mycology

Learning about the different types of fungus is cool, my favourites were the ones that sprung up after the fires. Also learning that an estimated 5 per cent of the surface of the globe is lichen is pretty

Hey I am wondering if anyone else had headache issues after taking these mushrooms and stopping. They have gotten slightly better over time but very slowly, and it seems to be stagnating. Been having the headaches for 6 month daily since stopping.

Don't know if this is the right community on this site to post about this, but since it is a mushroom I thought to post it here.

Im going to put woodchips and oyster stems in a BUCKET and it will ALWAYS WORK!!!!!

found this image randomly and thought it would be appreciated here

Old and CRUSRY and HOME TO MQNY INSECTS! this is a proletarian mushroom. Truly.

Mycena haematopus and Spinellus fusiger. i should get a real camera

new crime pays mushroom vid dropped

Have you wanted to grow mushrooms but didn't know where to start? Here's a relatively easy and foolproof technique that doesn't require equipment or sterilization and can be done in an afternoon.

MATERIALS:
Mushroom spawn - the two types that work well for this are oyster mushrooms (any variety, although given that oyster mushrooms tend to be copious spore producers and the spores are known for causing health problems, sporeless oysters are best for indoors/small spaces) and what's known as bear'a head or lion's mane. The latter produced a shaggy ball-shaped mushroom and is enjoying a moment right now because it helps keep nerves healthy. It's also darn tasty and can be enjoyed in stir fries and sushi (if cooked!). Pioppino might also do well in this setup, but I have never tried it. Mushroom spawn can be purchased online. I like Field & Forest Products as a supplier.

Yesterday's News Kitty Litter: made from pelletized newspaper, do not substitute feline pine or other wood-based brands

Guinea Pig Chow: you want pelletized Timothy hay

Dechlorinated Water - Hot water out of the faucet that has been allowed to cool works, so does distilled or filtered water, or tap water that has been brought to a boil and allowed to cool. You need 4 cups per batch.

Newspaper Bags: any tube shaped plastic bag will do. Small mushroom grow bags are available on Amazon and also work well.

A clean plastic tub for mixing (for best results wipe out beforehand with hydrogen peroxide or a 1:10 bleach dilution)

METHOD

Making the artificial log:
Using clean or gloved hands, mix 4 cups of yesterday's news, two handfuls of guinea pig chow, and 4 cups of water until the water is fully incorporated. Add in about a cup of spawn (less works, but it is slightly riskier), breaking up the clumps with your fingers. Scoop the inoculated medium into your bag, tap on the counter a couple times to pack it down, then tie it off.

Spawn Run: Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the mushroom spawn will colonize the artificial logs, causing the medium to become cohesive and whitish in color. If you see green, powdery growth, you have trichoderma contamination and should discard. Black splotches are mold and also a sign your log is compromised.

Fruiting:
Oxygen is the trigger to switch over from vegetative growth to making mushrooms. Tiny pinheads called primordia will often form in places where there's gaps between substrate and bag; you can look for them and make small x cuts in the bag with a pair of scissors, or you can just pierce the bag in regular intervals on one side. Keeping the bag in a humid environment, placing it in a shopping bag, or misting it regularly can improve yield. Once the mushrooms are mature, you can harvest them (ideally before they drop a lot of spores). If you're growing bear's head, the tips starting to yellow is a sign that the fruiting body is done growing.

A second flush can be obtained by soaking the bags in dechlorinated water for at least a couple of hours. Expect 1-2 pounds of yield from each bag.

WHY IT WORKS

The mushrooms we're growing here are known as white rot fungi and have been evolutionary honed to tolerate wood, a growing medium that most other decomposers hate because it's low in nitrogen and high in forms of carbohydrate that are difficult to break down. White rot fungi are not really used to competitors and are happy to take their time, which means that they can spend years breaking down a log before deciding to fruit. This is disadvantageous from a less patient human cultivator's point of view.

We can speed the process up by offering tastier forms of nutrition, but that will attract faster-growing fungi who can muscle out our target species. Thus, growing mushrooms successfully without contamination requires either an environment more suited to the target mushroom than faster-growing competitors (that is, it is relatively low in nutrients), or a rigorous commitment to ensuring the competitors are kept out of the medium. We take a hybrid approach here: both the litter and the Timothy pellets are sterilized during manufacturing, so we don't have to worry as much about aseptic technique, but the resulting medium is still less nutritious than something designed for high yields, such as master's mix. Keeping the logs comparatively small and using a high spawn ratio also allows the edible mushroom to quickly complete a life cycle before any spores that have drifted in have a chance to get established, with the drawback of increasing cost per unit produced.

COST/MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS

You're looking at roughly $80 - 100 in materials to get off the ground, with your main expense being the mushroom spawn. A 5 lb bag of spawn should be enough for 20 or so mini logs, so at $5/lb of mushrooms at the high end, you're beating the grocery store or farmer's market pretty handily. This is also a lot to make at once, and spawn does have a limited shelf life (although it can be stored in the fridge for a couple of weeks). High nutrient spawns like rye tend to get chewed through quickly and you can often find your spawn bags fruiting on their own (not necessarily the worst outcome).

If you're worried about waste and not sure where you'd keep 20 newspaper bags full of mycelium, consider splitting the cost with friends or making your own spawn in smaller batches. Spore/mycelium syringes for edible varieties are available online, and the popular and relatively reliable "Uncle Ben's tek" used for Psilocybes will also work for the more licit species of fungi. That's a post for another time, though.

OKAY I GREW SOME MUSHROOMS, NOW WHAT?

Spent logs can theoretically be used to spawn new ones, although the chances for contamination go up and yields can decline over time. They can also be composted or tossed on a log pile to see if you get some mushrooms the natural way.

Took about four or five months with just a tiny amount of mail order spawn and no real effort. May not be as tasty as some of the hardwood types (will know soon enough) but they are fucking huge. Gonna keep adding to the bed and move some of the spawn around till they’re growing all over my garden.

Been getting a lot of mushrooms in the backyard lately. I'm no mycologist, but I still find these little dudes fascinating.

2’ section of clean maple from a log drop, roughly 8” or so in diameter. inoculated last winter with totem method. Overwinter inoculation in the garage was a good move, I had a fully inoculated log in the spring letting me start a full 3 months earlier. Probably wouldn’t have gotten a harvest this year otherwise.

You can see these all came out of the spawn so I’m hoping to get some from the log itself next year. Time will tell.

Biggest ball is 4” or so across.

Very hype for these as I have never tasted them before. They’re supposed to be delicious and are suuuuper expensive at the store (30-40 usd a pound)

But think of the spores

Seen this on so I know nothing about it. I just thought of you fungi nerds when I seen it.

Is apparently called mycena subcyanocephala .

Plz help me mushroom mods i suck at this help help help i spill my jice

Mycena leaiana. There were honey mushrooms everywhere too but they were too old to eat

After several years of scouring the woods behind my house I am starting to find the spots for the specimens at last. The hericium keeps coming back in relatively small quantities year after year, but this is the first chanterelle haul so far, and there were many (more than pictured). Beauties.

I'm looking to get back into cultivation and I'm on a bit of a budget. I'm looking for some golden teacher spores in a syringe so I can do that cool liquid culture thing with mason jars to create a bunch more syringes for myself. Shipping is killing me on a few of the websites I've looked at...

Sealed bags w no contam:

Ready for burial:

I would feel confident employing sous vide tek as a sterilization option for large/oddly shaped substrates, or even 5 pound bricks for anyone lacking in the autoclave department!

original post

follow up

This is the second of two posts describing log inoculation with sawdust spawn. The first, covering tools and materials, can be found here

So now we have assembled our tools and materials and we are ready to go. The basic workflow is to drill holes in a log in a diamond pattern, fill each hole with sawdust spawn using a special inoculation tool, and cap the holes with edible wax.

1. Melt your wax

This takes a minute so I would start it first.

2. Drill holes

Here is a photo of a finished log. The holes are in a diamond pattern roughly 3 inches (~8cm) apart. The easiest way to accomplish this is to drill all the way down the log at a 6” interval, then move over a few inches and drill all the way down the log at an offset.

3. Fill the holes with spawn

Open the bag of spawn, and firmly jab the inoculation tool into the spawn so when you pull it out it is flush:

Line up the inoculation tool with a hole, push down firmly on the plunger and press the spawn into the hole:

You will want the top of the spawn to be flush with the log because otherwise when you go to wax it will pull it up. If it sticks out a bit you can jam it in with your finger or use the tip of the tool with the plunger depressed.

Repeat this with the top surface of the log. The spawn is jammed in there tight so you don’t have to worry about it falling out, but I still prefer to do one side at a time.

3. Wax

Now it’s time to apply the wax. Dip your tool of choice into the hot wax and seal each hole generously.

If you have a second person a really nice work flow is for one person to put the spawn in while the second follows behind with wax.

Turn the log over and repeat until all holes are filled and sealed. Check carefully as open holes are entry points for contaminants. This is the main reason I prefer red wax.

I like to wax the ends of the logs as well when they are finished, as well as any areas with missing bark. This is probably overkill.

4. Stack and wait

Stack your logs (see title pic) in a cool dark place (think forest floor) and allow them to colonize for 3-6 months. When you see mycelium colonizing the ends you will know they are ready to be re-stacked or buried, depending on your target species. I will post pictures of a stack shortly but am rate limited at the moment

Credit to @JoesFrackinJack who posted this two years ago

Background

This will be the first of probably 2 posts covering log inoculation from sawdust spawn. Log inoculation is a common technique for growing certain wood loving species such as shiitake. This is a nice activity to spend the day outdoors alone or makes a great group activity as well as there are discrete steps that lend themselves well to splitting work. An inoculation party could be a fun activity for a community garden for example, all you need is a reliably shady spot, some clean logs, and relatively inexpensive supplies to grow mushrooms for many years. You could also give away completed logs as gifts for friends.

Depending on the technique the finishing step may be different (shiitake gets log cabin like in the top pic, chestnuts, reiishi get buried etc) but the process starts the same way. Like all mushroom growing this is a probability game, you want to maximize the chances of your chosen mycelium colonizing the substrate and minimize the odds of competition, this is the same here. We will be drilling holes in healthy logs, injecting them with chestnut mushroom sawdust spawn, and sealing the wounds with edible wax.

Materials

1. Clean logs

The best logs are from freshly cut trees, 3-6” in diameter and 6’ long on the high end. This is about the biggest size one can handle alone. Smaller is better for kids, or those with less lifting ability. The best time to fell trees is fall, but other seasons are fine too, I think. The main thing is to not let them sit too long, a month or so max. We are aiming for a sterile substrate, so the longer we wait the more competitors are introduced. Here I am using maple (as always) but depending on the species many hardwoods will work. The spawn supplier should be able to provide lists of compatible species.

2. Sawdust spawn

This is a block of sawdust that has been inoculated with the species of your choice. This is available from retailers online. I like north spore personally but I am sure there are others. Sawdust spawn comes in 5 pound bags which should be enough to inoculate 10-15 logs depending on size. When it comes in the mail it’s important to use it right away. It can also be kept refrigerated for up to six months as it goes dormant.

3. Wax

-Edible wax and something to melt it in. Emphasis on edible. Beeswax is a popular choice. I like using red cheese wax because it’s bright color lets me see what i have completed easily. Cut it into ~3cm chunks for easy melting. As a vessel here I used an old food can. Whatever you use will be covered in wax forever so disposable is best, though some people use dedicated crock pots for this. But you’d have to be doing a LOT of logs. As to quantity I bought a 5lb block from a cheese making supply store and it’s lasted me through 30 logs and will probably do more.

-A heat source. I am using a camping stove here, but a sterno, old crock pot, even a sous vide with the wax in a bag will work.

-Wax applicators. Anything absorbent will work, a small paint brush, maybe even cotton balls on sticks. The bespoke applicators are pretty cheap though and probably worth getting.

Tools

-A drill. Highly recommend going corded here. Fresh wood is wet and dense and it takes a lot of torque to drill into it efficiently. A cordless drill could be used but it would have to be pretty beefy & have lots of extra batteries.

-An inoculation tool. This is probably the only specialty tool needed, and can be bought from where you buy your spawn. It’s a spring loaded plunger attached to a brass tube designed for collecting sawdust spawn and injecting it into holes in the log. These run about $30 or so.

-A drill bit. This should match the diameter of the inoculation tool. There exist specialty bits for this with a stop at exactly the same depth as the inoculation tool, but a drill bit with tape as a depth gauge would work fine too just be a little slower. The important part is to match the dimensions of the inoculation tool. You could measure the depth of the tool with a piece of wire. If you do decide to get the specialty bit, filing or grinding a flat spot on the shaft is a MUST:

Again the torque from drilling into fresh logs is quite high so if you don’t do this the bit will strip and get stuck in the wood, leading to grief and frustration and slowing you down. Just file it!

-A saw (not pictured). Hand or chain. This is useful for cleaning up the ends of logs to remove mold and make it easier to wax.

-A table. Not a must but makes working much more comfortable particularly if you’re doing this alone. If you only have one you will want to set up your wax on it. If you have 2 use one for drilling and the other for wax. I wouldn’t recommend both on the same table because logs can jerk unpredictably during drilling and it can knock wax over, greatly slowing you down. You should be willing to cover this in wax, or put down some rosin paper.

In the next post I will cover the technique of inoculation. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. Setup is the hardest part.

What are they?

Looks old. Common lawn shroom from aroind here, they usually dont get this big due to the boomers mowing their lawns all thr time

No idea what its actual scientific name is, with the cap so curled and old (white edges witj browning on the middle) with no scales, i assume it might be aome lepiota or smth, idk its cool looking and theres others growing there so idk jusr vibe on little mushroom friend