
The world of mushroom growing - sergioisidoro
https://medium.com/@smaisidoro/the-dirty-awkward-and-amazing-world-of-mushroom-growing-d6bad40e6a30#.rj5ew0foi
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pluteoid
>All the techniques that I learned can be applied to cultivate any kind of
mushroom...

If only this were true. Sterile culture techniques only work for the subset of
species that aren't obligately mycorrhizal (forming mutualisms with plants),
parasitic, or that have other complex ecological requirements. Thus there are
all kinds of delicious and interesting species we can't grow so easily, or at
all.

But I have a lot of respect for home cultivators like this guy, who go beyond
the grow kit stage. It's straightforward to culture and fruit many mushroom
species in a properly equipped microbiology lab. But when you're in your
kitchen, making do with "gloveboxes"[1] instead of HEPA laminar flow hoods,
stovetop pressure cookers instead of autoclaves, and fridges and terrariums
instead of programmable incubator units, things can get really challenging.

[1] [http://www.instructables.com/id/Glove-bag-for-Mushroom-
Growi...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Glove-bag-for-Mushroom-Growing-and-
Mycology/)

~~~
Alex3917
You actually don't need especially sterile conditions to grow oyster
mushrooms. I've done this tek, it works pretty well:

[https://courses.biology.washington.edu/biol440-spr16/folders...](https://courses.biology.washington.edu/biol440-spr16/folders/download/48)

Also the mycelium has a pleasant almond smell, so that's a nice whenever you
go downstairs to check on them. The hardest part is figuring out what to tell
the Petco employees when they ask what kind of cat you have.

~~~
pluteoid
The tek you link starts from grain spawn. You don't need sterile conditions at
all to propagate loads of mushroom species if you're already starting with a
robust dikaryotic culture, especially those of wood-decay (lignicolous)
species. That's one principle of "spawn". And there are some dirtier methods
that can work, e.g. just dumping spore water onto suitable unsterilized
outdoor mass substrates.

But I've seen home cultivators who manage to do things like culture single
spore isolates, breed and select dikaryons, clone wild specimens, and fruit
very fussy species, all indoors with basic and improvised equipment. That
deserves respect.

~~~
Alex3917
Yeah I've seen the instructions online for building your own flow hood, that
whole subculture is pretty nuts. If you haven't read Hamilton Morris's story
about the guy who created the Penis Envy psilocybe strain, it's pretty
interesting both because of the content but also because it involves a lot of
folks you probably know or at least know of if you're into the amateur
mycology thing.

[http://harpers.org/archive/2013/07/blood-
spore/](http://harpers.org/archive/2013/07/blood-spore/)

~~~
aedron
That is a wonderfully written article.

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finnh
The article references a mushroom body as the largest on earth [0], which is
true by area. But the largest by mass is a stand of aspen trees [1]. Because
aspen clones can regenerate vegetatively from their underground roots, they in
some ways can be thought of as "a fungus with tree-like appendages" (I forgot
where I read that, sadly).

[0] [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141114-the-biggest-
organism...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141114-the-biggest-organism-in-
the-world)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\))

------
roel_v
But then what about mushroom farms? If everything needs to be so sterile, how
do the commercial mushroom farm I've visited work? I know of one that is
basically in a few stables next to other stables where cows are kept, with the
sterility you' expect from the average farm; and another one inside old
limestone quarries, because the temperature there is low, constant and it's
moist. Not the most sterile place I've seen either - they do daily tours even!
Is the sterile thing only for some species?

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
Obviously wild mushrooms aren't grown in sterile conditions, either. However,
wild mushrooms have the luxury of only needing to grow in those unlikely
places where conditions are just right for them to thrive. If you hope to grow
a mushroom monoculture on a rich media (e.g. grains), you'll need to avoid the
other fungi and bacteria that would easily out-compete your desired species.

Once the mycelia is established, it's quite robust, at least relatively
speaking. Un-colonized substrate, however, will readily harbor trichoderma,
cobweb mold, etc. that will spread and kill your mushrooms.

On a commercial farm, you're typically not looking at the colonization phase.
If you see actual fruiting bodies, these are mushrooms at the very end of the
crop cycle where contamination is no longer a risk. The initial colonization
is often done on pasteurized substrate in a clean environment. Strict
sterility is neither economical nor required, but effort must be made to give
the desired species ideal conditions for growth. And then, contamination is a
significant risk for the farmer. Once the mushrooms have been cased, exposure
to fresh air is an important pinning trigger and contamination is not an
issue.

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zupreme
Am I the only one who noticed how he deftly handled the magic mushroom
question?

To the casual eye, you'd think he denied growing them. If you read carefully
though, he did not deny it.

~~~
Lapsa
I plan to someday grow and use magicshrooms although i have no prior
experience with psychedelics or growing mushrooms. this topic shouldn't be
that big of a deal

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mikereedell
Reminds me of when I lived in southeast PA by Kennett Square, a town with a
lot of mushroom farms. I was curious as to why they were in that area. Turns
out you need hay and horse urine to grow mushrooms. That area has a lot of hay
farms and a lot of horse farms.

Riding a bicycle by the farms when they were changing over a grow house on a
humid summer morning is an olfactory experience I won't forget.

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mkoryak
someone pointed me to a site that sells mushroom pellets that you stick into
logs to grow. ill try it soon.

something like this:

[http://www.shii-
take.de/irw_lang.454e47.list.4b41543333.html](http://www.shii-
take.de/irw_lang.454e47.list.4b41543333.html)

or this

[https://www.mushroomadventures.com/](https://www.mushroomadventures.com/)

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v4n4d1s
In Switzerland you can buy mushroom-growing kits at some bigger COOP stores:
[http://pilzbox.ch/de/](http://pilzbox.ch/de/) (link is german /french only,
but it has pictures)

I tried it a year ago and it was really awesome, you just have to keep the
substrate moist and wait about two weeks.

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Alex3917
For what it's worth, false morels are only considered edible in certain areas.
E.g. in New England they're considered deadly poisonous, but they're
considered a delicacy in Cincinnati. There are a lot of different species, and
also possibly gene transfer across species, so it's not really clear what's
going on.

~~~
tenkabuto
Sorry, do you mean that they are _considered_ edible or inedible in these
regions due to varying conceptions of "edible", or do you mean that the false
morels of some regions are poisonous while those in others are not?

~~~
Alex3917
The latter, although sort of both. In some areas the false morels are mostly
edible, while in other areas they are mostly poisonous, but it's not really
possible to figure out what exactly the distributions are for any given area.
So in some areas they're eaten by tradition, while in other areas they're not
eaten by tradition, and it's difficult to say whether or not any given region
is 'correct'.

The phrase I've heard is that they're considered the world's most delicious
mushroom, that occasionally kills you.

~~~
sergioisidoro
Ok, that I did not know. Maybe they vary in concentration of gyromitrin? Or is
it just folk knowledge?

Eating large quantities of it is really not advisable, and you are recommended
to drink lots of water afterwards.

As far as I know, and please do your research first if you wish to prepare it,
you should clean them thoroughly, and throw away the water. Cooking has to be
done properly by boiling twice to denaturate gyromitrin, and rinsing again.

[http://www.dlc.fi/~marianna/gourmet/morel.htm](http://www.dlc.fi/~marianna/gourmet/morel.htm)

> Often they seem to think that their Nordic colleagues must be totally
> ignorant of the false morel's toxicity.

> The truth is, however, that everyone born in the Nordic countries knows —
> especially in Finland — that the false morel is lethally toxic if eaten raw
> or incorrectly processed, and that even inhaling its fumes can cause
> poisoning symptoms.

And yes, most mushroom related deaths [citation needed, I think I read about
central Europe with some references to Poland] are related to the false morel,
but due to misclassification (people mistake it with the morel and might eat
it raw).

Edit: you're right there seems not to be a consensus...

> Note that these instructions only apply to the false morel fungi growing,
> picked or/and sold in Finland (Gyromitra esculenta) and do not apply to any
> false morels (Gyromitra esculenta) growing elsewhere in the world

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goldenkey
What about the spores -- after these pseudoplastics are processed - are they
totally safe in terms of air quality? Aren't some spores able to withstand
immense heat/cold and very harsh conditions?

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andreapaiola
I live near the best site in the world for porcini (boletus)...

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andreapaiola
Mushrooms!

[https://m.facebook.com/apaiola/albums/115718195152001/?ref=b...](https://m.facebook.com/apaiola/albums/115718195152001/?ref=bookmarks)

