So there you have it --- several cheap or free techniques to reproduce your edible mushrooms.  I'll keep you posted on how our various experiments go, but I'd also love to hear from some of you who try these (or other) techniques.

As a final note, Paul Stamets warns that different species of mushrooms respond better to different techniques.  It sounds like it's hard to go wrong with creating new logs of oyster mushrooms, but shiitakes might take a bit more trial and error.  The book notes that shiitake spores must be dried and then rehydrated in order to grow and shiitakes aren't listed as good candidates for stem butt reproduction.  Sounds like a good challenge!

This post is part of our How to Cultivate Mushrooms for Free lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Introduction to mushroom propagation Technique 1: Producing spawn from spores Technique 2: Producing spawn from stem butts Two methods of innoculation Conclusion

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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