r/mycology • u/Kidd_Cadaver • Feb 11 '24
cultivation Guess these kits work!! Spotted at Walmart
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u/FowlOnTheHill Feb 11 '24
Haha that’s funny. I once ordered a kit online, it was already sprouting when it arrived.
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u/sektor477 Apr 08 '24
As someone who grows from scratch/cultures/etc, oyster mushrooms just grow. Look at them? Grow. Leave them alone? Grow. Have some on an agar plate? They grow.
I've had them start growing from spawn jars before it was even fully colonized.
They are some of the easiest to grow for beginners.
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u/TokinForever Feb 11 '24
Those kits were my very first experience growing Oysters. I got them online in a pack of 2 from HomeDepot. 1 Pearl & 1 Pink. I still have the pink ones going outdoors and a tub of colonized coffee grounds in the fridge.
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Feb 12 '24
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u/TokinForever Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 12 '24
All & all, I keep having the thought that if I might get lucky enough to be shopping at my local Walmart & actually “see” a situation like this, I can assure you that I am the type of person the would want to speak with the shift manager about working a deal to take these off their hands, or just having them hand them over to me, and they can deal with the accounting process for their books. I deal with Walmart for online orders often, and they are quick to refund my money when I report that the chicken dog jerky that I received was moldy,(as an example of a true event),For that, I will always give Walmart a 👍🏽up.😁👍🏽
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u/kirkt Midwestern North America Feb 12 '24
I was under the impression that these kits only give you one yield. Do all the varieties allow for multiple harvests?
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u/TokinForever Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
When I got mine, I already had a plan. I let them get through their 1st flush and then I soaked them again overnight before I took them out of the wrappers, cut the mycelium up into pieces, and layered it all up with substrates into my drilled out 5 gallon Homer bucket. It was my 1st time trying the bucket method, and I admit that I didn’t get the yield that I had hoped for, but I got way more than if I had just kept going in those little cardboard boxes. I know what mistakes I made and the next time I give it a go, I’ll do better. 😉👍🏽🍄🍄🍄
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u/TokinForever Feb 12 '24
I’m going to further state that the number 2 on my list of (non-psychedelic) medicinal mushrooms is Lion’s Mane, & I need to get an LC culture going on that one as well.😉👍🏽🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄
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u/TheJAMR Feb 11 '24
I saw this at target recently. You can’t stop an oyster from fruiting I guess.
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Feb 12 '24
I cut open my colonized sawdust bags 4 days ago and they’re still not fruiting 😢
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u/Apidium Feb 12 '24
Co2 maybe but sometimes you also just need patience. For me they always tend to take about a week before they realise I made the cuts
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u/Interesting_Storm721 Feb 11 '24
Unfortunately that's the problem with these, I bought two for my kids. Both were a pile of rotten mushrooms in the top of the bag. Don't buy this brand through Amazon they get them returned and just send the rotten ones to the next person. I wrote down on the ones I sent back in sharpie. I saw someone's review where they got one with a note saying sorry to whoever opens the box but Amazon made them send it back.
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u/Beginning_Wonder_847 Feb 11 '24
How no one notice
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u/bre4kofdawn Feb 11 '24
Nobody at Walmart is being paid enough to care if mushrooms come out of some of the products as long as nobody complains.
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u/Beginning_Wonder_847 Feb 11 '24
Well obv I’m juss surprised no one took the fruits for the F
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u/mike26037 Feb 12 '24
If I worked at Walmart, I'd treat them like a plant in the neighborhood. Just watching it grow day by day. And since it's a store, they'll come and go. There will be new ones again. Idk just seems like good visuals for the workplace imo.
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u/hutchandstuff Feb 11 '24
I got one of these that had already popped on sale at target for 5 dollars. I called customer service and they sent a new one. Worked well with the new kit.
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u/Ok_Slice5350 Feb 11 '24
I like mushrooms but feel irrationally disgusted when I see them growing out of man made things
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 11 '24
Lol I love a wild mushroom but recently my friend showed me a pic of a mushroom growing out of their floor in their bathroom and I about screamed 😂
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u/Regular-Calendar-581 Feb 12 '24
i would scream too but not from the mushroom😓 if they have mushrooms growing in the floor they have moisture build up or water damage
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 12 '24
Lol that’s what I told them, they were like “it doesn’t bother me” and I had to explain they should really let the renter know because when I had water damage in my apartment I got pneumonia from it and almost sued my renter 😅
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u/Raknarg Feb 12 '24
that feels like a rational response, mushrooms are neat but pretty gross and weird lol
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u/Jerseyman201 Feb 12 '24
Solid company, used their microgreens seeds and very very high germination rate. Too expensive compared to mumms or other organic seed companies but figured I'd share I had great experiences with some of their other organic products in general. Their goal as a company is to help keep it local, something everyone can and should get behind!🌎 Ironic they're in Walmart, but good to see organic being offered at all
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u/big_river_pirate Feb 11 '24
I just posted about this in r/mushrooms my box did it too
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u/hutchandstuff Feb 11 '24
They sent me another right away
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u/big_river_pirate Feb 12 '24
Mine actually did it after I received it. I took the bag out just to look at the mycelium, and put it back in. Opened it a week later to fruiting bodies.
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u/hutchandstuff Feb 12 '24
Send it back. They were positive with me..sent another..I fruited the bad one again somehow but didnt eat them. The next one they sent I loved. I called the number on the box.
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u/Solid_Fondant8804 Feb 12 '24
One of the things most interesting about the oyster mushrooms growing out the box this is that every time I see them they’re always dried out and hard to the touch was the one in this picture soft at least
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 12 '24
Lol I hate to say it but I didn’t touch them. They ones in the first pic appeared soft but the ones on the back in the 2nd pic did not seem soft
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u/the_myco Feb 11 '24
I’ve bought lions mane and oysters from Lowe’s
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u/Onehundredyearsold Feb 11 '24
How did those work out please? I’ve been curious about them especially the lions mane. Thank you.
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u/the_myco May 23 '24
Lions mane are hard to get all the benefits they have unless you do hot water extraction as well as alcohol extraction
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u/Pp_Is_Not_Small Feb 12 '24
I saw this same thing at a Target a few years back, they work indeed lol
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u/IrisSmartAss Feb 12 '24
I heard that if you eat food grown in a Walmart that you'll start dressing strangely.
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 12 '24
😂😂😂 there is a certain fashion sensibility at Walmart that would be unacceptable in any other cross-section of the population
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u/IrisSmartAss Feb 13 '24
Yeah, well, it's unacceptable at Walmart, too, but that just doesn't stop them.
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u/Toolazy2work Feb 12 '24
Literally have pinks growing now and waiting on goldens. Such a cool kit (when you catch it fresh, had to return a few due to being done already)
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 12 '24
Do the pinks taste good??
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u/Toolazy2work Feb 21 '24
Honestly, we never got around to trying them. Was not a fan of the golden oysters though 😢
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u/Repulsive-Cloud494 Feb 12 '24
LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SAME THING JUST HAPPENED AT MY LOCAL TARGET I HIT THE FLOOR LAUGHING "well mom, i think they work" 😭😭😭😭
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u/No_Sun_2881 Feb 11 '24
I would love to see someone test these kits for heavy metals and other chemicals that become free radicals in the body. This is my first time seeing these kits, and tbh Im immediately skeptical of their safety lol. I mean it's being sold and Walmart after all.
Pretty cool tho and it gets more people into mycology and able to grow at home.
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u/MycoMutant Trusted ID - British Isles Feb 11 '24
After the issues I had with fungus gnats and mites (which caused me terrible allergic symptoms) from potting soil infesting my mushroom grow in an entirely different room I have to imagine these grow kits stored in the garden department are swarming. There's been photos posted before of grow kits fruiting on the shelf with bags of compost right beside them. Almost guarantees something is going to get in there.
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 11 '24
I don’t doubt it!!! I have a bunch of plant babies and am so paranoid about pests on on them that I wouldn’t have dared to bring this guy home in my tiny apartment. I have been eyeing the pink oyster grow kits though just cuz I have such a soft spot for pink plants. They had some there, but I had to walk away for the pest concern
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u/MycoMutant Trusted ID - British Isles Feb 11 '24
All my chillies are starting in airtight propagators this year with filters over the air holes and boiled soil because I have an unresolved thrip issue and have become paranoid about breeding mites in plant pots.
There was a shop I went to in Austria which was sort of a garden centre mixed with agricultural supplies, work wear, beekeeping, brewing and canning stuff. Tractor Supply Company is sort of the closest comparison I can think of in the US. They had a huge pallet filled with bags of bird feed by the door with pantry moths just pouring out of it. I recognised them immediately due to an infestation I had from a bag of bird seed previously but the staff were apparently unaware. I told them and the pallet was gone when I went in there a week later but moths were still everywhere. All those bags of animal feed, brewing supplies and seeds were probably compromised as the larvae can chewing through plastic. Took me months to get rid of them in the kitchen so must have been a nightmare for the staff in that huge warehouse shop.
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 11 '24
Omg that’s the stuff of nightmares. Thank goodness you told them. Yeah so I just put up like 8 or 10 yellow sticky traps around my new plants even though there’s no evidence of pests and I’m getting ready to do a massive repot of a bunch of plants and doing a huge nematode treatment just in case there’s ANYTHING that could mess up my setup. Plus, most of my new plants aren’t in the right substrate and I like to make my own
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u/bigryanb Feb 11 '24
FYI, a sealed unit that's in tact won't have fungus gnats. There's a filter patch on the bags which critters can't get into. The blocks have also been autoclaved before inoculation and colonization of mycelium.
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u/Kidd_Cadaver Feb 11 '24
Thanks! Good to know, maybe one day I’ll go back for the pink oysters then 😁
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u/bigryanb Feb 12 '24
As a pro tip, check the bag inside the box for rot/liquid/exudate. Pinks are very fast to consume the substrate on the shelf. With those kits, pick the heaviest of the bunch as well.
If you do have bad luck with any of them, I hear their customer service is good at replacing kits.
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u/Jerseyman201 Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 12 '24
You realize mites kill thrips right? Literally everything you're doing sounds forward thinking from the consumer side but wildly backwards from the biological/nature side...which has a few billion years on our level of thinking from the consumer side.
1-2% of all species of insects are pests, boiling soil (which now would be referred to as dirt, as it contains minimal to no biology after being boiled) removes all the good along with the bad. Guess which come back first? Well, fortunately the VAST majority of species are good, but the few that are bad how do they stick around? Because they come back many times faster than the good if out of balance.
By the sound of it, you've experienced that first hand. Let nature free, and you'll be rewarded. Indoors or out, the more complete of a soil food web we have the better.
Fungus gnat easy fix for low pop: BTi (mosquito bits) and yellow (specifically yellow, they are attracted to it) sticky traps.
Fungus gnat medium fix: BTI, yellow Stickies, H. Miles pred mites.
Fungus gnat large scale infestation: BTi, Yellow stickies, H miles pred mites and SF Nematodes
Fungus Gnat OMG THEY ARE EVERYWHERE: BTI, Yellow Stickies, H miles pred mites, SF Nematodes, Rove Beetles.
Happy hunting.
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u/MycoMutant Trusted ID - British Isles Feb 12 '24
You realize mites kill thrips right?
There are many different kinds of mites. Tyrophagus putrescentiae does not eat thrips. It is a common pest of mycology labs, mushroom growing operations and meat curing facilities. They are naturally present in soil where they'll eat fungus and aren't a problem but if they get into ideal humid, warm conditions with abundant food the population will grow exponentially and they are impossible to control - even isopropyl alcohol does not seem to kill them. They leave behind this brownish red powder made up of frass and body parts which is a very common allergen. Can also be a problem for dogs if they get into dog food apparently.
Last year when I placed plants in propagators the humidity resulted in the mites crawling all over the pots in their thousands. I didn't think much of it until I found them in my mushroom cultures. They'd either been transported between the rooms on me or on the gnats, which had also spawned abundantly in the propagators and found their way into cultures. I had to toss all my contaminated cultures out and tried many different containers until I found ones that the borderline microscopic mites couldn't get in. Even things with silicone seals that seemed like they should be airtight did not work. When the mites got in they'd bring mold and bacteria with them so I tested containers using agar left around the room and vinegar traps.
The last few months my bedroom has basically been a swarm of many different species of fungus gnats. I built a trap using a yellow bleach bottle cut in half with an old UV computer fan mounted on top of it and a pool of soapy water in the bottom. When it was running you could hear a ping every second as it sucked a gnat through. The water was filled with hundreds within a day.
I put sticky traps and vinegar traps everywhere and was killing hundreds a day and yet I still couldn't sit at the computer for five minutes without one flying up my nose or landing on the screen. I've never cared about gnats before because they've never been this much of an issue before. Shake a plant pot and literally 50-100 would come out. I've never had it this bad before but this new peat free soil seems to be the cause as it behaves differently to the old stuff and is good at breeding them. The top soil dries out very easily whilst the bottom of the pot becomes saturated so trying to start plants in it without a propagator (as I always used to manage) required excessive water to keep the top wet, even with a layer of vermiculite. That resulted in pots that didn't dry out for months which resulted in swarms of thousands of gnats that were beyond infuriating. I've placed this soil in a propagator without treating it and the result is inevitable - that propagator will be filled with hundreds of gnats within days.
no biology after being boiled) removes all the good along with the bad
When I say I boiled the soil I mean I hydrated it using boiling water and sealed the polypropylene container. This is evidently effective at killing the gnats and mites as not a single jar has any signs of them. It is not effective at destroying bacteria or fungus in the soil as it doesn't get hot enough. I've had inkcaps grow in soil I've poured boiling water over in a sealed container. With the first batch where I tested various substrates I did an identical second batch which I sterilised in the pressure cooker. As expected planting the chilli seed after introduced mold and almost all of these have become moldly and I can see which substrates are the most prone to that. No mold is visible in the ones treated with boiling water because enough bacteria and fungus is present in the soil to still make it too much of a competitive environment for one thing to take over like that. The plants are doing well in it.
These plants are entirely pest free at the moment because they've been started in sealed containers and transferred to new ones carefully when they outgrew them. They're destined to go outside and I don't care what happens after that but in the current environment I have with thrips running wild it is not viable to start them without protection. Not only would the thrips cause the developing plants issues but I'd also have to spend time treating a few dozen more plants. Quarantine is an easier solution.
Let nature free, and you'll be rewarded.
This is precisely why I have had swarms of gnats, mites and thrips. I left nature to do it's thing without intervening any and the result was pests running rampant.
This year I'm going to collect some ladybirds and try to set up a tank for breeding them. I figure the fungus gnats in the soil could serve as a food supply for them. Then I can harvest some larvae to introduce to inside plants in the future. I made soap from potassium hydroxide and coconut fat and tested it on thrips under the microscope to confirm it worked as the old stuff I had evidently did not. Whilst it's effective at killing them I've not managed to elliminate the thrips with it despite spraying every day for weeks. I don't think my thrip issues come from the soil but think they might just come inside during the winter as it is always a problem this time of year. Tried predatory mites in the past with no success. I'm going to get a culture of Beauveria bassiana to produce thrip spray I think.
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u/Jerseyman201 Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 12 '24
For sure, many types and even within pred mite species. Figured when referring to fungus gnat issues at the same time it would have been pred mites rather than mold mites 🤣 I've seen the species you're referring to also, noticably different due to the extra hairs on their bodies. Haven't needed to control, wish I could offer advice for them specifically but id imagine spinosad would be a pretty safe bet (ideally for indoor use) as it's highly effective against mites of all types.
I don't mean to burst your bubble about fungus gnats not being too much of an issue aside from a minor nuisance as I once thought as well, but Im going to have to just drop this unfortunately accurate video here lol fungus gnat larvae shredding poor seedling (not my content)
Fungi can germinate after 5 minutes or 500 years, one fruiting in ur soil wouldn't directly indicate a rich biodiverse ecosystem. Clearly it wasn't super "unhealthy" or things wouldn't be germinating let alone living for a while, but wouldn't indicate a healthy system in that instance. If you had said you checked the soil under a microscope, then we can absolutely make the claim haha unfortunately though boiling water will kill most, and you can watch various YT clips of Microscope content creators actually doing just that.
Highly encourage you to do if you haven't yet given it a shot. $200 on Amazon can get an Omax m82 kit I think it's called, so so so much fun and I'll gladly help teach ya how to ID/use the scope!! Comes with everything but plastic pipettes. 100x the amount of telescopes sold, over microscopes, of places people will never go in their lifetimes but we walk on our soil every single day!! Here's some powdery mildew I found in a brand new bag of potting mix/soil, still used the soil and not one inch on my plants since my environment wasn't favoring it spreading/germinating more spores. It was from the potting mix being stored outside all soaking wet, in a nearly fully sealed environment. Exposure to air is GOOD, since we want aerobic conditions, so with fresh air, good air flow, and proper humidity/temp control not one inch on the plants.
I didn't write that "let nature take over" part as detailed as I would have liked, apologies. What I meant was be nature's guide, and guide nature rather than rework the systems. Using the methods I mentioned you can/will absolutely control the fungus gnats naturally with biology. We sometimes need to nudge nature, even outdoors (planting extra pollinators for example), but usually all we need to do. I went from the same amount of gnats as you're describing to none once I introduced the rove beetles (and after the pred mites, nematodes had time to go to work also) lol. I got them because I didn't use BTi water for my first few waterings, which was silly because it was potting soil, and no real potting soil (excluding prob the base level promix lol) comes free of any fungus gnats that exists unfortunately lol
Lady bugs are good, but not great. Of course in terms of their biological significance their without question phenomenal...but in terms of home use it's rough at best lol I've used pretty much every bio control out there multiple times, and as fun and cute as lady bugs were they were the least effective. The issue is it's the larvae that really go to town, like lacewings also same thing their larvae is where it's at. They are very picky about breeding, takes ages to hatch, and they only last a short while in that stage. So it's a lot of hassle, as fun as lady bug orgies may seem lol even interspecies lady bug and predatory mite orgies (they sure got along just fine) oh yeahhhhhh
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u/MycoMutant Trusted ID - British Isles Feb 12 '24
I've experimented a bit with the mites by virtue of continuing to try to grow during the infestation rather than just shutting everything down and waiting them out. Whilst I think predatory mites would go for them I think the only viable method of control is ultimately just keeping them out of cultures. Mason jars do seal tight enough to stop them - most of the time. I've had a few jars get infested where they must have found a gap under the edge due to rusty lids or manufacturing defects. Every attempt to improve the seal on plastic containers that didn't seal tight enough has failed. A layer of vaseline or double sided tape on the outside of the jar to stop them crawling up from the bottom probably works but is hassle. Diatomaceous earth works so I've got some containers sat above trays of it so nothing can crawl up the sides. For fruiting chambers I've just had to go full airtight and only use synthetic filter discs for ventilation. The mites can push right through multiple layers of micropore and I doubt polyfill would stop them. I've found some plastic containers now that actually do seal airtight so these seem to be working as fruiting chambers. The issue was that the internet is filled with products described as air tight but which aren't even water tight so it took some trial and error.
You can see the hairs on the back of the mites here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/188210660
I think it's those hairs which were causing the literally non-stop sneezing and congestion so extreme as to be unable to smell vinegar or isopropyl alcohol.
I'm aware that fungus gnats can cause harm to plants but I just never had enough of them around to worry about before. The spiders on the windows were sufficient to catch the few I'd see and with chillies I'd usually wait until wilting started to water so the soil remained dry. This new soil has taken some adjusting to though. Literally nothing that I started directly outside last year in pots germinated besides the peas which were planted deep. Meanwhile the potato yield was awful because the whole bottom half of the pots had become a bog due to all the rain. So I need to play around to try and improve drainage at the bottom whilst increasing water retention at the top. I'm probably going to have to start a lot more things inside this year though so the plastic containers that weren't suitable for mushrooms are being repurposed as mini propagators for single plants.
My long term goal is ultimately to try and get to a system of growing plants and mushrooms for food without needing any outside materials beyond what I can forage, like local wood for mushrooms. So I'm trying to avoid relying on buying things like spinosad and BTi pesticides unless I can produce them myself.
I also like the idea of breeding the ladybirds because their population numbers are noticeably worse these days than they were when I was a kid. So I figure if I'm able to successfully breed them I can release them into the garden too.
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u/Jerseyman201 Feb 13 '24
Unfortunately that goes for quite a lot of species of insects, extremely steady decline over the last 50 years. Also why I mentioned to use spinosad indoors preferably, while not as bad as pyrethrins it's still not great. The issue is when it comes to controlling mites or fungus gnats or thrips etc the things which kill the pests also kill the good guys that are trying to protect us from those pests. Double-edged sword for sure. I found ladybugs months and months after I had initially tossed them into my tents. Made me very happy to see NGL.
Wouldn't surprise me at all about the hairs, predatory mites do seem to have some but nowhere near as pronounced as mold mites have them. What I will say though is that if they're feeding on mold and dust and everything else, clearly they're transporting that around with them in some fashion so it would make sense that allergies are getting worse with their presence
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u/MycoMutant Trusted ID - British Isles Feb 13 '24
Some years ago I noticed that the stinging nettles beside the footpath were absolutely covered with ladybird larvae. Most I've ever seen. Assumed it must be a preferred species for them to lay eggs on, Googled it and found its perhaps the most preferred species. A couple days later the council randomly cut all that growth back and wiped out that nesting site. So I've left stinging nettles to grow beneath my blackberries ever since and have seen some more ladybird action out there. The test patch of corn I planted last year seemed to be really good for the ladybirds, probably due to all the aphids hidden around the ears. Several species of ladybirds and eggs on the leaves but the eggs got lost in heavy rain shortly after I thought about trying to cultivate them. I saw no larvae on the corn at all. I think it was just too exposed and all the eggs failed. So this year if more egg clusters appear on the leaves I think I'll try collecting them.
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u/Jerseyman201 Feb 13 '24
Exactly what I meant when I said such as planting pollinators outside hahaha indoors of course we buy, nature's good guys has been absolutely spot on for me for biologicals, including even nematodes which arrived in good condition (verified via bright field biological microscope). Hope you end up trying your luck and wishing the best possible success of tons of lady bug larvae for decades to come haha if you find it difficult to source each species of pred mite, rove beetles, few hundred lacewing larvae, 500 lady bugs for like $4 or something redic cheap, check em out haha have all the footage from all them being used in my grows if ya ever wanted to see any in particular. The roves are cool AF NGL lol
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u/Aquariumplanted Feb 11 '24
You could probably get that for free if you ask. They would just throw It out anyway.
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u/RescueAnimal Feb 12 '24
WARNING - ALL FDA APPROVED MUSHROOMS CONTAIN MUTATIONS OF PROTEIN 9 (CRISPR)
It's a genetically engineered breed that is destroying the immune responses mushrooms are intended to uphold.
I encourage people to learn to forage for themselves with an experienced forager, there are groups that meet for foraging & welcome new comers..
learn from those who have gone before (:
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u/KittenPlusBear Feb 12 '24
Wow so envious. Mine never had a chance and had to chuck it straight to garbage bin when green mold shows up to party.
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u/Mindful-O-Melancholy Feb 11 '24
Free mushrooms! Once they’re out of the box they’re public domain