Inoculating the rye

The mushroom spores came today. I opted for a mushroom syringe, which is a 10cc syringe full of mushroom spores suspended in sterile water, rather than a mushroom print, which is a foil (or paper) which has mushroom spores dropped on its surface. The syringe seemed to be simpler for a beginner.

To begin, I arranged my syringe, gloves, isopropyl alcohol (70%), cotton balls, and jar of rye seeds on my sterile surface.

Rye seeds (sterilized), syringe, gloves, bottle of alcohol.

Then I opened up the syringe, injected about 3 cc of suspended spores into the jar, and shook the whole thing lightly until it was mixed.

It was difficult. The jar lid had four holes in it, so theoretically I should have been able to inject 1cc into each hole evenly, but there was a white covering which hides the holes in the metal lid. It is not a good idea to remove the covering since it blocks unfriendly bacteria and fungi from the culture. There was a lot of random stabbing before I hit a hole in the lid.

I think I got enough into the jar to get a decent culture. If not, I have enough left over to try again.

I put the inoculated rye jar in a warm, draft-free, unlit environment. We shall see what happens within the week.

Mushrooms?

I like mushrooms, yes, I do.

Some kind friends gave me a mushroom-growing kit a while back, and I successfully grew a very cool batch of oyster mushrooms that I documented daily and then devoured. (The mushrooms, not the documentation.) I also devoured a couple of books about mushrooms and the fungi kingdom in general and started reading about mushrooms on various websites during my bored-at-work times.

Then I got to thinking about this and that and the other thing and wondered if it was possible to grow my own "magic" mushrooms. The answer appears to be yes. I ordered some supplies, read a bit more, and now...well, we shall see.

Mushroom kit. The large burlap bag contains straw. The bag of brown stuff is fertilizer (sterilized horse manure, to be specific). The jar on the right contains sterile rye seeds. There is a spray bottle for watering behind it. It's all packed into a "mushbox", which is basically a cardboard box with a clear plastic dome over it (not pictured.)