can/should you take prints of mushrooms as they grow?

[drpotato]

Im talking about harvesting bulk amounts of spores by holding glass slides under the mushrooms while they grow, getting days or more of spore deposits for the entire maturity stage of the mushroom.
This is with cakes mind you in a different fruiting chamber where humidity is less regulated/lower to reduce the chances of infection.

Is this practical at all? would it work?

I mainly want to do this to harvest huge amounts of spores to mess around with, for long term and backup prints im still doing it properly, but, just for bulk spores, for filling filling a spray bottle or something to innoculate an outside area where mushies might grow, or, just up in the wind to innoculate all the cow fields downwind

When i say, would this work, i mean, compared to a cap on foil under a cup, what are my chances of contamination? how would they differ between my normal fruiting chamber and a special one just for catching spores?

im just trying it out now to see how much spore i can get, but this is roughly what i would do, maybe i would also consider making a little stand with alligator clips to hold the slide in the future, where its more likely my cakes will be upright

Edited April 4, 2016 by drpotato

[SayN]

I strongly doubt this is practical and would suspect the chances of contamination are quite high. It's probably a moot point though considering the intended purpose. Frankly, I think you'd be better off making a spore print hat.

[Berengar]

That makes very little sense. It's extremely impractical, and the mushroom has a set amount of spores on the basidia, which mature all about at the same time. So a properly taken spore print should contain most of the spores produced by that fruiting body.

[spooge]

If your onto it you can get up to 3 dark prints off a mature cap within a 32 hr period, after this if your really keen you can get a couple of light prints before the cap dries out to much, best waiting till a cap is fully mature before attempting printing. It's possible to rehydrate a cap by spraying with sterilised water, this risks contam though and can cause the cap to go mushy.

Some strains will only provide light prints regardless of maturity.

[Etho]

If your trying to inoculate a field a cap floated in the a cows water trough would be all you need to start off, or spore print scraped in. I have tried this however my climate is not conducive and have yet to see results.