Stage 1: Colonization: Things You'll Need

Fungal Cultivation [The Simple Tek]
When growing any type of mushroom (and this technique will work for any decomposing
mushroom species [saprophyte]), there are three main stages to consider: colonization,
spawning and fruiting. If you want more detailed information on cultivation, the book Growing
the Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets is the cultivator’s bible. Also, the
website www.shroomery.org, while overall focused on the hallucinogenic mushrooms, has
great information on growing every kind of mushroom.
Stage 1: Colonization
This is the initial stage of growth, where you establish the mycelial network on an initial
nutrient base.
Things you’ll need:

Mycobag
Spore syringe (many sites sell various ‘strains,’ but the species is what’s really important)
Time
Background:
This is the simplest part of cultivation, where you want to get a strong white mycelial growth
distributed throughout the nutrient brick in the mycobag (usually composed of wild bird seed
and other grains). The mycelium is analogous to the root system of a plant, but is actually the
main part of the mushroom organism, where the actual mushrooms are simple reproductive
structures. The mycobags come with instructions, but this is what you do for this stage:
Things you’ll do:

Take your syringe, attach the tip, and use a lighter on the tip until it turns red. Then wipe it with
the alcohol square that came with the mycobag, and also wipe the injection port on the bag.
Shake up the syringe (spores will tend to settle and clump together) and inject 1-2 ccs into the
bag. Save the syringe for later (even though, once you have mushrooms, you can make your
own), keep it refrigerated for the best chances of long-term storage, but spores do fine in many
environments).
Now you’ll want to store the bag in a dark and somewhat warm place (room temperature or
warmer is best, a warmer temperature, up to 78F or so will cause quicker growth). Check on it
every week or two for growth as well as miscolored (especially green) areas. If you spot these,
keep a very close eye on the bag; if the mycelium is established well enough it may be able to
fight the infection (it is usually mold, simply another fungal species competing for nutrients),
but likely the mycelium will recede and die and you’ll have to start again. When the outside
looks around 70% colonized, massage the bag to break up the nutrient and expose more area
to the mycelium, this will enable faster colonization. You’ll want to do this 2 or 3 times, and
then when the bag looks fully colonized (completely white) you can move to the next stage.
Stage 2: Spawning
When your mycobag(s) is/are ready, you’ll want to construct your fruiting chamber, which will
house your fungus friends for the rest of the process.
Things you’ll need for the fruiting chamber:

Large clear plastic bin (~18” high)
A dremel drill
Polyfil
Thermometer
Hygrometer (humidty measure)
Building the chamber:

Cut 6” diameter holes about halfway up the bin every 8” or so. You should have around 3 holes
on the long sides of the bin and 1 on the shorter sides. Stuff these holes with polyfil, which will
act like filters to keep out contaminants. Get a reptile terrarium thermometer and hygrometer,
because these will adhere to the side of your chamber and allow easy viewing of the conditions
within.
Things you’ll need to spawn:

Your fully colonized mycobag(s)
Fruiting chamber
Aluminum pans
Coir (obtainable from any reptile shop)
Large pot
Meat thermometer
Rubbing alcohol and/or bleach
Lysol
Perlite
Preparing the substrate:

Coir is your substrate, and what you will spawn the colonized mycobag to. Before you can use
the coir, however, you need to expand it and pasteurize it. Follow the instructions on the coir to
expand it, this usually involves adding a certain amount of water to a brick. Mix them in a large
pot, insert your meat thermometer, and bring the mixture to a temperature of 165F while
stirring. Keep it at that temperature for 5-10 minutes, and you’re good. Make sure the
temperature is at least 165F throughout the mixture.
Spawning:
This part requires the most attention to detail or else you could end up with a contamination, in
which case you’ll have to toss everything in your chamber and clean it excessively. Spray Lysol
all around you, and wipe down your fruiting chamber with rubbing alcohol and a small amount
of bleach. Don’t inhale the fumes too much. Be very obsessive about cleanliness as you are
building an ideal environment for any fungus to grow and spores are everywhere, but you only
want your selected mushroom to grow. After cleaning, add a 4” or so layer of perlite to the
chamber, and spray it down. Clean your aluminum pans similarly. Make sure you are regularly
spraying Lysol into the air around you, wear a mask and make sure you’re in a smaller room
(you can step out to breathe better regularly).
Now you can mix the substrate and spawn from the mycobag, a 1:3 spawn to substrate ratio is
usually good. A higher ratio means quicker recolonization but a lower yield efficiency, while a
smaller ratio takes longer to recolonize (and therefore has a higher chance of contamination)
but allows you to spread your spawn among more tins. Break up the chunks of spawn and mix it
with the coir, add it to the tins, make sure they are about ¾ full. Place the tins in your fruiting
chamber, close it, and put the chamber some place where the temperature will be in the mid to
upper 70s and humidity should always be at 100%, if it isn’t spray a fine mist of water into the
chamber every so often. Start fanning the chamber with its lid daily. Once the new substrate is
fully colonized, you can move to the final stage.
Stage 3: Fruiting
The mycelium is now starting to form tiny clumps, which will begin to form primordia, which
are like tiny mushrooms. With proper care, they’ll swell in size fairly quickly and be ready for
harvest.
Things you’ll need:

A misting spray bottle
Food dehydrator
Things you’ll do:

As soon as 100% colonization is achieved, begin a 12 hour on/off light cycle, preferably with
natural light range CFLs (a light in your closet is sufficient). Light isn’t super important, but it’s
good to try and mimic the natural environment as much as possible for best results. Fan out
and then mist the fruiting chamber once a day, trying your best to keep the humidity as close to
100% as possible (the perlite helps greatly in this) and the temperature is now in the low to mid
70s. Watch your babies grow, they should be ready for harvest in a week or two.
Harvesting:
There is a special time in the fruit body life cycle to harvest, the best time is as soon as the thin
membrane that connects the edge of the cap to the body (or stipe)—the veil—breaks apart.
Your goal, however, is to harvest all of the mushrooms in a tin at the same time so a new
harvest (flush) can come up together, so you’ll want a majority of the mushrooms to have their
veils broken, the earlier the better. If you wait too long, they will start releasing spores, which
makes for a colorful mess (depending on the species you grow) in your chamber. The best way
to harvest a mushroom is to grab near the bottom and lightly twist, and it should cleanly come
off the mycelial system. If some flesh stays behind, it will be incorporated back into the
mycelium. After a harvest give the harvested tin another mist spray or two, and continue on. It
will produce more mushrooms, and you can do this as long as you the substrate can support it.
This method has the ability to cause many more flushes than most other growing techniques…
the reason for this is not yet clear. After a few flushes, be sure to check the bottoms of your
tins. Mycelial enzymes are extremely corrosive (which is why mycelium is great for
ecoremediation), and after a few flushes you’ll notice it eating through the tin. If so, try to
transfer the organism to another tin or put one underneath so enzymes don’t spill into the
perlite. I’d recommend gloves for this because the liquids can be mildly irritating. The mycelium
will digest and break down the aluminum, but it shouldn’t be much of a health hazard
(mushrooms used to clean petroleum spills were found to have no petroleum content
afterward, so take that for what you will). After you harvest, you will want to sit the mushrooms
in the food dehydrator at a fairly low setting until they get dry enough to cleanly break apart
(but not rubbery). They should be about 10% of their wet weight.
Spore prints:
You may want to save a record of your best fruits for use later, to do this you will make a spore
print. This entails twisting the opened cap off, placing it on a square of tin foil and putting a cup
over it to trap moisture and letting it sit for a few hours. You will be left with millions of spores,
fold the foil in half and store in a Ziploc. You can later make spore syringes from these and you’ll
have a constant supply of spores.

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Fungal Cultivation [The Simple Tek]

Things you’ll need:

Things you’ll do:

Things you’ll need for the fruiting chamber:

Building the chamber:

Things you’ll need to spawn:

Preparing the substrate:

Things you’ll need:

Things you’ll do:

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