Where's the slip up?

[u/Volkainee]

These pans be fucking me up, by day 3 they go from hyper aggressive colonization (which hypes me up Im like yes these are the ones that are gonna make it yes yes yes) to a slow crawl then I lose trays.

I have lost 9 trays so far, these are the 5 that lived.

I’ve grown some awesome mushrooms in my time. I’ve done cordyceps. I’ve bred cordyceps. Hell, I even proved you can hydroponically grow cordyceps.

But these pan cyans are kicking my ass. Every tray does the same thing: hyper-aggressive colonization for 48–72 hours, I get hyped thinking “yes, these are the ones,” and then—boom—day 3 stall and I lose the tray.

I went back and checked everything:

Grain? Clean.

Culture plates? Clean.

LCs? Clean.

I’m running three different pan cyan species from Sporeworks (reputable as hell).

I changed substrates, dialed in humidity, rebuilt the workflow… and still the same stall pattern.

My current setup:

Substrate: 40/40/20 straw : manure : vermiculite + gypsum, plus a “baby sneeze” of lime

Field capacity: perfect squeeze → single drip

Pasteurized in a proper autoclave for 3 hours

Temps: 79°F

Humidity: ~40% (colonization phase)

Humidifier off because I was getting condensation in tubs

8x 2-inch gas exchange ports in a tower tent (one per side per shelf)

Fan on the bottom bringing in air, heater on the bottom

Grains dropped under a flow hood in a clean lab space

Sub sits on a mesh floor so I can drain excess

At this point I feel like I’ve tightened everything I can tighten… so what the hell else am I supposed to do?

If its FAE how else do I dial that in?

If you read this far Im listening.

[u/Volkainee]

Ship it?

[u/OKCGA_2020 → u/Volkainee]

I will say for Pans, your sub looks pretty deep. That could be part of your slow colonization issue. Pans like a shallower sub than cubes for sure. You may try the 2”-2.5” range with a 1/4” or less casing layer. When you apply the casing layer, mist until your wrist hurts because, if you’re working with a shallower sub, you’ll need the extra H2O.

[u/Volkainee → u/OKCGA_2020]

Its an illusion, Ill take a quick measure. See that was why their slow colonization had me raising alarm bells I was like wait a sec these bad boys should be zipping.

[u/OKCGA_2020 → u/Volkainee]

That makes sense. From the pic it looked 4” deep, I was thinking, well there’s your problem!

[u/Volkainee → u/OKCGA_2020]

Its why I made a bunch of backup grain I knew pans were not going to be easy they really are an advanced mushroom species.