irabionist Posted January 4, 2019 (edited) I've been getting back into the Myc game and I was looking to grow a lot of my own gourmet and medicinal mushrooms. My idea is that I get fancy mushrooms from Woolworths or any kind of store and then cut out a bit of untouched mushroom and chuck it onto an agar plate and grow it out. However, I'm not too sure how to properly identify their specific mycelium's from possible contams. So, I was wondering if there were any good resources for such a thing, otherwise, I'll happily post pictures here (or if others want to post pictures) and we can have a database of different species growing on agar. I'm yet to see a good collection of edible's myc in one spot. Anyway, as of now I haven't started this yet, but very keen. Edited January 4, 2019 by irabionist 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Maximt Posted January 20, 2019 Hi irabionist, At the start its hard to tell as all myc is generally white. As you are cloning your myc should be growing from the piece of mushroom you placed on agar, and anything that is outside of this should be treated with suspicion. If you are not sure give it time to grow and contams will generally show themselves in color - green, orange etc. This is a good resource: RR explains things quite well for all Myc growing. Hope that helps Max Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lindsay Posted January 26, 2019 The supermarket is a great way to get your hands on cultures cheaply. i have done so a number of times with great success. as Maximit says myc is generally white. Here is a swiss brown mushroom from the supermarket, growing on peroxide agar. this is the second transfer. The browning in this plate is the fungi's metabolites that showed up as the myc got towards the edge of the plate, but started pure white. peroxide agar is the way to go. great for wild mushroom as well. Here is a good read on this peroxide tec. http://jontrot.free.fr/champignons/culture-eau-oxygenee-Vols1-2new.pdf 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rottenjonny Posted January 27, 2019 just my 2c but generally the agaricus varieties etc will be a lot fresher at the supermarket so your success rates will be higher. As far as the gourmet varieties they don't have as high a turnover rate and are in plastic with glad wrap on top so it's a bit of a hotbox in there for contamination. if you have a local mushroom place or farmers market you may get fresher stuff. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites