These past two days have been heavily focused on determining a reliable method for spawn production. The first day we purchased more buckets, groundnuts, sorghum, and flour. We tried multiple combinations of substrates to grow our spawn. The groundnuts pasteurized well and easily dried. We directly inoculated the nuts in a bucket. The next day there was no condensation or bugs inside the bucket which was a good sign. We do think that the large size of the groundnuts will make it hard for the spawn to grow and for inoculation use so it is most likely not a sustainable method. We then tried pasteurized sorghum with dry straw to absorb excess moisture which performed pretty well by the next day. There was some condensation, but it shows promise for the future. We then did the same procedure but with rice mixed with flour to collect the excess water. It did have a bit more moisture collection within a day but we can increase the amount of flour added to avoid this in the future. We are unsure how well the spawn will colonize with the flour but it will have no problem with the straw. Our previous buckets with cloth beneath or as a cover are not performing well and one was contaminated today. They will all most likely be thrown out in the coming days. Again, our main problem is having our substrate be too wet which creates a good environment for anaerobic organisms to cause contamination. The following day we decided to try makeshift pressure cooking to sterilize our substrate as this is the true method that we have tested at Lehigh with consistent results. It is a pain to do without a pressure cooker and electricity but we purchased charcoal, a large metal pot, a towel, and glass jars to create a high pressure environment. We will put the pot over the hot coals to boil the water inside. The glass jars will be sitting on top of straw to separate them from direct heating from the bottom of the pot and the top of the pot will be covered with a towel before the cover is put on. This will create a weak seal so that pressure can build and the pot can reach higher temperatures for sterilization. We filled our jars with different combinations of sorghum (which Will figured out is really cous cous here), rice, and combinations with straw to see if the excess moisture matters. After four hours of sterilization, the jars were too hot to inoculate so we will wait until tomorrow to do so. All went well with the process besides taking a very long time to complete sterilization. The team has high hopes for the sterilized substrate but will have to hear from Jawara about the fruits of our labor as it will be ready days after we leave.