Then you can transfer the mycelium multiple times after that to other plates. The advantage of using an agar plate or agar liquid is to easily see if there is any contamination. Most of the time people will use rye grain, popcorn grain or saw dust in a small bag and wait for that bag to completely fill with mushroom mycelium which is called mushroom spawn. Or they will put the small piece into an agar plate or liquid culture mixture. Now we will cover 5 different mushrooms source options when dealing with spores, cultures and spawn… 1) Clone a mushroom that you buy from the store or find it in the wildĬloning a mushroom basically means to cut a small piece from that mushroom and putting it into a substrate (like dirt to plant seeds) to grow out. Some people do like to experiment with creating new strains so they prefer spores.ĥ Mushroom Sources Using Spores & Mycelium Unless you want to create you own strain most people prefer to use mycelium since it is further along in the growing process and more predictable.
#SPORE PRINT MUSHROOM HOW TO#
How to use a spore print to grow mushrooms? If you use spores then you will be creating your own strain of that type of mushroom however if you are using mycelium you are essentially cloning a mushroom that already exists. Now when you want to grow mushrooms you can either use spores or mycelium to start it off. If you grow mushrooms from spore print you will need 2 spores to come together (almost like a sperm and egg) to start to grow the mycelium (mushrooms are made from mycelium). You might think it would be as easy as just getting the spores… While that is one option to do that, there are other options as well. Let’s take a look at the difference in more detail now…Ĭhoosing your mushroom source is kinda like deciding where to get the ‘seed’ (if you will) to grow it… Spawn is just a lot more of it than in culture. So I painted over the white ones with watercolor, kind of like a stain.Whether you want to grow mushrooms from spore print, culture or spawn you will find that the process is much the same with each having its own separate advantage.Ĭultures and spawn are very similar in a sense that they are both mycelium. I tried again with different mushrooms and still got some with white spore prints. Grey paper might have worked better for the white mushrooms. Some of the mushrooms I used made a white spore print, so they didn’t show up very well on the white paper. If you look closely, you can see the prints left behind by the white mushrooms! What do you think they would look like if we tried using grey paper instead? Wrap-up:įor this project, I had to experiment a lot. Here is what an unstained mushroom print looks like. Pull up each mushroom and reveal the print it has made! Put the lid on the container and leave it alone for 24 hrs.Or spray a light mist of water over them all. Drip a small drop of water on each mushroom cap.Arrange the mushrooms underside down on the paper.Place the paper in the clear storage container.Put on the disposable gloves and carefully remove all the stems of the mushrooms.
(store bought mushrooms don’t work for this craft!)Īdd a drop of water to dark-colored mushrooms, or lightly paint white mushrooms with watercolors to get the color variety you want. Mushrooms from your lawn, the forest, etc.Avoid eating wild mushrooms if you are not 100% sure of their identification! Mushroom caps, with stems removed. Note: kids should always gather mushrooms in the presence of an adult. So I am going to teach you how to make some mushroom spore print art. One way of identifying mushrooms is by making something called a “spore print.” After making a few of these, I realized they would make beautiful artwork. I love mushrooms! I love to draw them, I love to hunt for them, I love to eat them! Sometimes I come across mushrooms out in my yard or my local forest and I want to know what type of mushroom I’ve found. Hey hey! My name is Missy and I’m an artist and guest blogger here at PBS KIDS Utah.
0 kommentar(er)
