Puff ball cloning??

[themushroombloke]

I havn't dabbled in cloning a puffball before. Has anyone given it a go? is it possible? I'm into edibles and I havn't seen anyone claiming they have any puff ball cultures. I think it'd be awesome to have giant puff balls. I dont know if anyone knows of the television show "the river cottage" but in one episode "hugh" goes mushrooming and finds a giant puff ball, takes out the center and stuffs and bakes it. Anyways any comments would be appreciated.

Edited November 25, 2010 by themushroombloke

[shortly]

I have tried with some success, although not with C. gigantea.

You need to take explants from the base of an immature fruit body, the bulk of the puffball is just spore mass & wont want to grow on agar like myc.

[tripsis]

I've cloned a few species of puffball, from both Calvatia and Lycoperdon. The Calvatia (or perhaps it was a Bovista) I cloned from NSW was difficult, with the gleba just turning brown and not showing any growth. Usually this is fine, as it just means the gleba is maturing into spore-mass, whereby the spores should then germinate on agar, but in my case, this did not happen. I ended up cloning from the rhizomorphs, taking many transfers to get a clean culture. However, after cloning a Calvatia in India, I have my doubts as to whether I even isolated the right mycelium.

The Calvatia from India was easy. Again, I just took explants of the gleba and put them to agar, but the growth from them was strong and fast.

The Lycoperdon from India was the same as the Calvatia.

So just place some of the gleba on agar and wai to see what happens. If the explants don't take straight away, they should continue to mature into spores and then you can isolate a culture after they have germinated.

Good luck!