[enigmatus]

Originally Posted by shroom

i

Also... is it possible to buy some white button mushrooms from the store and start growing my own crop from the store-bought mushrooms? Is this easy or next-to-impossible?

Thanks...

it is entirely possible to do this. one would need some petri dishes, some agar, a sterile environment and a bit of luck.

One of the above posters was correct, in that once a mushroom cap opens, it releases it's spores. now, some of these may still be hanging out on the mushroom gills, but this isn't what you want.

to clone a fresh mushroom, one would need to remove a bit of flesh from the inner stem and apply it to agar. a keen eye would be necessary to distinguish mycelium from contaminants. a few transfers later, and you should have a culture that you could use to create spawn.

an excellent resource for this information is shroomery.org. although the site is mainly geared towards the psychedelic varieties, there is a sub-forum dealing exclusively with gourmet and edibles. one of the moderators has compiled an excellent dvd detailing exactly how to grow several types of mushrooms. you can find this on amazon by searching for "let's grow mushrooms!"

and to answer another poster's query, morels have yet to be domesticated.

hope this helps!

[izbnso]

Grow Your Own Mushrooms


I have always been interested in growing mushrooms, not tried it yet. This post inspired me to do an exhaustive inter-net search (up all last night exploring the world of shrooms).

Most of the stuff on the web is either the kits or the magic variety (more on the magic variety than anything else). The above address is the best article I found on growing edibles on a small scale. It is not too technical but answers most "how to" questions. There are several good links at the end of the article to suppliers.

In a nutshell, what I learned: it is possible to order a small kit and then transfer the almost exhausted kit outdoors and it will live on indefinatly. Oysters seem the best for this because they live off of anything. One company sells a kit that has you grow them off of toilet paper rolls! Move them out side to a compost pile and you might have more shrooms than you can eat.

Most of the "gourmet" varieties live off of decomposing wood. Different mushroom different wood. Only a few live off of conifers, mostly hard wood. The kits have them growing in sterilized sawdust.

For a small scale grow your own operation you don't need too much start up money. For portabellas you need hard wood logs cut recently (not still sappy but the old fire wood won't do) and little plugs of "spawn" (I think that is the proper term). Drill the logs, plug them with the purchased spawn, cap the plug with cheese wax, wet the log, mushrooms will follow.

Kits aren't that expensive, but they will eventually die out due to lack of food in the pre-packaged kit.

I know what I'm asking for for my birthday!!

[izbnso]

Trying the link again.

Duh, I see it now.

[Free Rider]

I'm terrible at growing plants. Mushrooms, however, were easy. If I can do it, anyone can. I got a really fantastic book on the subject. If you're interested, I'll dig it up and give you the title.

[EndlessWinter77]

Some mushrooms can be cultivated (such as portobello and button), but some can not (such as chantrelle and truffles).

I would recommend the shroomery.org forums and articles for info and instructions on growing because of the expertise presented there, however, I warn you that the main purpose of that site is for "shrooms" rather than "mushrooms" if you catch my drift. While the site leans towards the "higher" side of fungi they provide very good info on edible mushrooms as well.

[pork receipe]

Oh my god, this thread did bring me back to the past...

When I was in my boyhood period, my grandfather used to grow the button mushrooms in my backyard darkroom (I'm also loved to hide at the darkroom most of the time).