Mushroom Cultivation

Mushroom cultivation involves a series of steps that expands the size of fungal tissue known as mycelium, to a size large enough to grow mushrooms. There are both very low-tech options and much more involved processes.

For me the steps include:

– Moving a piece of myclium from a test tube and  growing it on a petri dish

– Take a little bit of tissue from the petri dish and grow it in sterilized sugar water

– Transfer some of the sugar water / mycelium mixture into a jar of sterilized grain

– Sprinkle the sterilized grain into a bag of sterilized sawdust

– Once fully colonized, cut a hole in the bag to promote mushroom growth

Someone interested in cultivating can start at any point in this process. Often they will purchase a liquid culture (sugar water / mycelium), and use this to inoculate their sterilized grain. 

You can purchase a liquid culture syringe of lion’s mane, shiitake, or oyster mushrooms from the store.