FAQ - Spore

How can I grow gourmet mushrooms from spores?

Growing from spores is usually a more complicated and advanced process than growing with liquid culture. Even more so if the spores are on a spore print rather than in a spore syringe. Since the sterility of the spores cannot be guaranteed in any way, injecting spore liquid directly into liquid culture or onto grains is a risky procedure that does not guarantee the success of the cultivation. This is because you do not know if you are also injecting contaminants present in the spore liquid. Many have success using this technique, but you must keep in mind that success is not always guaranteed.

The most appropriate procedure would be to first germinate the spores on agar plates, so as to check for the presence of contaminants. However, working with agar requires working in sterile environments and having a minimum knowledge of sterile technique. Many have success performing these procedures inside a SAB. Once the spores have germinated on agar, and the presence of only mycelium has been verified, small pieces of agar should be removed and used to inoculate a jar of liquid culture or a bag of grains. 

I used spore syringes to inoculate your Ceres oat bags; some became contaminated and others did not. Does this mean that the spores are good but your bags are not?

Spores are never completely sterile; your syringe could contain a minimal amount of contaminants, which might not be inoculated into the bags that colonized without problems, but could instead be inoculated into the bags that became contaminated. Having used the same syringe on various Ceres bags and obtained different results is absolutely normal and has nothing to do with the quality of the substrate. This is because each of the millions of spores inside your syringe produces mycelium with different genetics. Each inoculation will lead to different outcomes, attributable to the genetic variation of the developing mycelium and the variable risk of contamination during injection.