Our first run in the Lykyn grow box was lion's mane, and it was a lesson in patience: ten quiet days, then a slow build to a harvest on day 28. For round two we wanted to see the other end of the scale. We loaded a Pearl Oyster block, closed the lid, left it on Auto, and had two full clusters on the bench six days later.
The block
Same supplier as last time: a 2.2kg ready-to-fruit Pearl Oyster block (Pleurotus ostreatus) on a lupin-based substrate from Kai Kai Farm in Queensland. We still have no arrangement with them, we just like their blocks.
This one had been sitting in a cool fridge since it arrived, and it was about eight weeks past its batch date when it went in. Cold storage is the normal way to hold oyster blocks until you are ready for them, and as it turns out, coming out of the fridge did it no harm at all.
Setup, all of it
One X cut through the bag with a clean knife, block into the chamber, and "Oyster - Pearl / Grey" picked from the species list in the app. That profile targets 12 to 20°C and 85 to 92% humidity with high fresh air exchange, and Lykyn rates it Beginner. Auto Grow then runs the fans, humidifier and light from that profile. We did not touch the settings once.
The Pearl Oyster profile in the app, a few minutes after loading.
Day 0 to day 6
Left, day 0, straight from the fridge. Right, day 4, growth pushing through the full length of the cut.
Left, day 5, pins everywhere. Right, day 6, less than a day later. The chamber light gives them a blue tint in photos; in daylight they are a soft grey-beige.
The readings
Straight from the app, at the times we happened to check it.
| When | Humidity | Temperature |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0, 2:51pm | 85.0% | 18.3°C |
| Day 1, 1:52pm | 84.7% | 18.5°C |
| Day 1, 4:28pm | 90.6% | 18.8°C |
| Day 4, 8:58am | 89.2% | 15.9°C |
| Day 5, 9:14am | 90.4% | 15.7°C |
| Day 6, 8:59am | 88.9% | 17.0°C |
Two things stand out. Humidity sat in or right on the edge of the 85 to 92% target the whole way through with nobody touching it. And the morning temperatures dipped to around 16°C as our warehouse cooled overnight, which made no difference at all: this block fruited quickly anyway. Pearl Oysters are happy on the cool side, which makes them a very forgiving first grow for the cooler months.
The harvest
Out of the box in natural light, just before picking. Firm, clean, and all from a single X cut.
195g of clusters on the scales. Hand for scale on the right.
The two clusters came to 195g. We then scraped the stem bases and leftover small pins off the face of the block, which tidies it up for the next flush, and that added another 31g, for 226g in total off the first flush. That is from one cut, on a block that had spent eight weeks in the fridge, in under six days.
Lion's mane vs pearl oyster, same box
| Lion's mane | Pearl oyster | |
|---|---|---|
| Block | Kai Kai Farm, 2.2kg | Kai Kai Farm, 2.2kg |
| First visible growth | Day 10 | Day 4 |
| Looked fully grown | Day 22 | Day 6 |
| Harvested | Day 28 | Day 6 |
| What we did | Topped up the water once | Nothing |
If you want to see results quickly, or you are buying for someone who is new to this, start with oysters. If you are happy to wait for something a bit more special, lion's mane is worth it. The box handles both on the same settings screen.
Stems, caps and airflow
A block is not a one-off. After the first harvest it fruits again, typically two to three flushes in total, so this one went straight back into the chamber.
Our first-flush oysters grew tall, with longer stems and trumpet-shaped caps. That is how oysters grow when they are reaching for fresh air, and the usual fix is more airflow once pins appear. The app lets you switch just the fans to Custom and turn the fresh air up while humidity, light and everything else stays on the Auto recipe. We meant to try that on flush two, but the block moved faster than we did — see the update below — so we will run that test on a fresh block and write it up separately.
Update — second flush, 6 October
After the first harvest on Thursday 1 October the block went straight back in. No soak, no rest between grows, no change to the settings — still on Auto. Monday was a public holiday, so nobody looked at it again until Tuesday morning. This is what was waiting.
Five days from one harvest to the next, and this time it filled the chamber. Because it sat over the long weekend it went past where we would normally pick: the stems ran tall and the caps opened out into wide funnels. Not textbook form, but it grew fast, it grew big, and it looks pretty cool.
The short version
A fridge-cold Pearl Oyster block, one X cut, the Beginner profile on Auto, and nothing else from us. First growth on day 4, a full harvest on day 6, 226g off the first flush, and a second flush filling the chamber five days after that.
Where the blocks come from
The box does not come with a block. Ready-to-fruit blocks are sold by growers around Australia from around $24 each, and most ship nationally. We used Kai Kai Farm again for this run. Anything up to 2.7kg fits, which covers the 2.2kg blocks most growers sell. For the full rundown on setup, running costs and cleaning between grows, see our first test.