EQUIPMENT ALTERNATIVES The techniques described here are a good place to begin, and can be altered to fit your budget and space. Companies such as Fungi Perfecti ( fungiperfecti.com) and Carolina Biological Supply ( carolina.com) sell prepoured agar plates, mycelium spawn, and plastic bags with preattached filters, which are common in the mushroom industry — or you can improvise your own with zip-lock bags and filter material. Drugstores have all sorts of supplies for protecting living materials. Experiment, keep track of what you’ve done, and be safe.
LABELING AND
JOURNAL KEEPING
As you experiment, keep track of what you are doing. Write the date and type of mushroom you are culturing onto your agar plates and jars. In a journal, write down the recipes you followed or changed, the equipment and techniques you tried, measurements of ingredients, cleaning techniques, the number of times you cooked things, the smells of your cultures, the substrates you used, how things grew or got contaminated, and any other things you notice — even the weather and temperature outside. Without this documentation, you’ll lose track of what’s what. And when something works well, you can refer to your log to try to reproduce the results.
MUSHROOM GROWING TIPS
Clean the room and all of your equipment so that
you could literally eat off of any surface.
» If there are cobwebs in the room, there are prob-
ably microorganism-carrying spiders and insects.
Get rid of them or try another location.
» Choose a work area that’s isolated from open
windows, drafts, plants, pets, and other people.
» Use dedicated equipment — things you’re not
also using for cooking or other activities.
» Work on a smooth surface that can be bleached down. For a good smooth surface, you can tape down plastic sheeting or an opened garbage bag. » Follow strict personal hygiene before doing any lab work: shower, brush your teeth, pull back long hair, and clip your nails. When washing your hands, scrub up to your elbows and rake your fingertips across a bar of soap to clean under the nails. After drying off, follow up with isopropyl alcohol. (Once you are familiar with culturing techniques, you can be a bit less orthodox about cleanliness.) » Don’t touch anything unnecessary: your face, phone, doorknobs. Remove watches and jewelry. » To supply nutrients, try adding a pinch of 20-20-20 plant food or crushed multivitamin into your cellulose, or put a piece of dry cat food into your agar. » If any of your agar or mushrooms are contaminated with mold, discard them immediately. These will infect the other things you are trying to grow. » Join a local mycological society. These are great places to learn about mushroom growing, as well as wild mushroom identification. » Only eat mushrooms that you can identify confidently.
RESOURCES
The Science of Life, by Frank G. Bottone, Jr. — Biological principles and good projects for kids.
Mycelium Running and other books by Paul Stamets — Essential reading by the godfather of mushroom cultivation.
Critical Art Ensemble — critical-art.net, caedefensefund.org
SymbioticA — www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au
Science and technology artist directory (including bio-related) — userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/links/ wilson.artlinks2.html
Grain substrate preparation using a pressure cooker — kalyx.com/catalog/grain.htm
References:
Archives