Mycology

Day 4 of growing Pleurotus ostreatus cultures from spore. Only one plate got contaminated, but it was bad. There are two contaminant fungi going to battle, and around three possible bacterial colonies. I must have been losing it at the end, haha! Can't wait to see how they progress!

King Stropharia just emerging.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/581212

I had many expectations for today, but learning that mushrooms sweat wasn't one of them.

The scientists are still unsure why fungi might want to keep cool.

In their paper, the authors speculate that it might have something to do with creating optimal conditions for spore formation, or it may help fungi spread their spores — by altering the temperature, they might be causing tiny winds that can blow the spores around.

It’s also possible that this phenomenon is due to something else entirely. For example, evapotranspiration also increases humidity, and when asked if it’s possible that the fungi are trying to keep humid, and the cooling is simply a by-product, Casadevall said it was conceivable.

Hello all, there's a new community for identifying different types of fungi! Feel free to come join us!

Super dusty boy

2.8# of fungi! (Was a puffball- No gills or stem, though it was misleadingly shaped. Will share a pic of the inside!)

Hi everyone! In an effort to help grow the community, and as someone new to mycology, I would like to gather recommendations for reference materials. My goal in this project is to develop this into a list for the community to share these resources. Books, websites, apps, anything is fair game for this list.

Please let me express my thanks in advance.

Edit: updating with recommendations.

Edit the second: going to build the list off of mobile and then share. Question? Do we include mycology-adjacent resources?

I'm thinking of the Crime pays but Botany Doesn't YouTube channel who occasionally covers mycology, as an example?

Kind of eviscerated by drought, but a few still holding on.

I'm just starting to get back into growing mushrooms and have a few Oyster blocks ready to fruit. Problem is the temperature in my house/grow tent is usually in the high 70's or low 80's (f), and the humidity is in the 30% range. I figured a swamp cooler could help with both of these problems.

I've made DIY swamp coolers using a 5 gallon bucket in the past, and I nearly did that again this time, but I'm trying to learn CAD so I decided to try and make something and print it instead of DIYing a 5 gallon bucket. Besides the fact that the integrated tubing inside the print is basically impossible to clean it is working well!

Here's the humidity and temperature graph over an hour after turning on the device.

Now this is an interesting fungi!

It is called Gymnosporangium clavariiforme or more common "Tounges of Fire". Around a month ago they popped up all around where I live.

The fungi infects a juniper to form the characteristic "Tounges of Fire" which spread spores. These need to land on a hawthorn as a second host. The spores produced on the fruit of the infected hawthorn then need to find a juniper again and the cycle repeats.

#biology #fungi #mycology #nature #naturephotography @mycology

Wanted to share my nicest spore print to date. It came out exactly as the underside of the hat that you can see in the second picture. Most likely Protostropharia semiglobata, but need to confirm the spore size.

#mycology #fungi #mushroom #biology #nature #naturephotography #macro #picture @mycology

From the left to the right (in the attached photo): two jars of Pleurotus ostreatus spores (now mycelium) growing in grain, two jars of P. ostreatus liquid culture cloned from agar, and two jars of Pleurotus pulmonarius liquid culture cloned from agar.

I also have five agar plates I inoculated with a different collection of P. ostreatus spores, but there's no visible growth yet--so I'll leave those out.

The P. pulmonarius was cloned from a fruiting body growing on a commercial grower's spent block that was salvaged from their waste pile. It's actually a pretty happy, and fast-growing variety. It seems that it hasn't reached senescence yet.

The P. ostreatus LC was cloned from a several-generations old sample that was initially from a liquid culture bought through amazon. It hasn't performed super well--which is why I've taken it to spore in two different experiments. I may end up disposing of this LC, but I'll probably store it in the fridge while I work on isolating some new strains from the spore experiments. Hopefully I'll win the P. ostreatus lottery...

All of this is just done in a simple Still Air Box, it's just a hobby for now. Some day I want to assemble a proper lab with a FFU/LFH, but that day is not today!

Anyone else culturing anything fun?

Moved over to the fediverse today. Lets see if this works here 🙂

For my introduction a picture I took yesterday of Scuttelina sp. through the stereo microscope. The genus seems to be "complicated", but as soon as I can get my hands on my compound microscope I'm hopeful that I can identify the species.

#biology #mycology #fungi #mushrooms #microscopy #nature #naturephotography @mycology

Anyone know more about the cause? It's happened to me a couple times with cultures that proved clean. My best guess is temperature fluctuation, it's pretty hot here

I've been posting this on reddit, so forgive me if you've already read about it...

I have long had an interest in trying to grow my own mushrooms, but recently started doing a lot of reading to learn the process. I had intended to start out growing a couple types of oysters on cut straw, but while I was collecting supplies and waited for spawn to arrive I ran across an article talking about cutting up clean cardboard, boiling it to sterilize, and seeding it with chopped mushroom stems. I figured this would be a great way to practice and see how much contamination I would get.

Besides the oysters, I wanted to also try cremini/button mushrooms. One of the local grocery stores has them in a bulk bin which appears to not be processed, and it allowed me to pick out some that looked like they came straight from the ground with obvious signs on mycelium still on the base. Great! So I set everything up, drilled some air holes in a small food container, added the cardboard and stems, and put it away in the closet. And then a couple days later I read that creminis actually want a rich mixture of manure and/or grain to grow on. Well crap...

The point was still to watch for contamination though, so I let it continue. A week passed without contamination and I was happy that it appeared I had cleaned things pretty well (and we're talking a very hasty setup on my kitchen countertop in open air). On Sunday, I spotted some white fuzz. Oh boy, this could be it, the experiment is almost over. But then I checked on Monday... and it's not just fuzz, I have actual STRANDS growing across the cardboard. Could it be?!?

Well, today it's still looking pretty promising, and I'm seeing more coming out from various points in the cardboard. It's hard to get a good look at everything because of the humidity, but today is day 12 since I set up the container and there are no greens, blues, or reds anywhere. I am hopeful, although frankly amazed at what seems to be happening.

In the meantime my oyster spawn arrived but it was less than expected so I have picked up some quart jars and am waiting to receive some rye grain. I have blue and pink oyster spawn which I will split between two jars each to expand before trying to move it to grow bags with straw. It will take a little longer than planned but I'll get there. And I'm waiting for my container to be fully colonized with the unexpected spawn (or to see a definite sign that it is NOT mycelium) and then I'll get that transferred to a grain jar as well.

However it goes, I'm having fun!

An interview with the world's leading mycologist

I have been making an effort to actually identify the contaminants that grow in my petri dishes. In this case the contaminants are those dark green spore islands.

Looking at them under the microscope reveals that the spores of this species are produced at the tip of these finger-like structures. These spore-producing structures are called "conidiophores". The presence of these structures is a characteristic of the phylum Ascomycota, within the fungi kingdom.

Different groups of ascomycetes produce conidia with different morphologies. Looking through microscopic pictures I can see that this morphology of conidia is characteristic of the Penicillium genus.

I am having trouble narrowing it down to the species level. Maybe P. digitatum or P. roqueforti, based on the macroscopic morphology and how common they are. But there are too many other options, so it is difficult for me to know for sure. If anyone around here is good with identification, please let me know.