The Wild Art of Cultivating Mushrooms

There is a little bit of a learning curve when moving from the garden to the mushroom grow bag. After a little practice and some new terminology, you'll be having fun witnessing the magic of growing your own food and medicine right on your kitchen counter. 

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Over here at Fungus Brothers we like to engage in the full process of beginning mycelial growth on an agar plate or liquid culture syringe, inoculating a growing substrate like milo or barley, expanding it into larger bags of grain spawn, and finally transferring it to a hardwood or straw substrate to colonize and fruit. 

Here are a few terms defined to get you growing at warp speed.

Mycelium: the whispy filaments that are found under ground or colonizing on a grain or straw (the baby mushroom).

Fruiting Body: the part you find in the store or pick on your own. Basically the mushroom we all know and love.

Substrate:  the growing medium that a species likes to colonize and eat before preparing its fruiting bodies.

FAE:  fresh air exchange. Fresh air (and humidity are key to a successful crop).

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Spawn: the fully colonized mycelium on the grain or substrate. 

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Spore: the infinitesimally small "seed" that will escape from the mushroom once it is fully grown. 

LC:  liquid culture. A spore syringe that can be easily used to inoculate any jar of growing medium.

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