How to grow shrooms without spores is fun so long as you have everything that you need. To grow some mushrooms without the use of spores, you need some healthy mushroom tissues as well as some equipment.
Just like the pf tek method, there are other methods to grow mushrooms with or without spores. To learn the easiest method, read this article with the right steps.
Contents
How To Grow Shrooms Without Spores?
To grow shrooms without spores, know the right type, collect tissues from healthy mushrooms, and then incubate the media and the tissue. So long as the mushroom can grow successfully without spores and your tools are well-sterilized, your mushrooms will grow, and you will harvest delicious shrooms soon.
– Know The Type of Mushroom to Grow
You must first know the type of mushroom that would be the most applicable to grow without spores. Some mushroom species that you can grow without spores are button mushrooms, portabellas, Pleurotus ostreatus, which are also known as oyster mushrooms, shiitake psilocybin mushrooms, magic or psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, etc. Most cultivated mushrooms can grow without the use of spores. You can even try growing some wild mushrooms without their spores.
Before growing any mushroom with this method, ensure that you do some research to know more about the mushroom. Check if the mushroom is safe and if you can easily cultivate it without using spores, and then you may opt to get started in more detail.
The reason why you must be very detailed about the right mushrooms that you should grow, which don’t have any spores, is that you can only grow a limited number of mushroom species with this technique. There are very few online resources to teach you this technique, your growing fungi need more attention, and your chances of not successfully growing the shrooms are high.
This is an unconventional method of growing shrooms; you can only successfully grow a few species of mushrooms with the method. This method is best for preserving mushroom species, so you don’t need to grow your regular mushrooms with their tissues, as you can easily get their spores from the nearest gardening store.
– Collect Your Mushroom Tissue
While you don’t need any mushroom spores to grow your mushrooms, you surely need their tissues. You can use their stem tissue or inner flesh so long as they are mature mushrooms.
To grow magic mushrooms, any type of them, which is also the same for psychedelic mushrooms, and others that you can grow without the use of any spores, collect the tissues of only healthy shrooms.
You don’t have to cut out the tissue now, as you don’t have your equipment yet. Just use this step to search for healthy, clean, and mature mushrooms. If the shroom does not look like what you want, do not collect it, as this method will produce shrooms that look exactly like what you started them with.
If you see any the ones that you like, growing it with its spores will not guarantee you harvest the same mushroom, as the offspring will surely have slight genetic differences, and this is why you should go for using the tissue. However, gives you your exact desired mushroom, and you would notice that this means that growing your shrooms without using their spores is the best way to preserve their species.
– Gather Your Equipment
It is time to get the tools that you need. You need a clean knife, some Petri dishes, and culture media. You also need containers such as mason jars to grow mushrooms. Unlike other methods of growing mushrooms, you do not need spore syringes.
Mushroom cultivation tools are easy to find. Simply go to a gardening store nearby. If you need help searching for them individually, consider buying a kit to grow mushrooms, as you can easily get them. Search for the kits in online stores or a reputable gardening store near you to simplify the process.
– Sterilize Your Equipment
While it is very good practice to sterilize your tools for gardening, it is compulsory to do so when cultivating mushrooms. Using a pressure cooker or oven, sterilize your tools to help your magic mushroom grow successfully without the fear of pests.
Remember that mushrooms are fungi, and they start as microbes even though they grow to become visible strands. If you do not sterilize your tools, other unwanted microbes will grow with your mushrooms, meaning that you may not get your desired products.
Use sterilization by baking for your tools, but for this, remember not to use rubbing alcohol or other products, as these products only disinfect and don’t sterilize tools. Aim to kill over 99 percent of germs in your tools so that the process, in the long run, would not be one that would show you any trouble.
For this matter, you must keep in mind that some challenges that you can face when growing mushrooms are microbial attacks due to dirty tools and substrate, dying shrooms due to nutrient deficiency, and using the wrong type of substrate. These challenges are easily avoidable when you stick to the steps and tips in this article.
If you properly sterilize your tools and ensure that you only cultivate your mushrooms in a clean, draft-free environment, the shrooms will be free from pest attacks. Using the same substrate twice can lead to loss of nutrients, so ensure that you change the substrate or add more organic nutrients for the mushrooms.
– Prepare a Culture Media
Now that you have healthy mushrooms and sterilized tools, it is time for action. Go to a gardening store and buy an agar package to cultivate your mushrooms. This product usually comes as a powder or liquid culture media. Stick to the instructions on the package of the product so that you do not make mistakes.
You only need to pour in some agar mix on the sterilized petri dish to have the right medium where they would be growing. For this, you should aim to ensure that you do this in a clean and draft-free environment. Also, wear gloves or wash your hands properly before you open the petri dish.
– Inoculate the Media
When you have prepared the culture medium, use a sterilized knife to collect a little but significantly-large tissue from the healthy mushroom. Place the tissue on the agar-filled petri dish, then cover it and wait.
Seal the dish with parafilm or keep it inside a sealed container so that you can prevent harmful microbes from getting in. When you are ready to incubate the tissue, move on to the next step.
– Incubate the Mushroom Tissue
Keep the petri dish in an oven, or wherever you can get 68 to almost 77 degrees Fahrenheit, this is important to give you the right medium so that they grow. Just as in the case of making spore mushrooms, ensure that the temperature is stable. Check the petri dish once daily or every two days, to keep up with the way that they would be growing.
If everything is successful, you will see some strands, which are usually bright, and ensure they will be spreading on the dish in a few days. These strands, called mycelium, are the spreading fungi that you will transfer to a substrate. Continue incubating the mushrooms until you are ready to transfer them to their substrate.
– Make and Sterilize a Substrate
You need lose materials such as coco coir and vermiculite to make a substrate for your mushrooms. These materials will keep the substrate well-drained so that your growing fungi can spread easily. You also need nutritious ingredients such as brown rice flour, animal manure, and coffee ground so that the fungi can have nutrients to grow.
If you intend to make a bulk substrate for your shrooms, consider using grains instead of animal manure, as a substrate made with manure spoils quickly. After making the substrate, it is time to sterilize it.
Keep your substrate in a plastic bag or a jar to sterilize it. Keep the jar in an oven or slightly above water in a pot. If you are using a pot, place the jar on items such as lids, rocks, etc. Just make sure that the jars are not directly on the bottom of the pot.
Boil them in the pot or bake them in the oven for one hour or more. Ensure that they are tightly sealed, especially when using a pot, so that steam from the water does not increase the moisture content of your substrate.
– Transfer the Mycelium to Your Substrate
When the mycelia successfully cover the petri dish’s surface, you can split and transfer them, and for this, you can use a knife to take them to more Petri dishes. However, you can transfer them to a substrate. You most likely will have a grain spawn in this step if you are using a growing kit.
Whether you have your spawn in grains or a plain agar mix, transfer them to the substrate in this step. Mix the mycelia with the substrate using a sterilized spoon and then place the substrate in a good spot.
– Harvest the Shrooms
After three to four months, your shrooms will be ready for gathering, so you should only harvest the shrooms when you are comfortable with their sizes. When your mushroom life cycle is completed, it will develop spores. This means that you no longer need to start them by using their tissue anymore.
How to Care For Your Growing Shrooms Without Spores?
To care for your growing shrooms without spores, ensure you consistently water them, and keep them free from pests by preventing insects and other types of pests from reaching them. Grow your shrooms in a draft-free room, so the wind does not transfer microbial spores to the substrate.
– Water the Mushrooms
Mushroom growing with or without the use of spores needs consistent watering. Fungi need a moist substrate to spread, so ensure that the mushroom substrate never runs dry. Water the mushrooms daily, sometimes twice daily.
When watering them, ensure that you soak the entire substrate, and this is the right requirement needed so that the organism growing would establish well.
So long as the substrate is well-drained, you cannot overwater the shrooms, as the excess water will quickly run off. If you notice that the substrate needs to be well-drained and excess water does not run off quickly, water the shrooms less often. Also, make the next batch of the substrate a bit more well-drained.
– Grow the Shrooms Free From Drafts
All your efforts in sterilizing your tools and substrate will be wasteful if you grow the fungi in a windy environment. Some bacteria and even other species of fungi spread their spores with wind, so your shrooms can get attacked by microbes if you do not grow them in a draft-free room.
Select a quiet room in your home or a shed, so that you would ensure that most of the windows are closed. If some are open, do not keep your shrooms too close to or directly facing them. Also, only open the doors of the room when you are entering or leaving the room. The point here is that you don’t want to grow your shrooms in a busy room.
You would see that the positive side here is that growing mushrooms without spores are growing the same mushroom, which is in terms of genetics, having more options for growing your mushrooms, and not waiting until your mushrooms are fully mature to produce spores before you start growing a new batch.
– Keep Them Away From Pests
You can prevent contamination by preventing insects and other pests from reaching the shrooms. Remember that the mushroom substrate is organically nutrient-rich. This means that it will surely attract insects, earthworms, and other pests.
These pests can cause some microbes to attack your mushrooms while competing with the fungi for nutrients in their substrate, and pests would also keep them from growing. Prevent this by ensuring that the shroom cultivation room is pest-free.
Conclusion
Mushroom cultivation is super easy for you now, and this is why you should remember the key points that we covered:
- Psilocybin mushrooms grow without using spores so long as you see mycelium before transferring them to a substrate.
- You can use mushroom grow kits which come with everything you need to save yourself a lot of time and energy.
- When you see spore prints in the culture media, you can start transferring the vegetative mushroom to other media or a substrate.
- Remember to use only sterilized tools and keep your working area as clean as possible.
- Consistently water your mushrooms and ensure that the substrate is not soggy.
You are now ready to start growing magic mushrooms and others, so go ahead and do harvest some lovely and sweet mushrooms.
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