Sometimes, to accurately identify a fungus, it is necessary to know the color of the spore powder. Why do we talk about "spore powder" and not the color of the spores? One spore cannot be seen with the naked eye, but if they are poured en masse, in powder, then they can be seen.

In foreign literature, the term “spore print” is used, short and succinct. The translation is longer: “imprint of spore powder”; the word “imprint” here may not be entirely correct, but it has caught on and is used.

Before you begin the procedure for obtaining a “spore print” at home, carefully examine the mushrooms in nature, right at the place of collection. Adult specimens generously scatter spores around themselves - this is a natural process of reproduction, because mushrooms, or rather, their fruiting bodies, do not grow in order to end up in a mushroom picker’s basket: spores ripen in them.

Pay attention to the colored dust covering the foliage, grass or soil under the mushrooms - that’s what it is, spore powder.

Examples, here is a pinkish powder on a leaf:

And here is the white powder on the leaf under the mushroom:

Mushrooms growing close to each other sprinkle spores on the caps of their low-growing neighbors.

However, under natural conditions, spore powder is carried away by the wind, washed off by rain, and it can be difficult to determine its color if it is poured onto a colored leaf or a bright cap. It is necessary to obtain an imprint of spore powder under stationary conditions.

There is nothing complicated about it! You will need:

• paper (or glass) where we will collect the powder
• glass or cup to cover the mushroom
• actually the mushroom itself
• a little patience

To get "spore print" at home, you need to take a relatively mature mushroom. Mushrooms with unopened caps, or too young, or mushrooms with preserved caps are not suitable for obtaining a print.

It is not recommended to wash the mushroom selected for spore print. Carefully cut off the stem, but not just under the cap, but so that you can place the cap on this scrap as close to the surface of the paper as possible, but so that the plates (or sponge) do not touch the surface. If the cap is too large, you can take a small segment. The top skin can be moistened with a couple of drops of water. We cover our mushroom with a glass to prevent drafts and premature drying of the cap.
Leave for several hours, preferably overnight, at normal room temperature, never in the refrigerator.
For dung beetles, this period can be reduced; everything happens too quickly for them.

For relatively young mushrooms, it may take a day or even more.
In my case, only after two days did I manage to get a print of such intensity that I could make out the color. The quality was not very good, but it helped to clearly identify the species; the powder is not pink, which means it is not an entoloma.

When you lift the cap, be careful not to move it or smear the picture: the spores, without air movement, fell vertically down, so we will see not only the color of the powder, but also the pattern of plates or pores.

That's all, actually. We have received an imprint of spore powder; we can photograph it for identification or just “as a souvenir.” Don't be embarrassed if you don't get a pretty picture the first time. We found out the main thing - the color of the spore powder. And the rest comes with experience.

One more point remains unspecified: what color paper is best to use? For light “spore print” (white, creamy, creamy), it is logical to use black paper. For dark people, of course, white. An alternative and very convenient option is to make a print not on paper, but on glass. Then, depending on the result obtained, you can examine the print, changing the background under the glass.

In a similar way, you can obtain “spore print” for ascomycetes (“marsupial” fungi). It should be taken into account that axomycetes scatter spores around themselves, and not down, so we cover them with a wider container.

Harvesting

So, the long-awaited half kilo has come out of your miracle tube, what next?

If you are growing from a multispore, the mushrooms will obviously vary in size and maturity. Many manuals say that the entire wave must be removed at once, because unopened mushrooms will stop developing after the supposed shock, etc. In fact, this is not entirely true. Well, imagine yourself in the place of mushrooms: you spread your net, began to grow, and then elephants/cows/bugs came running and devoured/trampled some of you. It’s stupid to stop growing throughout your entire network because of this. The task is to survive, like all living things. Therefore, you can collect a wave more than once.

The moment at which a mushroom is ready to be harvested is different for everyone. If you need prints, then naturally you need to wait for the hats to open. If the prints are not needed, you can collect the unopened ones. Those who have been to the gollashka have noticed that fresh cubes are sold there with an unopened hat. I usually collect when the veil has not yet been torn; firstly, this reduces the number of mushrooms obtained (yes, this also happens), and secondly, the potency of such mushrooms is slightly greater than that of mushrooms with an open cap.

We wait until the earliest mushrooms of the first wave reach the desired size. Usually these are 5-8 large mushrooms. We carefully collect them, trying not to disturb the others. If something is dragged along with them, we remove that too.

Then we close the tube as it was and wait a few more hours (from 3 to 18) collecting what reaches the desired state. Naturally, we don’t wait until the end for those mushrooms that were destined to abort. We also don’t welcome those who are not tall enough (from individual microcolonies). After a maximum of 18 hours the block must be cleaned.

During the initial pinning, primordia are formed to provide the first two waves, so completely clearing the block is tantamount, for a zealous mushroom grower, to hitting yourself in the balls with a sickle.

You need to remove mushrooms that have a pronounced stem and cap, and that are darker in color (they have begun to show signs of degradation). If you see a mushroom, but it is still close to an egg-shaped shape, do not touch it; it will very likely turn out to be a large, beautiful mushroom of the second wave. It will help to get an eye on what is worth cleaning and what is not, just practice and photos that have not yet been taken.

Experimental block with abortions

What if you don't clean the block at all? No, it’s true, harvesting wastes time and effort, but getting up early tomorrow can be a good thing, huh?

No sooner said than done. The second wave is approaching, untidy abortions are degrading, darkening, blue and

losing freshness. Many of them become pubescent at the legs. Many are absorbed by the mycelium,

Chapter: Harvesting

mushrooms of the second wave fluffing up from below the legs. I'm filming the second wave. Small abortions of the first wave by this time do not look at all cheerful. Their small bodies shrink and begin to bend under their own weight. Despite the rather cheerful appearance, no contamination is observed and the decision is made to rehydrate the block before the third wave in the same form as it is, without cleaning. The block is finally moving into the experimental category.

After 6 hours of rehydration, the block is removed from the tube and placed in a squeezer on a stand. Everything that sticks out of it looks ugly; the soggy, dying abortions in places look like pieces of gray mucus stuck to the substrate. For 3-4 days the block becomes dull and nothing happens; on the 5th day it begins to fluff up slightly with mycelium. The fluff also grows on the abortions, although it does not eat them up completely; in some places new pins begin to appear; there are not many of them yet, but by their appearance you can understand that they will come out large.

In total, the block survived 5 waves and was discarded, not because it was contaminated, but because it had greatly decreased in size and dried out.

The moral of this story is that if you are not growing on pure grain, you don’t have to clean up the block too much. The only point is that after the second wave the block moves into a space without walls, into a bag, and therefore moisture has the opportunity to evaporate from the entire surface of the block. That aeration is present equally on all sides. If you leave the block in the container after the 2nd wave, you can get abortions rotting along the edges and bottom of the container.

My theory is this. Since mushrooms strive to survive, they will use any resource for this. And I believe that it is quite possible and acceptable for them to grab their own dying parts in order to replenish their own supply. I think this is what they are doing while the block is stuck after rehydration.

Removal, drying and storage

Much has been written about how to remove mushrooms from a block. Some say cut, some say twist, some say swing. I am for all methods except cutting and leaving stumps. I usually either twist it out if the mushroom is single, or pull it out after swinging it to the sides if the mushrooms grow in a bunch or in a bunch. The only thing you need to make sure is that everything that comes along with the mushroom is removed too. That is, if a piece of mycelium comes off with a mushroom, you don’t need to try to attach it back, thinking that it will grow back, etc.

Before drying, mushrooms must be cleaned of any remaining substrate. This can also be done however you like, you can scrape it or cut it off, it doesn’t matter. The main goal is a mushroom that is clean from the substrate.

When I was still new to mushroom growing, I dried my meager harvest using all sorts of complicated methods, closed boxes with desiccants, parboiled rice, and so on. At some point, I realized the absurdity of all these ideas and bought myself a multi-tiered electric dryer. I paid 1200 rubles for it and forgot about all the hassle. I dry at 30C with a built-in fan. Drying takes about 24-30

Chapter: Harvesting

hours. The mushrooms, dry to the point of cookies, are put into a paper bag from a McDuck and then into a plastic bag.

Storage duration

I don’t use a refrigerator for storage; I don’t see the point in it. No, seriously, if you have a lot of mushrooms, there is no point in worrying about the fact that some of them will disappear in small quantities.

Moreover, experience shows that even after lying for a year and a half in an unsealed wooden box, at room temperature, mushrooms retain their toughness at a high level. I remember well the day when I found this little thing and decided to test it. I threw the mushrooms onto the scales, the display showed the figure 5.5g. Having estimated how long they had been lying there (and they had darkened and crumbled easily, almost into dust), I thought that they had lost their strength a little less than completely.

Not hoping for their performance, I ground them, washed them down with some water and went to Auchan to buy something for breakfast. It was a wonderful sunny morning. Putting on darker glasses, I stomped to the store. Having almost reached my destination, I began to feel the familiar stirrings of perception. Assessing them as insignificant, I entered Auchan and, taking a grocery cart, began to climb the rows. At some point I felt that I was being dragged very hard. In the cheese department, I realized that it was not a childish thing that took me away: the counters were breathing, and the inscriptions on the price tags were in no way legible. I myself was quite stormy, and people began to shy away from me.

Having assessed the situation, I realized that I no longer needed a cart with groceries, and the mere thought that I would have to stand in line at the checkout and pay the cashier seemed to me an unrealistic idea.

A growing hum appeared in my ears, in which dozens of different voices could be heard, but there was a feeling that they were all speaking different languages, incomprehensible to me. The atmosphere began to oppress, the masses of people surrounding me with their carts and baskets merged into one consumer stream, an incredibly fat aunt screamed to my right, but it felt like it was right in my ear: “Take a Coca-Cola!” To my left, an even larger uncle, apparently her husband, frantically began loading 2 packs of cola with 6 2-liter bottles into his cart. At one point I felt stuffy, I figured out how much this family drinks this stuff, I realized where all their fat came from. I felt disgusted, at one point the suffocating smell of sweat, coming from a fat man with Coca Cola, hit my nose. A lump formed in my throat and I felt nauseous.

“We need to get out of here,” flashed through my head. I abruptly jumped out of my seat and moved towards the exit, holding back the urge to vomit. I tore from Ashan as a righteous straight man would tore from Sadom and Gamora.

Having escaped into the street, I took several cycles of deep breaths and exhalations, and noticed that the nausea had subsided. At that moment I appreciated the depth of the trip; I looked at the tiles that lined the area in front of the shopping center and could not pay attention to anything

Chapter: Harvesting

one piece of coverage. The simple, usually natural pattern on the tiles lived its own life. At some point it seemed to me that my height was increasing, at another it seemed to be decreasing. Trying to stabilize the image, I peered at the floor. Then I felt some discomfort, some pressing feeling from behind. I looked around and saw a group of kids standing nearby, looking at me with amusement. Then it occurred to me that I was creating an unreal fawn, standing slightly bent over the floor and sticking it into the tile, slightly moving my head trying to see the patterns on the tile. I realized that someone had made a mistake somewhere, and mushrooms that have been lying around for a long time do not lose much activity. Quickly estimating the situation in which I hit 5.5 dry and went to Auchan, I felt very funny. Then my thoughts jumped to the fact that I was still standing in the same place and sticking, only not on the tiles, but on a group of kids. Moreover, the guys had already laughed it off and started fidgeting, not understanding what was going on in my head about their company.

I turned around and walked away from this place. On the way, I hung out on a bench in one of the sparsely populated alleys.

A couple of times I was thrown out of this world and into others. The trip came out more than good and strong. The conclusion that I made in practice is this: if the mushrooms remain dry and have been stored for less than 1.5 years, you should not think that they have weakened or are inactive. Be careful!

Chapter: Harvesting

Taking a spore print

It's good when there are prints, and bad when there aren't. I remember well the time when I didn’t have prints, and how I busted my ass to get hold of planting material. My first print came to me from a user with the nickname BT5, for which I am grateful to him. Alas, mushrooms were not destined to grow from this print (or rather, from the half of the print sent). Excessive enthusiasm and crooked hands did their dirty work, and I returned to the point from which I started. The second print came to me not through this forum, but in a roundabout way through familiar acquaintances, my acquaintances. Having prepared everything I needed, I began to print out the print to scrape it into a glass to make a spore suspension. What I found inside the carelessly crumpled foil surprised and upset me. There was an incomprehensible mess of spores and some kind of foul-smelling mucus. Naturally, having nothing else, I, for luck, put it all into a syringe and inoculated the grain. Naturally, everything was very quickly and enchantingly screwed up. Then I tried twice to order disputes from abroad, but alas, the bourgeoisie fucked our brother, and nothing came. I never received the print, but I did make a wonderful friend with whom I subsequently stayed until his death. User Unambo (it’s funny if you read his nickname backwards, you’ll get obmanU, as he liked to say “deception in reverse,” and in reality he was a very honest and decent person) agreed to meet me at one of the metro stations, and gave me a jar of hay covered in mycelium . This was Cambodia, and these were the first mushrooms that grew in my crooked hands at that time. The first prints I made weren't particularly well thought out or designed; now I'd call them crap.

Now I understand that the print, in addition to containing spores, must also be clean, properly removed, convenient for removing spores from it, carefully packaged and always signed.

To remove prints, I use grill foil; it is thick, strong, and easy to work with both before removing prints and when extracting spores for your own needs.

and to take one or two prints.

1. Cut a strip from thick foil, about 3 cm wide than the diameter of the mushroom cap, and twice as long as the width. For a mushroom cap with a diameter of 5 cm, the size of the foil rectangle will be 8x16 cm.

2. Prepare a container with a lid. I use the capacity from a monotube. It has a lid and its area is sufficient to take a sufficient number of prints. Wipe the inside of the container with alcohol.

3. Using a cotton swab on a smooth surface, wipe both sides of the foil strip. You need to wipe with pressure to thoroughly smooth out the foil strips; they should be perfectly even.

4. Place strips of foil on the inside of the inverted lid, wipe them again with alcohol and cover with the container.

Now that everything is ready to remove the prints, you need to select the fruiting body. There are many different theories about which fruiting bodies need to be imprinted. Some say take it from the largest mushrooms, others say take it from mushrooms of the 3rd wave, like they have the most “ripe” spores, someone generally advises not to bother and take it from any mushroom. Someone removes spores from hats that have just opened, and someone waits until the brim of the hat bends upward. Personally, I am of the opinion that the younger the mycelium and the bolder the print, the better. Therefore, I recommend taking mushrooms for prints from the first wave, and those that have opened to the point where the spore-bearing plates do not yet protrude beyond the edge of the cap. That is, if you remove the leg right next to the cap and place the cap on the surface, it will lie resting on its edges, and the plates will not touch the surface. This will, firstly, reduce the number of any bonuses on the outside (since nothing will fly under the cap during spore formation), and secondly, it will concentrate the spores into one beautiful imprint, and nothing will fly out of the edges of the cap.

5. Remove the selected mushroom from the substrange block and place the cap on a clean surface. Using a razor wiped with alcohol (I use rapier-type razors, like for Soviet razors), carefully cut off the stem just under the cap, so that the remaining “stump” does not protrude beyond the level of the edges of the cap if it is placed with the spore-bearing plates facing down.

6. Using clean tweezers, carefully take the cap and place it on one of the prepared strips of foil, so that it occupies approximately the middle of half the strip. The idea is that the strip will be folded in half, and the print will be located in the center of one of the parts.

7. Repeat with other hats.

8. Now that all the caps are laid out on strips of foil, lightly spray the container with which you will cover it all. Cover and forget for 12 hours.

The question is, why spray the container with water? Everything is very simple. I think many people have encountered the fact that excellent mushrooms produce liquid prints or do not release spores onto the media at all. This happens because the fungus can shed spores only when there is sufficient humidity. Once the mushroom loses its connection to the block and the cap loses its connection to the stem, the cap becomes very prone to drying out. Remember that the mycelium colonies forming the fruiting body are living and they need high humidity to “work.” Try it and make sure that when sporulating onto a carrier, air humidification seriously increases the efficiency of the process. Those who have seen my prints will be able to confirm that the prints, even from small hats, are very bold. And can be used repeatedly.

9. When time has passed, prepare a needle wiped with alcohol and open the container.

Chapter: Spore Imprinting

10. Using a needle, pick up the edge of the cap and carefully toss it so that it flies off the foil without smearing the print.

11. After doing this with all the caps, close the container and let the prints dry for about 10 minutes.

This is done to ensure that residual moisture does not cause damage to the print during storage (mucus may even grow there).

12. Fold a strip of foil in half along the wide side, smooth the fold with your finger

13. Fold the edges of the strip to one side along the sides that were 0.5 cm long before folding in half. Iron the folds

14. Fold the remaining unsealed edge over to the other side.

15. The print is ready, all that remains is to store it in the same strip of foil, but of a larger caliber, and sign it.

As you may notice, the prints obtained in this way are not sterile, they are simply obtained under relatively clean conditions. When transferring to a syringe for grain inoculation, I use gentamicin 1 ml per 10 ml of water. This is enough to ensure that there are no jambs. When inoculating agar, the chances of introducing unnecessary waste naturally increase, but the principle of operation is completely different. The culture is transferred in clean pieces the size of a grain of rice, and at the very beginning of growth. The standard rejection of cups in direct hands usually does not exceed 15%. I’ll also say that getting sterile prints is a whole mess, and technically it’s difficult. And it is even more difficult to maintain their sterility during storage.

Prints on paper

There was a conversation here at Olechka about prints on paper. Like, I don’t like foil, I want prints on paper. How to sterilize it?

I replied: “iron blea!” – funny, I don’t argue. But nevertheless, the method has been tested. True, left in the past, since I haven’t photographed it on paper for a long time. So, we make sterile paper for prints.

You take a regular sheet from the printer. You cut it for fingerprints. Then you take 2 more sheets and glue them together along the edges with thin tape. You put the cut paper for prints inside the resulting “folder”. You seal it with tape in the same way. The result is an almost airtight envelope.

Then you place it on a flat, hard surface and heat it at maximum with an iron, simultaneously steaming it with a stream of steam. A couple of minutes and the sterile paper for prints is ready.

Chapter: Spore Imprinting

Contaminants

Any experienced mushroom grower will tell you that during his life he has thrown away many kilograms of grain and other substrates. This is normal, and you shouldn’t get upset or give up about it. Even among super-terry mushroom growers, a loss of 10-15% is the norm. It all depends on the potential complexity and risk of the operation. The largest percentage of fakap is behind such operations as g2g (grain-to-grain inoculation) and agar transfers.

The larger the scope of your hobby, the greater the percentage of losses. Large volumes of substrate require a different approach to growing; it’s one thing when you work with the substrate with a large spoon rubbed with alcohol, and quite another thing when you have a garden fork or shovel in your hands. The volume of potential contenders for eating a couple of cubes of your wonderful compost will naturally be higher. And the process of creating conditions for pasteurization of such volumes of substrate will be more difficult.

But let's return to small volumes. The good news is that here you can achieve almost complete absence of problems with competitive organisms. Another news is that for this you will have to use current technical solutions, including those described in this book.

It is also necessary to take mushrooms into life very well and fully. You need to try to put yourself in the place of mushrooms. Understand how they grow, feed, reproduce and how all this fits with their living conditions.

The mushrooms themselves told me many things; the goal of the session was to learn about the life of the mushrooms that I eat. During the session, I was accompanied by a completely overgrown jar of mycelium. A very strong experience, I recommend it. View them and communicate with them with questions in your mind, empathetically. Try to identify yourself with them, be them, visit where they grow.

Competition for resources in the world of microorganisms requires certain characteristics of reproduction. It should be fast, and the number of offspring produced should be high. And in fact it is so. The simpler the organism, the faster its life cycle. Accordingly, lower mushrooms will always grow faster than higher ones. Cubensis, naturally, belongs to the higher mushrooms, and competitors: some are higher (but simpler), some are lower. The cultivator’s task is to create conditions under which a head start is created so that his wards have time to occupy the substrate first.

The sterility of the same grain in a jar is not an absolute value. Over time, it falls, no matter how good the barrier protection is. The good news is that jars with the protection described in this book allow you to keep the pressure of contaminants for at least 8 weeks (unless the contamination was introduced into the jar by the operator himself).

Chapter: Contaminants

Скорость размножения у конкурентов поистине велика, те, кто уже имел неудачные опыты, по достоинству оценили то, как бодро колонизирует банку триходерма или ниггер. Eh, such speed indicators for cubes...

Many simple mushrooms simply do not form fruiting bodies. Let's say Trichoderma, which belongs to the genus Hyphomycetes. They form condyenopods (special vertical outgrowths from the mycelium) from which their spores (condia) are scattered. Their formation takes little time, and sporulation is abundant. In a closed space and at elevated temperatures, Trichoderma spreads like wildfire. This is especially facilitated by the presence of areas with anaerobic conditions in the substrate. Under anaerobic conditions, a number of organic acids are formed in the substrate, which are the yum for Trichoderma.

Trichoderma

Using the example of Trichoderma, it becomes clear that the commanders were right when they said: “Know your enemy.” Having an idea of ​​your competitors makes it easier to fight them.

In nature, Trichoderma is a soil bacterium, and therefore it is very easy to introduce it with a cover layer containing soil. If the casing is not sterilized enough, the chances of making a new “friend” are very high. If a buffer with a basic reaction, such as gypsum, is added to the substrate, this naturally prevents the appearance of trichoderma (within reasonable limits, of course).

At the first signs of the appearance of trichoderma, throw out the cake without regret, and subject the space in which it stood to the most thorough sanitization using the most stringent methods. Domestos to the rescue! Never wait for it to multiply, throw it away IMMEDIATELY! This species produces many very small and tenacious spores. Once it has fruited in your greenhouse, it can lead to a long streak of disappointment from being infested with it. If you are still using a greenhouse with expanded clay or perlite, then either replace them with new ones, or soak the old one in a solution of Domestos or other chlorine-containing liquid.

If you use greenhouses or monotubes with filters, treat all of this with bleach, and be sure to replace the filters with new ones.

Never open jars affected by Trichoderma where growth occurs. To dispose of affected grain, first open the jar slightly and fill it with hot water, only then can you start shaking it into the toilet. The same rule applies to any contaminated jar. Spore-bearing organisms spread mainly through the air; by filling the jar with water, you deposit the spores and they do not scatter throughout the bathroom or toilet. Naturally, a small part of them is one

Chapter: Contaminants

the fig flies out, so try to be dressed to a minimum when shaking it out (spores cling to clothes in large quantities), and immediately after removing the can, wash your hands up to the elbows with antibacterial soap.

Anaerobic conditions for contaminants

In many manuals and user posts, you can find references to the fact that during colonization, mushrooms practically do not need fresh air. This is not entirely true, and there is a huge difference between increased carbon dioxide and lack of oxygen.

To understand this difference, you need to try to put yourself in the place of mushrooms. Most of the mushrooms we love spend their life cycle in the upper layers of the fertile soil layer. Usually the depth of their habitat is approximately 15 centimeters deep. Anything deeper does not have the necessary conditions for their growth.

Depending on the components that form the fertile soil layer, its aeration will be different, and will naturally deteriorate with increasing depth.

The condition for fruiting of cubensis is the appearance of constant air exchange.

By constant air exchange I mean the organization of a simultaneous influx of oxygen and removal of carbon dioxide. For the colonization stage, organizing the outflow of carbon dioxide is not necessary, but the influx of oxygen is necessary. Now, I hope the difference is clear. Because carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it spreads over the surface of the substrate and remains in the jar or container, even if the air filter hole is large, so it’s not scary if the hole for venting the jar is at least 3 centimeters in diameter, it’s scary if it is less than 8mm. Naturally, the larger the volume of substrate used, the more oxygen it requires. And if we are talking about a 3-liter container, then one 8mm hole, like in a jar lid, is not enough. In addition to the fact that fungi need air for growth, it is also needed to prevent the creation of anaerobic conditions, under which the development of pathogenic microflora will be a matter of a short period of time.

The issue of oxygen flow during colonization is especially relevant and critical when using synthetic substrates based on coconut fiber. Since its fraction is quite small, and its ability to retain water is high, to ensure sufficient aeration, the substrate layer should not be thicker than 15 cm (preferably even less), and the ventilation vents should be of sufficient size. Naturally, incubation must take place where there is free air exchange, otherwise the vents will be of no use.

The absence of anaerobic zones in the substrate is one of the important factors that partially solves the problems of contamination with many types of bacteria.

Chapter: Contaminants

Ate some mushrooms. I realized that this was the right thing. Therefore, I wanted to contribute to introducing everyone (except pregnant women and children at their own risk, of course) to the world of psychedelics. And I wrote something like an article.

How to harvest for the first time in your life?

The short answer is to follow Abert's method. So the first thing to do is go to Google, enter “abert mushrooms” and join in. The average time for a beginner, and I confirmed this with my experience, is half a year before a positive result. It is sad. Over such a period, you can become disappointed in the whole idea.

If we want to go faster, then the second step is to watch “Mushrooms growing made it easy”. Great movie, right on pirate bay. It’s in Russian, it’s clear where it’s located (on Russian torrents). It provides useful information and is a must watch. Thus, if you believe in success, your first harvest will eventually come. Well, I want to write some practical advice from myself.

The narrative consists of two parts, one of which examines economic issues - how to optimally purchase, and the other sheds light on technical details - how to and should not do it. It is clear that mushrooms will not grow overnight, nor in two, nor in a week. This means you can distribute expenses evenly, and the question here is how, and what should you buy and at what stage.

So. We want to start growing mushrooms. The sequence of actions will be as follows:

1. Order a spore print and receive it.
2. Prepare jars.
3. Throw the spores into a jar and wait for it to grow.
4. Place it in a greenhouse.
5. Ventilate, water, collect.

To begin with, magic mushrooms are simply searched on Google using the words: spore print, spore suspension, mushrooms, psilocibe cubennis, buy, order. By the way, the simplest and most popular types of psilocibe cubennis are mexicana and cambodja (spelling varies everywhere). Popular because they grow best.

A spore suspension is a syringe containing spores. In my opinion, one syringe is enough for 5-7 cans, one print is enough for 5-6 syringes. One jar is at least a harvest for two. In our year 2011, a suspension usually costs 600-900 rubles, a print 300-400. The difference is that you either need to make your own syringe from the print (a multiple of five) or grow spores on agar (a multiple of infinity). I didn’t grow anything on agar because I didn’t know where to buy Petri dishes cheaply and I was too lazy to look.

Let's assume that you have already read Abert's article and educational film, and continue.9090021)-->

The most common problem that I have struggled with for a long time is “why does everything rot or become overgrown with mold?” In fact, this is not a mystery at all. Now my jars have stopped spoiling, although I never bought a pressure cooker. I've heard this opinion - I wrapped the lid of the jar with foil, so I don't have to wait for them to cool down after sterilization, I can take them out right away. Yes, such carelessness and hope for “I’ll be lucky” is quite natural. But it immediately reveals a lack of understanding of the outcome of the sterilization process :).

Well, in order not to feed the toilet with new cans of spoiled substrate, I suggest you just “look” (i.e. read) what happens to the grain that you carefully roll into the cans. On a sunny day or against the backdrop of a projector, you can clearly see how much dust is flying in the air. When you close the jar, yes, this dust remains in it, and, although it sounds very pretentious, any jar is a priori contaminated. If it is removed and left untouched, one of the following is most likely to happen:

It will be covered with ordinary green mold (the same penicillin mold); this happened when it was clear that something from outside could fly into the jar

It will be covered with terrible black mold (cobwebs are an option), I shuddered for a long time after I tried to throw it into the toilet; The complete depressurization of the jar led me to this result (the plastic jar shrank and the lid came off), such mold still grows well on cakes ^_^

Or, it will turn sour on one side (aka smelly mucus); This outcome happened to me most often, the reason for this was insufficient sterilization (a sloppy process, not according to Feng Shui, for example, the lid does not cover the pan very well)

Now it’s clear why our parents and ancestors “hover” jars of cucumbers and tomatoes that they prepare for the winter for a long time. They have experience in this matter :) However, mold won’t grow much on cucumbers, but everything can turn sour at once.

As a conclusion from all this, it follows that if something wrong happened to the cans even after sterilization, then they weren’t shot at all. What nuances can you most likely miss when you try to grow mushrooms for the first time?

First prepare the substrate

Wheat needs to be cooked for 30-40 minutes. However, everyone’s stoves are different, the displacement of the pans is not the same, and therefore the question arises - how much should I cook? On some website I found a criterion for the readiness of grain for packaging in jars. We take out a grain at random, break it in half, and if the white fluff inside it is half raw (it begins to “get damp” from the ends, looks like a strip along the grain), then the grains are considered ready. As they assured, this is the optimal moisture content for grain. It may really be optimal, the main thing is that there is a criterion for how long to cook.

The jar is supposed to be filled halfway with grain, but how much grain is enough to take before cooking? Empirically, it is in the middle between one third and one second of the can, based on a full can. Those. This amount is enough for two jars, you measure the grain directly in the jar and pour it into the pan. After sterilization there will be even more wheat.
Sometimes it is advised to boil grain in water diluted with gentamicin (from everything) or hydrogen peroxide (from souring). A side effect will be a slowdown in mycelium growth, although in theory it is true, I have not made a comparison. I think you can do without this if you sterilize well. And why mask the “symptoms” of unsuccessful sterilization when you can pay attention to them and “treat” the cause?

Preparing the jars

I highly recommend making a hole in the lid, because... Without it, the jar will simply not be opened. Do we remember how grandma’s tomatoes could only be opened with a knife? It’s the same here, the problem is that at this moment air will be actively sucked in there, and at this stage sterility is still very necessary. After a whole month of effort, the extra risk of ruining the opportunity to grow mushrooms is not worth ten minutes of laziness. The top of the lid of a jar of grain can be covered with foil, this is protection from anything that could get into the jar through a hole (most likely during sterilization). You can also sprinkle a little vermiculite on the bottom to collect excess moisture. Even though the grain after sterilization looks dry, the inside is moist enough for mushrooms :)

Sterilization itself

A quick question: how long does a one-time process of sterilizing jars last: an hour, two, three, five, twelve, twenty, a day? The one who guesses that this is the last option is correct, but the penultimate one is also correct. Sterilization can be divided into three stages.

The first stage, the simplest and very important, is to wait half a day.

Do not believe? The trick is this: mold spores, left to their own devices, begin to germinate; After about 12 hours, most of them open and at this moment they become most vulnerable to sterilization. Thus, a 12-hour pause after rolling the cans increases the effectiveness of the second stage. You can store grain in a saucepan, but you shouldn’t, because... in 12 hours it will smell very elegant, but this still needs to be put into jars. But then it’s interesting to open this jar a month later and be surprised at the excellent freshness of its contents (my pearl barley looked like it had just been cooked, even though you could eat it, although in the saucepan it smelled like stale watermelons). In general, it is better to start cooking grain either in the morning or in the evening, then leave it until the evening or overnight. There is an important point: you can’t wait until 24 hours, because... By this time, all the spores will have opened and strengthened, and sterilization, on the contrary, will not take them away, with a guarantee. I haven’t checked, but I’ve often come across reviews that after a day of waiting, the jars always turn sour.

The second stage is to place the jars in pans and put them on the fire.

First, you need to try to completely cover the pan with a lid, so that the steam comes out downwards, “spreading” from under the lid. Frying pan lids work well as lids; if the jar completely comes out of the pan, look for deep, large plates aka bowls (literally half an hour after writing these lines, I saw bowls on sale about 12 centimeters high). This also applies to the rule of not removing the lid until the end of the process. All this allows you to maintain an “atmosphere” inside the pan, namely to keep steam inside. As you know, it is heated to more than a hundred degrees, and warms up the jars quite well :) I set a rule for myself - if you need to open the pan, make sure that the sterilization lasts at least another hour. Of course, there should be enough water in the pan, but it’s even more important to set a timer on your phone and go about your business. For green beginners, it should be noted that one layer of cloth under the jar is not enough, it will definitely crack (the bottom will fall off and cut your hands). Well, two or three are enough.

Third stage. Remove the pan from the stove and place it on the table.

Now you also need to wait until it cools down completely. This process takes several hours, sometimes I left it overnight and left. Why I don’t recommend taking everything out at once should be clear - in the pan the jars heat up above one hundred degrees, due to the difference in temperature and pressure, all local spores flying in the air will become candidates for an infection that will destroy our mushrooms.

At the beginning, I was not able to carry out normal sterilization, and sterilization as a pregnancy is either a successful result, or it did not happen at all. But I adhere to these tips now and have not yet ruined a dozen cans. I think it's a win.

Examination

How to check if sterilization was successful? It is commonplace to leave the jars in the dark for two weeks. This is the critical period by which any infection must appear. Mold usually grows after a week, souring appears in the second. However, if there is any doubt whether a piece of grain has really gone sour, the mycelium will still not grow on it, so this will be confirmed :) That’s why, when doing mushroom growing for the first time, it is important to prepare the jars immediately after ordering the spores. Our mail is the most postal in the world, well, you understand, wait for it at least three weeks, during which time you can protect yourself from the forced loss of two weeks.

Procurement procedure

Buying all the materials in advance at once is quite tedious and generally useless. The purchase can be carried out in stages, I will list what needs to be bought and why - the answers are already in the film and Abert’s guide. As I already said, after or before purchasing a dispute you need to start preparing jars, for this you will need:

From a regular hypermarket: the cans themselves, a rag, foil, cotton pads + band-aid (optionally, bandage + cotton wool)

From the flower shop you bring: grain, vermiculite

Two weeks pass and a spore suspension needs to be made. Here you can buy everything that will ensure sterility:

Shops from the series everything for repair: choke + DRL lamp + wires.

You can forget about it, buy a spray bottle and bleach instead (and get used to the smell of bleach)

The most reliable means in combination with one of the two previous ones is the main box: buy a BOD (aka Large Transparent Container) + thick gloves + Stotch + 2l bottle of Schwebs. (because it's straight)

Or you can forget about the main box: from the pharmacy you bring gloves, a mask, cotton wool, alcohol

At the same stage, we make a spore suspension (you can dilute the mycelium in a Petri dish, think for yourself), for which we purchase:

At your favorite pharmacy, syringes (10 ml), water for injection (10/5 ml), gentamicin in ampoules (1 ml)

For 10 ml of water (i.e. one syringe) you need 0.5-1 ml of gentamicin. The suspension is a bottleneck in the whole process, so I prefer it to be sterile for sure. In addition, gentamicin is barely more expensive than water itself.

After the spores are inoculated, they germinate up to a week and colonize the jar within 2-5 weeks. By the end of the period it’s time to do casing, which means:

Peat and vermiculite are purchased at the flower shop

Actually, the containers themselves (opaque ones are very important) and the foil

Two or three thermometers - to determine where the optimal temperature is in the apartment

We wrap the “pie” and put it in a warm place +30, i.e. on the thermometer that lies on the refrigerator. The mycelium will germinate for four days - a week, no more. By this time you can make a greenhouse, for which:

Expanded clay is purchased at the flower shop

Buy another BOD - a large transparent container

The mushrooms will emerge from the covering layer in one to two weeks, will grow for another week, and at the end they can be picked. That. from the start of the venture to the harvest, it will take from 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 6 to 5 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 9 weeks.

Preparation of the spore print

To make a spore print, it is best to take mushrooms from the second or third wave of fruiting. As a rule, there are significantly fewer of them growing than in the first wave, and therefore there is no need to agonize over whether to leave the collected mushrooms for consumption or use them to obtain spores. In addition, as practice shows, it is the mushrooms from the second and third waves that produce the thickest prints.
Choose large mushrooms with a darker cap than other mushrooms. Mushrooms with dark caps tend to produce more spores than others. And by choosing large specimens, you thereby select the most complete, healthy mushrooms from the stream. Remember that by selecting mushrooms for one or another characteristic, you are making a selection, as a result of which subsequent generations of mushrooms may have all the characteristics for which the selection was made.
By the time the spores are collected, the mushroom cap should have fully opened, and by this time some of the spores may already begin to spill out. The mushroom continues to produce spores for quite a long time (2-4 days), so there is no need to be afraid that the spilled spores will affect the quality of the print. On the contrary, spores that have begun to spill out of the cap are clear confirmation that the mushroom has begun to produce spores, and that a spore print can be obtained in any case.
All operations for preparing a spore print must be carried out under sterile conditions. To do this, you need to treat the room with a bactericidal lamp, or use a sterile box.
You can prepare a spore print on almost anything -
on everything that has a flat surface, and with which it will be more convenient for you to work and what will be more convenient to store.
Most often, for these purposes, it is recommended to use a piece of thick paper, foil, or glass.
It is most convenient to make a print on thick paper (for example, on a postcard) because... glass or foil are not always suitable for these purposes. For example, you cannot send glass by mail, and foil very often breaks during inoculation, upon contact with the inoculation loop.

The procedure for making a spore print boils down to the following: A sterile piece of thick paper (or something similar), slightly larger than a mushroom cap, is placed in a sterile Petri dish, then the mushroom is taken, using sterile scissors (or a scalpel) and the cap is cut off as close as possible. to the spore-bearing layer (hymenophore), and place the cap on the paper with the spore-bearing layer down. Then the Petri dish is closed and put away for a day, somewhere in a dark place. Over the course of a day (it doesn’t make much sense to wait longer, since mature spores, as a rule, have time to spill out during this time, and the fungus no longer produces new spores), millions of spores spill out of the cut off cap, forming a dark purple spot on the paper ( spore print).
The color of the spore print, always the same for each type of mushroom, is an important feature in its determination.
After the spores have spilled out, the Petri dish is opened, the mushroom cap is removed from it, and a piece of paper with a spore print is placed with sterile tweezers into a suitable sized, sterile bag with a zip-lock closure for storage.
All operations for transferring a spore print from a Petri dish to a bag must also be carried out under sterile conditions.

To ensure the sterility of the bag, it is necessary to wipe it with alcohol inside and out, and allow the alcohol to evaporate (if this is not done, the remaining alcohol will have nowhere to go in the closed bag, and some of the spores may die due to contact with alcohol). The sterility of a Petri dish is also achieved by wiping it with alcohol, inside and out. And the pieces of paper that will be used to prepare the print are most conveniently sterilized in a pressure cooker (or saucepan), after cutting them up and placing them in a jar with a screw-on lid. Sterilization is carried out for 30-60 minutes, after which the jar is allowed to cool to room temperature. Sterile pieces of paper are removed from the jar with sterile tweezers immediately before use. All tools should also be treated with alcohol before carrying out work.

Instead of a Petri dish, you can use a low jar with a screw-on lid. In this case, you should not tightly close the lid - this creates increased humidity in the jar, as a result of which the spores stick to the spore-bearing plates and practically do not spill out, or spill out very poorly, forming extremely pale prints.

To prepare a print, you can also use the “classical” technology, using a saucer and a glass instead of a Petri dish (or a jar with a screw-on lid). But in this case, the probability of violating the sterility of the print is too high, due to the fact that the level of the glass is at the same level as the paper on which the spores are poured. In addition, a glass on a saucer is a rather unstable structure, and when moving from place to place, the glass very often moves or falls.

Let me clarify something - normally it takes 12-24 hours to get a bold print. In order for the mushroom to more readily shed spores, the caps are sprayed with water from a spray bottle 15-20 minutes before cutting. It also makes sense to leave a gap in the cup to allow moisture to evaporate from the cap.
By the way, the sterile print is fantastic and a paradox.
if only because the mushroom cap is a dying organic matter with all its zoo

Mokki7.12.2007, 21:09
Good evening, Vladimir

Quote (Vladimir @ 15.9.2004, 18:43)
Do you need clarification on the details of obtaining mycelium from spores? Sincerely, Vladimir.

Best regards, Dmitry.

Vladimir12/10/2007, 15:46
Quote(Mokki @ 7.12.2007, 21:09)
I would like to hear it for comparison with my “barefoot” method.

Hello Dmitry!
It’s okay for you to belittle your knowledge and capabilities, because the level of your competence was clear from the very beginning.
And the method you use is quite acceptable for crossing and selection.
If I had to answer Sergei “Truzhenik”, it is unlikely that I would go deeper into explanations beyond what we have already discussed in the topic “Mushroom Selection”.
Sincerely, Vladimir.

Mokki12/10/2007, 19:16
Quote (Vladimir @ 12/10/2007, 14:46)
That's enough, for you.

Mokki30.12.2007, 16:30
I wonder what the germination rate of the spores will be if they sit for two or three years and if, before inoculation, they are allowed to sit in water for a couple of days to swell?
I read somewhere online that they had revived some strain of fungus from a print from 10 years ago!

Vladimir12/31/2007, 9:43
In my opinion, spores exist to give the body time to find a good place to colonize the nutrient medium.

The only difficulty with this technique is the preservation of spores from dust - excessive infection. In this case, the chance to single out the desired dispute from the general mass becomes unlikely.

It should be remembered that the shelf life of spores, although to a lesser extent than vegetative cells, is correlated with storage conditions. Successful germination of spores depends on the supply of a certain vital energy in them, and storage, although insignificant, leads to its loss - remember about viruses and other small flora, they also want to eat.

Prolonged exposure to negative temperatures also reduces storage time, because it gradually leads to denaturation of the constituent elements of the spore.

Mokki31.12.2007, 14:04
After thousands of years, they, of course, lose the ability to live, but they must survive a century.
Try planting spores with an exposure of one hundred years; if this does not work, then reduce the time exposure by half. If they germinate in the second case, then increase the time by half again. Thus, according to the principle of “undershoot - overflight”, after a couple of hundred years you will be able to determine the exact time of storage of spores.

Quote (Vladimir @ 12/31/2007, 8:43)
Remember about viruses and other small flora, they also want to eat.

Quote (Vladimir @ 12/31/2007, 8:43)
So, taking into account these conditions, after some time we can answer your question, just please do not forget to inform us about the result of the research

Vladimir12/31/2007, 18:30
If, that’s for sure, and if the spores germinate in a couple of years, that’s very good, it’s very convenient! I took a lock bag, put a sterile print in it, no dust, no moisture, and all this stuff will get into any book or shelf, and you won’t have to worry about the mycelium.

I couldn’t even imagine that you could also suffer with mycelium. Personally, I experience withdrawal symptoms if there is no growing mycelium nearby, at least in one tiny container. At home there is a botanical garden of some kind - my daughter has a green jungle in her room, but I’m afraid to say what. Therefore, there are no problems with storing culture - it is stored by itself, in the process of constant development.

Quote (Mokki @ 12/31/2007, 14:04)
These are exactly the ones I remember. We were told about all the “spore bearers” that they can lie there for more than a hundred years and still be alive, but on all the sites online I read that storing mushroom spores for six months and that’s it, there will be no germination, and then they advise storing substrate mycelium instead of spores in a refrigerator.

The mycelium is stored to preserve the varietal qualities of the crop.
And regarding spores, it can theoretically be assumed that not all types of spores are intended for long-term storage. It is possible that binucleate spores are intended for rapid colonization of the soil area.
Imagine that you are a champignon that has accidentally grown on a fertile lawn from a newly formed and therefore small colony of mycelium. In this case, you have a choice - to colonize a tasty clearing with mycelium with a radial linear growth rate of 9 mm per day, or to quickly sow the entire clearing with binucleate spores, which, when germinating, will immediately entangle the entire space and will not give competitors a chance.

Mokki1.1.2008, 14:48
I couldn’t even imagine that you could also suffer with mycelium.

Not quite right, you understood me. It’s easier to preserve culture all your life in an “envelope” than to have your whole life in a room and a refrigerator, surrounded by various jars and bottles; it’s not beautiful and more labor-intensive, and I don’t have any other room. The variety is not important for me, the culture is important, but I will select the right strain for myself from a multispore.

Quote (Vladimir @ 12/31/2007, 17:30)
Thus, it can be assumed that mononuclear spores are intended for long wanderings in the atmosphere in search of a better life, and binucleate spores do not have such an adaptation to the conservation of “(conditionally) vital energy,” but they have a significant energy reserve for active starting growth in a nutrient medium .
Of course, all this is just a hypothesis that would be better tested experimentally.

Here's something I found:

“Reproduction of G. In G., a distinction is made between vegetative and reproductive (both asexual and sexual) reproduction. The stage of sexual reproduction of G. is called perfect, or highest, and the stage of asexual reproductive reproduction is called imperfect. Vegetative propagation is carried out by scraps or particles of mycelium, cords and rhizomorphs, as well as sclerotia. These particles disperse in various ways and, once in a favorable environment, can give rise to the development of a new mycelium. A more specialized method of this type of reproduction is the separation of the mycelium into individual cells (spores) - oidia, gemma and chlamydospores. Oidia are round or elongated cells, covered with a thin membrane, unable to survive for a long time (found mostly in gymnasiums and many other organisms); gemmas have a thicker, usually colored shell and are capable of long-term preservation (they are found in marsupials, lower animals, imperfect gems, as well as in some smuts, in particular in the causative agents of oat smut); Chlamydospores arise through the isolation and compaction of individual sections of the hyphae, which are then covered with a thick, dark-colored membrane (they are characteristic of many smuts and are found in marsupials and fusariids). A type of vegetative propagation is budding, which is characteristic of yeast.”

Vladimir2.1.2008, 12:07
Hello Dmitry!
Yes, this passage of text is undoubtedly interesting, especially because the author tried to cover the issue from several points of view at once.
But the disadvantage of this text, in my opinion, is the unclear formation of thought as a whole and the unclear delimitation of this thought according to the issues contained in the text.

From the first two sentences it is completely unclear whether the author himself has decided what he means by the concept of “reproductive reproduction”.
From the first sentence it is clearly clear that the author connects this concept with the sexual process, and the concept of “vegetative reproduction” connects it with the asexual process.
It remains unclear why the author further writes about the reproductive stage as a non-sexual process?

At the same time, for some reason, the fact is not indicated that in reality the sexual process occurs in parallel with the vegetative development of the mycelium and it is not possible to isolate it into a separate phase of the mycelium life cycle.
In this sense, even the vegetative stage of mycelium development cannot be considered asexual, although the sexual process itself at this stage can indeed be conditionally designated as imperfect (incomplete). The end of the sexual process can be conventionally designated in the generative phase of mycelium development - with the appearance of the fruiting body of the fungus and the formation of spores.
Therefore, it would be correct to assume that there are two reproductive stages in the general development cycle of the mycelium of higher fungi:
1. When a dispute arises;
2. When a binuclear mycelium is formed from the fusion of mononuclear mycelium of different polarity.

And although there is no word in the text about basidiomycetes, in general you really found convincing confirmation of the hypothesis that fungal spores can have different functional specializations, and therefore different shelf life.

Sincerely, Vladimir.

Mokki3.1.2008, 19:06
Hello, Vladimir!

Quote(Mokki @ 1.1.2008, 13:48)
From the above, I can draw a conclusion (it may be wrong) that we are now talking about oidia that are not stored for a long time. And yet, there is no word in the text about basidiomycetes.

“Oidia (novolat., singular oidium, diminutive from the Greek ōуn - egg), small cells into which the hyphae (threads) of the mycelium of some imperfect and basidiomycetes break up; serve as spores for vegetative reproduction. In heterothallic (see Heterothallism) basidiomycetes, the fungi act as spermatozoa during the diploidization of the mycelium.”

Best regards, Dmitry.

Vladimir4.1.2008, 10:49
Quote(Mokki @ 3.1.2008, 19:06)
No, an erroneous conclusion, it is not oidia that are formed on the “basidia”:
Then basidiospores, these turn out to be gemmas, or what?

Hello Dmitry!
Is it worth it to be tormented by such a conditional question? Are they gems or trams - what difference does it make? In my opinion, the main thing is clear - fungi have a variety of adaptive mechanisms of reproduction (and not only reproduction). In the case under discussion, these mechanisms are represented by spores of various functional purposes.
If you want to deeply study this issue, then in this case you will have to leave everything else in life and start doing only this.
But even in this case, life is not enough to understand everything.
Let’s assume that you will be able to identify spores by their shape and thickness of the shell, let’s assume that you will be able to draw analogies with other mushrooms, but still, this will be only “a small tip of a huge iceberg of knowledge of the essence of the issue.”

Of course, science serves such knowledge, but life is short and therefore let’s find the vector of the output of our energy, otherwise we will begin to study everything and will not achieve anything concrete.
A vector is a direction towards a goal, the achievement of which is worthy of the efforts made to it.

You can, of course, rejoice and draw conclusions from the intermediate results, but in this case there is a risk of “sliding” into primitivism in conclusions.

There is a very striking example of such primitivism in the methodology of mushroom production. Suffice it to recall the widespread statements that Trichoderma in nature, it turns out, is represented by only four strains, and in general, it turns out that any infection of substrates and composts is associated only with Trichoderma.
Is it possible to successfully develop mushroom production armed with such beliefs?
In my opinion, this is a rhetorical question.

Sincerely, Vladimir.

Mokki4.1.2008, 13:43
Hello, Vladimir!

Quote (Vladimir @ 4.1.2008, 9:49)
However, I got carried away - so what were you talking about disputes there?

I continue:

“The most interesting thing for determining the age of the Earth and even the time of appearance of fungi is the so-called “fossil spores.” And that's why they can last for a very long time. There is chitin there, it is preserved, and there is also an amazing biopolymer - sporopollenin. By the way, this sporopollenin is also found in plant pollen. Chemically, sporopollenin is a carotene molecule, from which, as a result of oxidative polymerization, a long polymer is obtained - this is sporopollenin.
Why is there so much interest in these two biopolymers now? They have an amazing ability to persist for a long time. They are not affected by enzymes contained in the soil. In addition, they tolerate temperature fluctuations quite well. The most interesting thing is that they are not affected by acids and alkalis; ozonolysis is needed to dissolve sporopollenin. In short, it can only be dissolved in aqua regia. And chitin does not dissolve either in water or in organic solvents. You need special solvents, very complex ones, to dissolve this molecule. And if the surface of any device, say, is covered with sporopollenin, then it will be an eternal coating. It is because of these two biopolymers that fungal spores persist in the soil for a very long time.
And when this work began, resamorphs were discovered and these spore prints were found on plants - this is more than 200 million years ago.”

Best regards, Dmitry.

Vladimir5.1.2008, 12:51
Good evening, Dmitry!

The topic of mushroom biopolymers will make itself known in the future.
Chitins are already used in Japan today to produce human skin substitutes.
Thanks to this, methods for saving people with 90% burns have been created in Japan.
Also, a new generation of adsorbents are produced from chitins, which are many times superior in properties to activated carbon.
It makes no sense to list all the areas of application of chitin preparations, because currently, waste in the form of crustacean shells from ocean fishing is used as raw material. Waste does not have a production cost component, and therefore its use is always preferable (from the point of view of production economics) to any industrial product. As a result, the industrial production of chitin from mushrooms is not yet relevant at the present stage.

But in fairness, it must be said that some representatives of Russian business have already begun to take an active interest in mushroom chitins. In particular, at the Russian competition of innovative projects in Saransk, a representative of venture capital approached me and asked several questions on this topic.

Regarding sporopollenin, a couple of years ago I even wrote an article, but did not dare to publish it, because the name and meaning turned out to be too free, and the image of a madman did not seem attractive to me.

Quote(Mokki @ 4.1.2008, 13:43)
... spore prints were discovered on plants - this is more than 200 million years ago.”

This means that people still have a huge potential for longevity.

Sincerely, Vladimir.

Mokki5.1.2008, 13:04
Quote (Vladimir @ 5.1.2008, 11:51)
The article had the following title: “Mushrooms were the ancestors of people.” What's it like?

Is this article still alive?

Vladimir5.1.2008, 21:31
Quote(Mokki @ 5.1.2008, 13:04)
Is this article still alive?

In the topic of genetic modifications, I mentioned the students who hacked into my computer program. Windows had to be changed. A lot of things died there. Of all this, the article is the least sorry.
But what’s most interesting is that literally a couple of weeks before this incident, the motherboard on the home beech “flyed” and I exchanged it in the store for money, and this beech contained duplicate information.
This is such an inexplicable joke of nature.

SERGO8.7.2008, 14:02
Quote
I recently learned that it turns out that you can propagate not only with an agar print, but also with a mushroom spore suspension.
How can I get it, or where is there a more detailed description of it, please tell me...

Although a lot of years have passed, I will allow myself to answer. Technologically it is very easy. You need to have a glass, a syringe, a spore print, boiled water, or a liquid that is used for injections. Water in a glass, scrape the spores into the liquid, stir, draw into the syringe. Leave the liquid for 12 hours to rehydrate the spores, everything is ready to work. Well, the main condition when carrying out the procedure is maximum sterility, that’s all. But to work with oyster mushrooms it is better to use cloning. You buy a mushroom in the store, under sterile conditions, cut out a piece from the middle of the stem, dip it in peroxide, and while everything is simmering, transfer it to sterile grain. I once cloned a forest vulture this way.