6/19/2008

Aye! There be Mycelium in me kitchen and a Hawk in a tree!

Mycelium: Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae.

Hyphae: A hypha (plural hyphae) is a long, branching filamentous cell of a fungus.

I've made several different methods of growing my Oyster shrooms. The first method (Photo 1) is on PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar) that was inoculated with a spore syringe that came with my Mushroom kit from sporeworks.com. Ironically I used regular sugar because I didn't know what dextrose was or where to get it. I now know that it is available through brew shops and we just happen to have a local wine and hop shop!

I inoculated two jars like this, but only this one seems to show any growth. And wow...what growth it has! It keeps growing and now...just a few hours later, the mycelia is growing up the sides of the jar! How cool is that! I am preparing grain to transfer a segment of this luscious growth to, and then...I will transfer the grain spawn (grain colonized by the mycelium) to a basket full of pasteurized, chopped, straw. Sounds like a lot work right? Not really. It happens in stages and the straw stage is still a few weeks off. I also plan makes some transfers to agar and attempt to gain hypha as this is just cottony growth that may, or may not fruit well. I shall keep notes and post me findings. I am loving this! I even built myself a positive air glove box with a $30 hepa air filter machine from Farm and Fleet. It seems to work really well in keeping contams (contamination like mold spores I don't wanna grow...like green mold or black pin mild....ichy stuff). I'll have to post about excursion that next.



The second photo if the Mushroom grow bag that I ordered from sporeworks.com. The white patch you see on the grain is Blue Oyster Mycelia growing. It too is taking off like a bat outta hell!

Third photo is of a transfer I did from a Pearl or Phoenix (not sure which) Oyster I purchased at the local farmers market. The cheapest way to expand my 'shroom culturing! This is what is termed as "cloning" in Mycology. The wispy white strands coming from the piece of fungus flesh is new mycelia growth. YAY! I took the biggest shroom of the bunch I got and cloned it. If anyone who reads me blog cares to get into Mycology and wants a free culture, just ask! It's easy as pie...although some kinds of pie are a lot of work...but this is a no-bake kinda deal...LMAO!! Pun-pun-puUUUuuun!


The fourth photo is a BRF-Tekmethod of cultivating shrooms. Lots of growth here! This can be crumbled and spread out on another substrate to colonize and fruit.


Fifth photo is of a red-Tail Hawk that was just outside our apartment, perched in a tree. There was all sorts of racket coming from a few Robins and Cardinals so I went out to investigate. WOW! What a beauty!

I'll keep this up to date as my shrooming adventures continue! I love summer!

I went and purchased some diatomaceous earth to put in the garden today because the leaves of my bush beans are getting chewed on by slugs I think. Several seedlings have been destroyed. I'll post photos of zee garden tomorrow as a well. I also bought a venus fly trap plant...I love them things...and maybe this time I can keep it alive over-winter!

Until next time...

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