Of course, the meat of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms is information about how to take an existing mushroom and turn it into thousands of new mushrooms.  My previous lunchtime series about how to cultivate edible mushrooms for free explains most of the first step for turning an existing mushroom into a mass of mycelium (the vegetative growth form of the fungus.)  Basically, you can either choose to start with spores (like growing your mushroom from seed) or clone a mushroom you really like (like taking cuttings of a grape vine.)

The stem butt method of cloning was the one mentioned in Mycelium Running, and I have to admit that this method is a winner.  I managed to create a mass of mycelium this fall using oyster mushroom stem butts with nearly no effort.  Still, I've always interested in learning new techniques, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms had a few in depth mushroom cloning tips.

First of all, it's best to start with a young mushroom in the button stage when cloning.  Also, I probably should have used only the inside of the stem butt since the outer portion is likely to be contaminated with competitor species, especially when cloning ground-fruiting mushrooms.  Other locations on the mushroom are just as useful for cloning, including the area just above the gills on the cap and the area on the stem right below the disk of the cap.

This post is part of our Growing Gourmet Mushrooms lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms King Stropharia mushrooms in permaculture Tips for cloning mushrooms Growing and expanding spawn Can growing mushrooms be as easy as a worm bin? Growing mushrooms indoors and outdoors Substrates for mushroom cultivation Sterilizing and pasteurizing mushroom substrates Inoculation paths for mushroom cultivation How to initiate mushroom fruiting

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

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.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.