Cooking soil

[Mastrmasn]

So I mixed a batch of soil 3 days ago. It's about 40% coco 40% EWC and 20% perlite. To that i added alfalfa, glacial rock dust, azomite, gypsum, ground oyster shell, epsom salt and canola.
This was added to about 2 gallons of soil that had been sitting for 2 months. Unused SS from current grow.
I open up the rubbermaid today and see a bunch of little white spots that weren't there yesterday along with the mycelium starting. But these spots are new to me. The soil smells musty like mold. What is this and is it good or bad?

And no it's not perlite lol.

 

[Glookies1]

Could be mold. The container needs to breath. Don’t seal it. It needs air circulation while it cooks

 

[Nunyabiz]

That's no problem.
You want fungus, especially if its mycorrhazae, even if its saprophytic its good.
I add Gro-kashi under my mulch to get fungus to grow and the worms love it.
That looks like mycelium, that's all a sign of life, you want fungus, bacteria in your soil that's what helps break down the organic matter to create nutrients.

 

[bobrown14]

@Nunyabiz gets it.

All good when you see stuff growing in soil. Kinda what we are shooting for here.

Keep a lid on your container. There's plenty of oxygen there for the micro-herd. Water it a little bit say 1/2 cup of water put the lid on it. You should see much more growing pretty quick.

 

[Emilya Green]

So I mixed a batch of soil 3 days ago. It's about 40% coco 40% EWC and 20% perlite. To that i added alfalfa, glacial rock dust, azomite, gypsum, ground oyster shell, epsom salt and canola.
This was added to about 2 gallons of soil that had been sitting for 2 months. Unused SS from current grow.
I open up the rubbermaid today and see a bunch of little white spots that weren't there yesterday along with the mycelium starting. But these spots are new to me. The soil smells musty like mold. What is this and is it good or bad?

And no it's not perlite lol.

I see a couple of important omissions in your soil mix, and one of the biggest reasons this is not smelling like soil is a lack of a tiny bit of humic acid... the three acids that combine organics into a cohesive soil. You might also want to complete your nutrient profile in this soil by adding some bone meal, blood meal, and some high P bat guano and some dolomite lime to provide some pH buffering along with its mineral content.

 

[Mastrmasn]

I have all that on hand except the guano. I'll mix it in. Since then it does smell like soil.