Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms

Whether you are a gourmet chef, a wholesaler, or a hobbyist, mushroom cultivation can be not only fun but rewarding as well. For thousands of years mushrooms have been used for medicinal purposes and in a wide variety of dishes. Even though there are several guidelines and precautions you must be aware of when growing mushrooms to ensure a successful harvest, everyone can become a mycologist and it is easy to learn how.

Supplies

• Because mushrooms are in an entire biological kingdom of their own, they are grown from spores rather than from seeds. In order to grow a mushroom colony you must first buy a spore syringe. These can be bought at the Spore Bank website (see Resources). Once you have your syringe, you need mason jars, a lighter, rubbing alcohol, and a substrate that you will put into the mason jars to feed the spores. Substrates include wild bird seed, brown rice flour, and whole grain. Wild bird seed and brown rice flour are recommended for beginners.

Sterilization

• Now that you have all the supplies, you need to put the substrate of your choice in the jars and poke four holes into each of the lids. Proceed to fill the holes with polyfill. This will help prevent contaminants from getting in. Sterilization also prevents contamination. You will do this by placing the jars in a pressure cooker. (For pressure cooker instructions see Resources.) After you have removed the jars from the pressure cooker let them cool for ten hours.

Inoculation

• Once the jars have cooled, bring them to a cool dry room where you will inoculate them. To make sure that everything is sterilized, take the needle of the syringe and light the tip with the lighter. Now take a cotton ball and swab the end with alcohol. This will cool down the syringe and prevent contaminants from spreading. You will then insert the syringe into the jar and inject 100 ccs of spore liquid into the substrate. Do this for each of the four holes of each jar while flaming and swabbing the tip after each injection.

Incubation

• After the inoculation period is the incubation period. This is when you wait for the white cobweb-like material called mycelium to grow. To have a proper incubation place the jars in a container out of direct sunlight where the temperature is around 86 degrees. If you are having trouble reaching this temperature you can place the jars under a heating pad, which you can get at a pet store. Check a few times a day for mold or other contaminants that may have spread. Immediately throw out any jars that turn black, green, or any color besides pure white. Resist the impulse to check and disturb your jars all day.

Fruiting

• Fruiting begins when the substrate in the jars has become totally colonized with the white mycelium. When this occurs you will place the cakes onto plastic lids in a plastic food container. The bottom of the container must then be filled with a one-inch layer of perlite, which will help create moisture. This will be your fruiting chamber. Several times a day open up the lid and use it to fan outside air into the chamber. After a week or so you may start to see little mushrooms called "pinheads" sprout. This is a good sign. Feel free to pick them at whatever size they grow to.