risky business

[diamind]

Hi all,

Just curious to know are there any risks involved in cultivating your own mushrooms from spores? I was reading that during the culture jar stage you could possibly contaminate your mushrooms with toxic or deadly fungus or bacteria.

Thoughts?

[mimzy]

Using aseptic techniques it is possible to inoculate the culture jar without contamination, however from time to time it does occur. In most cases, if the jar is contaminated by mold or bacteria you will be able to see the contaminating colonies and discard the culture.

[diamind]

Well sounds simple enough

[Away]

Try and do some more reading on the subject (I assume you know of shroomery.com). Although I have not done any grows myself many people preach the importance of sterility and most of the HOW-TO guides emphasize that everything should be as sterile as possible!

[Bigred]

start with pf tek then work your way up

 

[vegetarium]

If you let contaminations grow too long and open the jar, the spores released can wreak havoc on your respiratory system. As far as contaminants affecting the mushroom - I don't know if it actually assimilates mycotoxins and other compounds produced by competing molds into the mycelium, so I'll leave that to people more well informed. Better safe than sorry though!

[myco]

i have on one occasion left a jar (without opening it at all) wich was half colonised with mycelium and half with mold to see if it would still fruit as i know they will fruit invitro

if left for to long

the mycelium did take over the mold and it did fruit alot of fruits and big ones to all while still in the jar its quite a crazy sight to see them curling all around the edges of the jar trying to find a way out please note nothing was consumed it was purely experimental and was disposed of afterwards

if you are worried about contaminated jars putting you at risk it is recommended to put them through your pressure cooker again to kill off any bad stuff you may breathe in

then you can open them and dump them out with relatively no worries

[Distracted]

If your jars mould it's either because of inadequate sterilising or introducing unsterile spawn, ie spores or liquid culture.

Your jars should be kept sealed at all times so even if the inside of the jar is contaminated unless you open it you won't release the spores.

Once your jars are contaminated you should either throw them out without opening them, or re pressure cook them without opening them, once they've been through the PC they'll be sterile again and you can scoop out the contents and re-use the jar/lid.

So as far as that sorta stuff is concerned... if you're following procedure you have nothing to worry about.

The other thing that can happen is mycotoxosis. This can happen in industrial scale oyster farms, oysters give off a ridiculous amount of spores that can potentially end up colonising your lungs. This generally only happens when people are exposed to more spores than someone should be in their lifetime and can be countered by wearing a dust particle mask and trying not to breathe in the spores when you start harvesting thousands of mushrooms.

Hell, the most likely way your hobby can harm you is breathing in perlite dust Look that shit up if you're worried, much worse than what happens to people from growing mushrooms.

[Francois le Danque]

Try and do some more reading on the subject (I assume you know of shroomery.com). Although I have not done any grows myself many people preach the importance of sterility and most of the HOW-TO guides emphasize that everything should be as sterile as possible!

Hi friend, nice first post. You obviously get it