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Included are the Hydrogen-Peroxide Method, Growing from Kits, Acquiring Spawn, and Building a Small Home Culture Setup.
Each listing includes a link followed by a brief extract from the page listed. Lion's Mane mushrooms are emphasized as a medicinal and tasty gourmet eating mushroom (a nutraceutical, as both nutritious and pharmaceutically beneficial species).
Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way
Home Mushroom Cultivation with Hydrogen Peroxide
An instruction manual in two volumes based on a new concept in mushroom cultivation, by R.R. Wayne, Ph.D.
Mushroom growing - a great pastime, but...
Mushroom growing has the potential to be a fun and fascinating pastime. Our forests have provided many species of fungi that are both beautiful and delicious, and learning to cultivate them can revive our connection to nature and the earth. But if we have to buy a lot of equipment to sterilize substrate and clean the air of contaminants, growing mushrooms can lose its romance. And it can get absurdly complicated when cultures keep spoiling, despite our most elaborate precautions.
Simplify!
So why use hydrogen peroxide in mushroom growing? Hydrogen peroxide simplifies the whole process of growing your favorite fungi, saving time, money, and effort. There's no need to build a sterile laboratory, buy a special pressure cooker, or even construct a glove box. A low concentration of peroxide keeps out the contaminants, while allowing healthy growth of mushroom tissue. And as the mushroom tissue grows, it converts the peroxide to water and oxygen, leaving a clean, vigorous mushroom culture.
Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way
I performed my first experiments to test the peroxide idea in 1993, and it worked. Although the invention was patentable, I decided instead to offer the information to the public in the form of an instruction manual. The manual has now grown to two volumes entitled Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way, Home Mushroom Cultivation with Hydrogen Peroxide. It is the product of nearly seven years' experimentation to perfect the procedures and find new applications for the peroxide method. The manual in all editions is now in the hands of mushroom growers in 70 countries around the world. In stepwise directions that a beginner can follow, the peroxide manual explains how to:
Grow mushroom cultures in an ordinary room.
Handle cultures in the open air in a kitchen or non-sterile workshop.
Protect cultures from bacteria, yeast, mold, and mushroom spores.
Prepare mushroom cultures without an autoclave.
Prepare bulk fruiting substrate at room temperature, without heating and cooling.
Do away with costly filter-patch culture bags; use ordinary trashbags instead.
Prepare sawdust-based mushroom spawn medium with just a ten minute steaming.
Grow mushroom spawn and agar cultures on a bookshelf or in a closet.
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http://www.mycomasters.com/Peroxide_Manual.html
Excerpt from the Introduction to Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way, Volume I
When I first took an interest in growing mushrooms, I checked out a well-known book on mushroom cultivation from the library and eagerly read through it. But my interest soon turned to general discouragement as I read about all the equipment and procedures the book insisted were necessary to grow mushrooms without getting the cultures contaminated. I would need a sterile laboratory space with a laminar-flow hood fitted with electrostatic and HEPA filters and an ultraviolet light. This space would need a sterile air-lock entry way with a foot wash, and I would need to have special clothing to enter it, so that I could wash down the floors with chlorine bleach every day. My fruiting mushrooms would have to be grown in a separate building altogether, so as to avoid getting spores into the sterile laboratory. These fruiting cultures would have to be grown in specially designed plastic bags with microporous filter patches attached, so that the mushroom mycelium could get oxygen without letting mold spores or bacteria get in. Of course, I would need an autoclave or at least a specially designed pressure cooker to sterilize the media that went into these bags.
After considering these requirements briefly, I put aside the thought of growing mushrooms. I wasn't about to get all that equipment, and I figured I probably wasn't cut out for the job anyway. From what I could gather, my house would be a death trap for mushroom cultures. Neither my wife nor I are careful housekeepers. We have unabashed dust and clutter, and green and white fuzzy things can be found in and outside the refrigerator. Although I was skilled at sterile technique from my years as a graduate student in biochemistry, I didn't think that would save me from the legions of eager contaminants that would surely dog my every movement should I attempt to grow anything so delectable as mushrooms.
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http://www.mycomasters.com/AboutVolumeII.html
About Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way, Volume II
What's new in Volume II?
The first volume of the peroxide manual introduced a whole new approach to home mushroom cultivation, one that has gained a reputation for its ease and simplicity. The manual showed how mushrooms could be grown readily without sterile facilities, air filtration, or autoclaves. Now, for growers interested in commercial cultivation, and hobby growers too...
Prepare any quantity of bulk substrate at room temperature. The second volume of the peroxide manual adds two ground-breaking peroxide methods that can be used to prepare as much substrate as you need without the trouble of heating and cooling.
Just soak your substrate, drain, and inoculate.
The first method is a simple soak-and-drain procedure designed for use with materials such as straw, bagasse, dried grasses, corn stalks, etc. You just load the substrate into a soak chamber, fill it with the appropriate solution at room temperature, soak until the proper moisture content is reached, then drain and inoculate. There's no caustic waste to worry about, no hassle with heating water or steam, and no concern about peroxide-decomposing enzymes in the substrate materials.
Add water and stir.
The other method is an add-and-stir procedure designed for use with peroxide- compatible porous substrates like wood pellet fuel, paper fiber pellets, or (for oyster mushrooms) kiln-dried sawdust . You simply mix all your ingredients together at room temperature, then come back in a couple of hours and inoculate. There's no hurry, though--peroxide keeps the substrate from spoiling. (Refer to Volume I for important information on choosing peroxide-compatible substrates and supplements).
Here's what else you'll find in Volume II:
collecting and germinating mushroom spores
an alternative to agar medium for mycelial culture and storage
screw-cap tubes (slants) as an alternative to Petri dish culture
a quick beer-based agar medium
re-using disposable Petri dishes
preparing "Ten Minute" sawdust spawn in plastic bags
preparing "Ten Minute" grain spawn
inoculating straw without spawn
sending mycelial cultures in the mail
preparing wood chips with peroxide
Continue on down the page to read the Table of Contents for Volume II.
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http://www.mycomasters.com/Slideshow.html
Slideshow!
Here are some pictures of the peroxide method and the steps involved in mushroom growing as taught in the manual. You can click on the first link to get started through the slideshow, or you can view individual pictures from the list by clicking that link.
Pouring agar plates
Cutting agar to transfer mycelium
Inoculating mushroom spawn
Jars of Ten Minute Spawn on a bookshelf
Some mushroom growing equipment
Balloon test for peroxide concentration
Inoculating a bucket of substrate
Filling a bag with inoculated substrate
The substrate sealed in a bag, inside a box
The results
About the author
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http://www.mycomasters.com/Hotclimate.html
I live in a hot climate. What mushrooms can I grow?
There are several commonly cultivated strains of mushrooms that grow well in hot weather. The Paddy Straw mushroom, Volvariella volvacea and its close relative Volvariella bombecina, grow best at temperatures between 75 and 95 degrees F (24-35 degrees C). The medicinal Reishi mushroom, Ganoderma lucidum, prefers warm weather (75 degrees F/24 degrees C), and the Florida oyster, a strain of Pleurotus ostreatus, fruits at temperatures above 75 degrees F (24 degrees C). The almond mushroom, Agaricus subrufescens, is a warm grower, although the mycelium should not get above 90 degrees F. The King Stropharia, Stropharia rugosa-annulata also fruits only when temperatures rise. Beyond that, there may be mushrooms native to your area that people are cultivating. Ask around! Although these mushrooms can all do well at warmer temperatures, remember that they all still need significant humidity.
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http://www.mycomasters.com/Basics.html
Starting with a kit
If you buy a mushroom kit, you are generally starting at step four. The commercial mushroom grower has already completed the earlier steps for you, and provided you with the mushroom culture ready to form mushrooms. You provide a proper environment, usually cool and moist. Getting mushrooms to form can be easy or hard, depending on the mushroom strain you are growing. Oyster-style mushrooms of the Pleurotus and Hypsizygus families are among the easiest to fruit. Lions Mane (Hericium erinaceus) is also quite easy. Maitake (Grifola frondosa) and Morels (Morachella species) are among the most difficult to get to form mushrooms. Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) falls somewhere in the middle. Button mushrooms are easy if you can keep the temperature steady around 65 degrees F.
http://www.scaloralandscaping.com/serv001.htm
Frank Scalora
Landscaping & Permaculture.
Computerized landscape design.
Quality Mushroom Spawn Supplied By Scalora Fungi
Since Scalora Fungi is a small family business, we care about our customers needs on a personal level.
Your Spawn is made to order and guaranteed fresh and ready to inoculate bulk substrates.
We are always available for you, Our customers, Via E mail or by phone 973 313 1410 for any cultivation questions.
Commercial cultivators should call for quotes on large orders LETS MAKE A DEAL.
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Lions Mane 1qt mason jar master Grain or sawdust $15.00
Lions Mane 1kg polypropylene bag Grain or sawdust $30.00
http://www.fungifest.com/article1013.html
Mushroom Kits
The listings with an asterisk are ones I've heard from regarding the correct information for their listing. (That's a picture of possible results of Fungus Among Us Organic Shiitake Homegrowing Kit to the right). List is in alphabetical order:
* Fungus Among Us - This is a wholesale site located 30 miles north of Seattle, WA. "The only limitation that we have is the $25.00 (or 2 kits) order minimum." Lion's Mane, Shiitake, Oyster. Check the site out for the recipes.
Garden City Fungi - Shiitake, Oyster, Namako (Butterscotch) Mushroom, Lion's Mane kits available. They also offer consultations as well as farm set-ups for interested parties.
* Mushroompeople.com - Shiitake, Maitake, and Oyster kits. Lots of information on this site - they also have fruit mushroom kits: Portobello, Button, Shiitake, Oyster, Reishi, Lion's Mane.
* Fungi Perfecti - They offer everything for the mushroom enthusiast: ready-to-grow mushroom kits, mushroom spawn, MycoMedicinal? mushroom products, field guides, cultivation texts, sterile tissue culture tools and supplies, all the way to professional mushroom growing rooms and cultivation systems.
http://www.mykoweb.com/articles/cultivation.html
Getting Started with Mushroom Cultivation
The Wisdom of Simplicity
by Terri Marie Beaus?jour
If you have been intrigued by the prospect of growing your own mushrooms, perhaps after a bit of research you became daunted by the complexity and potential expense of "sterile techniques," "clean rooms," "laminar flow hoods" and "agar media."
Or perhaps you are the more adventurous type. You plunged ahead with valiant attempts to isolate pure mycelial cultures, only to discover your beautiful white mycelium bursting into a rainbow of brilliantly colored fuzzy mold spores or sleek, shiny pools of bacterial contaminants. Take heart, you are not alone!
As chairman of the Cultivation Committee for the Mycological Society of San Francisco (MSSF), I have talked with many aspiring cultivators, and those are two of the most common roadblocks preventing progress in mushroom cultivation.
Recognizing the need to help overcome these challenges, the MSSF cultivation committee has periodically offered classes and workshops on how to grow mushrooms. I'm indebted to past teachers of these workshops -- Sal Billeci, Dr. Joe Mandell, Fred Stevens and Don Simoni -- for some of the methods I'm presenting here.
Goals and Objectives The ultimate goal, of course is to start with one mushroom fruitbody and turn it into a bunch of fruitbodies. There are two mechanisms by which mushrooms can reproduce -- by spores (similar to the seeds of plants) or by propagation of tissue extracted from a fruitbody (similar to plant propagation through cuttings). To get started we will use the latter technique, which is simpler and which offers a better chance of success for the beginning cultivator.
The objectives are:
Start with a sterile piece of mushroom tissue and transfer it onto a nutrient medium (actually to a series of media in phases, which you will see as you read on), Create multiple copies of the culture, Avoid contamination of the culture,
And, finally, create an environment in which the fungal organism is induced to fruit.
There are three distinct phases (see Figure 1) through which your culture will pass:
Sterile culture on an agar medium
Sterile culture on grain, also known as "grain spawn"
Fruiting on a pasteurized substrate
Now don't let the word "sterile" and a bit of terminology deter you. Yes, potential "contaminants" exist everywhere in the environment, in our homes, and even in clean rooms and laboratories. The objective is to prevent them from entering our cultures and competing for the "food" we intend for the sole use of our mushroom cultures. With a modicum of care and a little practice using some simple techniques, this process can be successfully mastered by anyone. So take a deep breath, and read on for the step-by-step details. ...