just ordered a mushroom grow kit.

macsnax said:

Could you explain what putting it under vacuum did for you? I'm genuinely curious and even though I have pretty good results, I'm still learning. @JPCyan can take most of the credit for my success. He took me under his wing and taught me things that would have taken much more longer to learn on my own lol.

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Negative pressure should help drive moisture into the spore.

I suppose one could soak them for an extended time in normal atmospheric pressure. I'm not sure that the vacuum was what did it.

But I had the gear.

When fresh off the gill, the spores are plump with moisture and itching to germinate. But they will dry readily becoming absolutely dissipated over time.

They won't germinate if dissipated but may absorb the water they need from what ever surface they light on.

I've used very watery agar and sometimes that works.


(We are now talking about oyster mushroom spores now. A dead powder white rather than purple brown) but the concepts are identical.

If a given percentage of spores in a mass dissipated in, say, a year. You still, by virtue of the numbers of them, have enough that are still viable.

As the years pass, more and more of them will fail but you still have plenty in that mass. Remember that there are hundreds of thousands in even the smallest speck (? Maybe a few less).

But what I dont know is if the genetic package and mechanisms are ever actually degraded.

Or how long that would really take.


Those suspended in water will finally dissolve or something like that so a print in a sealed envelope in the freezer will last far longer than a syringe

I have heard rumors that perfectly dried mycelium, even tissue from a mushroom itself, if perfectly dissipated early on can be grated, hydrated and nourished and it will come back to life.

Sounds like magic to me but mushrooms are magic in all sorts of ways.


I've tried it half a dozen times or so, once with sclerotia.

It never worked for me.