Mushrooms are the substrates of fungi. They have been used for centuries as a source of food and medicine. In the competitive natural world, the chances of mushroom spores germinating and producing mushrooms are slim. In a laboratory, away from air pollution, the chances of success are much higher. Growing mushrooms indoors would require the use of mushroom cultures to realize the mycelium of the mushroom species grown on nutrient-rich media. These cultures are the "seeds" from which mushrooms grow and are used to inoculate the substrate for the final result.
Our Mushroom Cultivation Tools Products
Lifeasible offers different types of mushroom cultures to produce growing media for mushroom cultivation. Using simple techniques at home, you can also grow and preserve edible and medicinal mushrooms for ready access. We have the following types of mushroom cultures. In addition, we offer improvers added to the medium, such as peptone, mineral plaster, or small fragments of the substrate, which can help to improve mycelial growth and avoid senescence of the strain.
Plate cultures allow you to observe growth patterns and colonization rates, and give you the opportunity to isolate different mycelial strains derived from the spores of individual mushrooms. Plates can be used to clone wild mushroom strains, isolate specimens from contaminants, and perform mating tests between different strains. The plates contain a solid medium consisting of natural sugars and agar, a jelly-like substance derived from red algae that provides anchoring for the mycelium as we work.
Slants is ideal for long-term culture storage. The narrow openings of the test tubes are a little difficult to use but are less likely to trap contamination and allow you to culture mushrooms on a small amount of solid medium, place it in the refrigerator, and keep it more or less indefinitely until you need it. Typically, you would store the culture on a slant and transfer a small portion of the culture from the slant to a petri plate to begin processing.
Liquid cultures are less susceptible to airborne contaminants because they are placed in sealed containers such as syringes, making them ideal for working with fungi at home or in environments with slightly less sterile environments. Since the mycelium is located in a nutrient broth, it may contain many small fragments of mycelium, each of which can serve as an inoculation point when you use liquid cultures to expand onto other substrates. Liquid cultures tend to colonize whatever substrate you want to grow faster than when using plates.
Plate, slant, and liquid cultures have their own advantages for all mushroom cultivation requirements. Using these cultures at home may be very beneficial. Developing these unique skills will allow you to grow and enjoy edible, flavorful mushrooms year-round, increase your self-sufficiency, and save money at the same time. Contact us to choose the best mushroom cultures for your needs.
For research use only, not for clinical use.
