applied casing for all 4 :D

Cakes look good though!

You can prepare casing sub one more time (same amount) and add another thin layer to make a 1/3-1/2 inch — it's fine.

I came home tonight and proceeded to make a little more casing. Too my amazement we have a lone soldier hiding in the corner 🫣🍄😁

This is the cake from top shelf, right hand side, no forking, just casing layer applied 24 hours ago...

Haha, nice one! What a great news. You made my day, buddy 👍

Hope we'll see more fruits soon

Hey Chris! How’s it going? Any news?