New to cultivation & mycology, where to start?

[Melange]

I'm starting out getting stuff together to start growing various types of edible mushrooms and was wondering where people start out in terms of getting spores or cloning. Would it work to get store-bought mushrooms and trying to clone them?

On a related and unrelated note, how does someone start with the spore-ring here? If I don't have anything interesting to start with how do I get something that I can then exchange with someone else? I'm not inclined to import spore prints from overseas, since I've read conflicting things about that. I'm also uncertain about identifying mushrooms from hunting missions.

And also, how easy is it to identify mushroom varieties from the spores with a microscope? Or is it that the spore colours are enough for that?

Thanks for the help!

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[satyr]

resource wise:

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Gourmet-Medicinal-Mushrooms-Stamets/dp/1580081754

http://www.shroomery.org/

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Melange]

Cool, thanks for the links. I'll see about getting that book, it looks pretty comprehensive.

I was planning on using agar in petri dishes, I've collected what is necessary for making brown rice flour cakes, as that seemed to be straight forward. Do you know whether golden oysters would grow on these, or perhaps would some wood have to form part of the mix?

I've been looking for pressure cookers on ebay, most seem to be around 5-7 litres in size. That seems quite small, though.

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Melange]

Yes, I had been mixing my research a little, as my interest in growing edible mushrooms came from an initial interest in psychoactive mushrooms, which lead to an interest in mycology and identifying different varieties from spores, and so on. When I started thinking of cultivating edible mushrooms I referred to the pages that were about psychoactives, I just assumed that the growing mediums were not so specific. That was at Shroomery, so yes I did wade through a bunch of vagina conversations, though I didn't see as many breast-related threads as I could have.

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Melange]

Cool, thanks for the tips. If you are making notes as you go along with your observations of the variables when growing mycelium then the information may be of interest and use at some point, you never know. It would be interesting to set up a database of similar observations, and characteristics maintained by amateur enthusiasts, maybe a number of new strains would be discovered by using a crowd-sourcing approach.

It would be an interesting irony if the illegality of certain mushrooms lead to people growing their own, and investigating various different strains, leading to discoveries that might be of benefit to medicine and other sciences. There is a metaphor there, about things growing in the dark.

Anyway, thanks for the help! I might take you up on your offer about a golden oyster culture, if it is not too much trouble. What form does a culture come it?

[goneski]

Personally, I'd stay away from BRF cakes.

I didn't get a very good yield from my cakes (i'm putting it down to temp / weather, as I did everything correctly)

and I got the shits with babying them all the time and fretting over whether or not they were being fanned/misted too much or too little.

If you get a pressure cooker, do grains and spawn to a monotub. I'll get a higher yield for less work.

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Bigred]

Don't buy the mushroom cultivator off a person called phone-galaxy.au on Ebay they told me the book was in Australia and now its being getting sent from overseas. so i paid $50 for a book i could have got at half price, Plus I have to wait the extra time was so geed up to get this book. Does any one know the

best way to go about complaining about it, is that faulty advertising i was pretty much scammed

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Bigred]

cheers psylo but it said 1 available so i assumed it ment 1 available in the Sydney warehouse i could of gotten the book half the price from the states and waited the same time I just find that to be dishonest oh well she got me not much i can do about it now

[Melange]

Psylo- thanks for the help, I'll send a Pm!

I have a large plastic tub in which I had planned on growing the mushrooms. I had wondered about cutting arm-holes and using that as a sterile area to deal with the petri dishes etc, could I then plug up the holes with cotton wool and use as a grow tub?

Therefore- thanks, that looks very informative!

[BentoSpawn]

It would be best to keep a tub specifically for sterile work, if you also use it for cultivation you will be growing all sorts of nasties that will fill the tub with mold spores which are extremely difficult to kill. Giagantic arm size holes also will not be easy to simply fill up with polyfil.

Im not saying it cant be done, but if you can afford $8 for a separate plastic fruiting chamber i would definitely go that way instead

[Psylo]

x

Edited March 23, 2013 by Psylo

[Distracted]

The shroomery has been my best starting reference point, the books i've bought have all been very old using outdated teks. (doesn't mean there aren't new books... I haven't needed to check, the ones I bought were just for my collection than anything else)

Just go to the cultivation forum and check out detailed grow logs and teks.

I spent months reading that forum hours a day before I even touched a print. I just found all the concepts so terribly new and interesting though that i couldn't help myself

[Bigred]

I just got the mushroom cultivator looks like a great book what would be the best book for a noob

Edited September 26, 2012 by bigred82

[goneski]

I've got The Mushroom Cultivator and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms.

However, I read that some of the info in The Mushroom Cultivator is outdated.

I'm hoping if I read it first, GGMM will then correct any of the outdated info.. I'm not sure if it does though.

Is anyone able to advise what info is incorrect in The Mushroom Cultivator?

I think the incubation temps, for example, are too high / incorrect.

I suppose the best bet is to read up, and if you decide to follow anything in the book, check online first to make sure the information

is still current and relevant -- as The Mushroom Cultivator was published in 1983 (before I was born) and things have definitely changed since then.

Edited September 26, 2012 by SYNeR

[Bigred]

yeah it tells me 30 c for incubating at that temp dormant bacteria would be a nightmare but i cant wait to get ggmm as well

[GoOnThen]

Shroomery is a bit of a joke, unless you enjoy trawling through pages of teenage bullshit about suicide, anal sex, angry moms, the smell of vagina, the use of RC's and photos of titties.

Some of the best resources I recently found were two books by myco-Guru Paul Stamets. The can be purchased at half the price of local retailers, again from the USA (despite being an Aussie website)

http://www.fishpond....s/9781580081757

http://www.fishpond....n/9780961079802

EDIT: sorry Satyr, I didn't realise your Amazon link went to Stamets.

 

I actually think the shroomery is a brilliant resource and if you stay with the cultivation, gourmet and medicinal mushrooms and grow log forums you cant go wrong just stay out of places like the pub and the like unless you are into the that sort of crap.

The ethnobotanical garden is also a cool forum these days as the mods don't put up with much crap talk there any more.

Cheers

Got

[Mycot]

I just got the mushroom cultivator looks like a great book what would be the best book for a noob

 

The best book is the one you've just got but as SYNeR mentions it is a little dated with greater knowledge and sophistication in cultivation techniques having been developed since it was published. The book is still a good basic guide though.

SYNeR also also gives good advice as regards updating knowledge in any areas that one wishes to be brought up to speed in.

While the Shroomery is a great resource, in my opinion it is nowhere near as good as Mycotopia for learning cultivation techniques.

[Bigred]

any way back to the topic YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL a few times its part of the shroom god's way dont get upset learn where you went wrong

in the industry we call it a vector . Soon you will develop your own tek and you will be eating the best gourmet mushrooms not that crap you

get from korea last night i had portabelo's and the flavour was just wow shroomery is a good site for info and so is mycotopia but there is

no love like on the sab if you have questions post them in tips for noobs that's the idea of the thread to help noobs 12 months ago

i was just growing contam after contam now i can isolate strains and grow some of the best edible portabelo dont be scared off by a few contam's

its just part of the hobby

[Melange]

Thanks for the tips! I've been slowly picking up supplies here and there, I've gotten a bunch of petri dishes and agar and so on to see how I go growing mycelium. I grew some field mushrooms from one of those readymade boxes you get at Bunnings, and I made a spore print from a large mushroom- I'll see how I go growing mycelium from that, to practice smearing the spores in patterns and transferring. Psylo was kind enough to fix me up with some golden oyster culture, so I'll see about working with those two varieties.

Incidentally, is the green mould that can contaminate substrate poisonous? I know some moulds are carcinogenic, I am hoping to avoid that business.