This has been, for me personally, the absolute shortest wait time from a colonized jar of grain, to getting harvestable fruits. I think it was less than a week from taking the spawn out of the jar that I had visual knots of primordia forming pins, which cuts down dramatically on my grow time.

And since this way of fruiting is a bit different from traditional monotubs, I’ll outline the major differences in their general method so I can coin the abbreviation for the non traditional technique as FaRT (Fairy Ring Tek).

We’re gonna skip to the part where you’ve been a very good lil mycologist and you already have your wide-mouth jar or UB bag of colonized spawn, nice, solid, and ready to birth.

Don’t break up the jar or bag of spawn

Instead you’ll use the shape of the bag or wide-mouth jar to your advantage, being the cunning cultivator you are. Before you slide that mycelial mass out, you’re gonna break out those handy looking canvas/textile fabric eco-friendly potting bags with handles that you got on Amazon AGES ago.

You sprinkle some bulk sub in the bottom of the potting bag (preferably enough bulk substrate so that the spawn can stay close to level with the top of the potting bag), and THEN birth that UNBROKEN jar of colonized spawn into your eco friendly fabric potting bag. Fill the open spaces between the mass of spawn and the bag with more bulk sub, keeping the spawn centered. Add a 1/4-1/2” layer of bulk sub to cover/case your spawn.

You have now successfully FaRT-ed and you can set your bag to fruiting conditions since you’re rather confident in your preparation of pasteurized bulk substrate. Optionally if you would rather give your bag of substrate more time to colonize, you’ll set your bag into incubation conditions and lightly set some foil/plastic wrap atop the bag to cover the substrate for another day or two prior to fruiting.

I prefer FaRT-ing compared to traditional monotub s2b and fruiting for many reasons:

-by keeping the spawn an unbroken mass, you skip additional recovery time often associated with usual mono tub s2b break&shake, potentially lowering contam risk as well. The first flush will almost always be right out of the top of the bag; you’ll see the circular “fairy ring” of mycelium grow, then a ring of pins will follow shortly after.

-fabric bags of substrate are pretty easy to dunk/hydrate

-no risk of flooded substrate containers or standing water in fabric potting bags

-fabric potting bags offer breathability as well as the perfect surface microclimate for pins

-your pins literally grow THRU the potting bag fabric, secondary flushes and onward will likely fruit straight thru the side of the bag with zero issues

-I’ll say it again for emphasis: SIDE PINS NOW GROW THRU YOUR SUBSTRATE CONTAINER TO FULL MATURITY. No more smushed or rotted side pins in your Tupperware or plastic liner. If you leave the potting bag around your substrate long enough, the mycelium will actually start colonizing the bag.

-a potting bag with handles is relatively easier to handle/maneuver than a sterilite tub or plastic liner filled with substrate.

-once your bulk substrate is fully colonized, the bag can be cut/removed so you can now fruit what seems to resemble an enormous white BRF cake.