Wow really nice

Thx,
do they always get that big?? I've never seen them growing, i have only seen them when they were already cooked. They are still very young and some of the stems are as thick as a quarter. Seems like one or two is enough to get full.

A long long time ago in a land not so far away...
I had some with really big ones. Sometimes I would get lots of smaller ones, and sometimes I would get a few really big ones.
Really depends on all those variables that we try to controll. But it looks like you have a great fruiting strain there. It will be cool to see how much you get out of the next flush or two. I guess it all comes down to how much biomass they convert to "fruit". And all that P. Staments stuff...
If you could get the block to only fruit from one or two places, it would use up just about as much food and make a big one or two (or so they would have you believe).


Thom

I'm gonna try to make some cultures out of some of these, so I can preserve the strain.
My Agaricus are just about ready to fruit, been incubating them in 70-80 degree temps for a week with a small casing layer on top. I just cut them open and saw some mycelium popping up through the casing in a few spots. Set up the humidity tent on, moving them to 40-60 degree temp area (basement). I've never grown or photographed Agaricus bisporus or shiitake so this is new and exciting for me!

Good work c allthough it looks like you can let the humidity drop a bit now that the block is fruiting. Tricky' is right, fresh shitakes are great but you know that now, or will in a day or 2. Good luck with the Agaricus.
Here's a pic of a block I did last year, yes, shitakes can get big.

nice pic,
i actually had just sprayed them down in my pics, so they appear pretty wet. Right now I'm just giving one mist per day and using a regular plastic humidity tent. They are in an area where the temps are pretty low.
I better start thinking on ways to preserve them, cause the caps are looking to be the size of a grapefruit. I could probably get a full meal out of one of those big boys!