Best propagation & cultivation books according to redditors
We found 28 Reddit comments discussing the best propagation & cultivation books. We ranked the 4 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 28 Reddit comments discussing the best propagation & cultivation books. We ranked the 4 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Actually, in most cases it isn't, but it is pasteurized. Sterilization would make the medium insanely contamination-ridden, due to the lack of competing microbes. Once mold starts growing, you've gotta toss the medium completely. While this is probably a nice hippy-dippy way to sell mushrooms, there's no way it's going to maintain healthy flushes for long with a "tame" culture like agaricus bisporus. It just can't compete with molds like trichoderma, which is possibly the most common mold on earth. That's not counting the possibly hundreds of people touching the growth medium, throwing their trash in it, discarding unwanted mushrooms into the pile, and the like.
I've read a lot about it (I was once an aspiring mushroom farmer) and I believe it has something to do with pressure+heat killing fungal spores, but leaving beneficial bacterial endospores intact. Essentially, the bacteria and other microbes take up real estate until the fungus shows up, and then it moves into their turf and consumes them as well.
The interesting thing is that in commerical mushroom grows, pasteurization temps are reached naturally due to the size of manure piles. The mass of the piles coupled with the immense activity of microbes within them raises the internal temperature to anywhere between 140f-170f.
Source: Paul Stamets, The Mushroom Cultivator and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms.
Edit
Here's some more places to find information about mushrooms, since I'm hardly an expert. I'm just a guy who reads a lot, essentially.
Books:
Those are the standard grow manuals, but if anyone has a suggestion for a more comprehensive or up-to-date manual, it'd be welcome. Mycelium Running is a great book if you're just looking for a fun read about mushrooms.
Websites:
Videos:
A skill to add to that is to understand how to get these seeds from plants and how to process them (some seeds require dormant periods). This Book is one of the best books out there to teach you.
If you want the holy bible of plant propagation get this one. Any edition will work as each update is very minor and the older ones are cheaper.
Source: I have a degree in Horticulture and have done seed collection, breeding, rooting, grafting, in vitro plant tissue propagation. Propagation IMO is one of the most interesting area in Horticulture.
Buy a regional guide. Here are a few if you are in the US. It's important to know the terminology that goes along with mushroom hunting.
Also Use the links in the sidebar here, they will tell you the active mushrooms in your area. Once you do this do individual research on each one.
Regional guides
Alaska
Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams
Western US
All The Rain Promises and More
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
Mushrooms Demystified This is an old book, while still useful it definitely needs updating.
The New Savory Wild Mushroom Also dated but made for the PNW
Midwestern US
Mushrooms of the Midwest
Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States
Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest
Southern US
Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide
Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States
Eastern US
Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians
Mushrooms of Northeast North America (This was out of print for awhile but it's they're supposed to be reprinting so the price will be normal again)
Mushrooms of Northeastern North America
Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America(Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America)
Mushrooms of Cape Cod and the National Seashore
More specific guides
Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World
North American Boletes
Tricholomas of North America
Milk Mushrooms of North America
Waxcap Mushrooms of North America
Ascomycete of North America
Ascomycete in colour
Fungi of Switzerland: Vol. 1 Ascomycetes
PDFs
For Pholiotas
For Chlorophyllum
Websites that aren't in the sidebar
For Amanita
For coprinoids
For Ascos
MycoQuebec: they have a kickass app but it's In French
Messiah college this has a lot of weird species for polypores and other things
Cultivation
The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home (If your home is a 50,000 sq ft warehouse)
Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation
Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
Mycology
The fifth kingdom beginner book, I would recommend this. It goes over fungal taxonomy Oomycota, Zygomycota and Eumycota. It also has ecology and fungi as food.
The kingdom fungi coffee table book it has general taxonomy of the kingdom but also very nice pictures.
Introduction to fungi Depends on your definition of beginner, this is bio and orgo heavy. Remember the fungi you see pop out of the ground (ascos and basidios) are only a tiny fraction of the kingdom.
Try looking for The Mushroom Cultivator by Paul Stamets.
http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800
So I was kinda lazy after my cakes, and I bought everything I needed (grain spawn, casing layer, manure, etc.) from shroomsupply.com. it was a little expensive but worth it if you don't want to waste time and just to see if you can give it the right conditions.
I had spore syringes left from my last grow so I used those.
For the mono tub, I used this book: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide Simple Steps to Bulk Cultivation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992558409/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_KPffAb4FWNZ2H
As far as conditions, I used this book as a guide as well.
I'm still pretty new to this stuff, so I apologise that I can't be more helpful
http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Gourmet-Medicinal-Mushrooms-Stamets-ebook/dp/B004GTLS2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396469718&sr=8-1&keywords=growing+mushrooms
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396469733&sr=8-2&keywords=growing+mushrooms
My complaint about these books is that they are geared for exactly what you're talking about and not necessarily low-tech home cultivation. They cover just about everything you would need.
Read Paul Stamets book Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, and also The Mushroom Cultivator which details a lot of info on spore storage and culture practises.
Its so easy to get one contam spore into whatever you're doing - ordinary air has so many contam spores in just 1cm^3, its almost impossible to work 100% sterile. But not to worry: the best we can do as cultivators is hold off the inevitable. A good cultivator will do what he or she can to work clean but all the time understands that all grows will ultimately end in contamination - thats just natures way.
The contaminations themselves often sporulate on the surface of cube spores which after finding residence on nutrient media will then 'piggy-back' using the spores which touch each other. The contaminations can often be 50 times smaller, and so can easily rest like a pest on the spores surface. An electron microscopy picture can really show you well what I'm trying to say here. They also reproduce far faster than their larger basidiospore cousins in the cubensis family, so can out compete them for the available resources that you have so kindly provided for them.
Its not that having a lot of spores in a syringe is a bad thing, its just that throughout my experience with cubes I've found that 'less is more' - the more spread out the spores are from each other, the more you can isolate the good strains and culture out the contams. :)
TMC gives:
Spawn Run:
Humidity: 90-100%
Substrate Temp: 78-84F
Duration: 10-14days
CO2: 20,000PPM or 20% by volume
Fresh Air Exchanges: 0
Light: None
Pinning:
Humidity: 95%
Air Temp: 55-60F
Duration: 7-14 days
CO2: less than 600PPM
Fresh Air Exchanges: 4/hr
Light: 2000lux / hr for 12 hours a day. Grow-lux type bulbs recommended.
Watering: regular misting once to twice daily until fruiting bodies are 30-40% of harvest size, at which point water is used to prevent cracking.
Cropping:
Humidity: 85-92%
Air Temp: 60-64F
Duration: 5-7 weeks
CO2: less than 600PPM
Fresh Air Exchanges: 4-6 per hour
Flushing Interval: 10 days.
Light: 2000lux / hr for 12 hours a day. Grow-lux type bulbs recommended.
Edit: Giving credit where credit is due. It's a good book. Buy it.
One of the handiest texts I had to get for my horticulture classes was Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. The 2017 version only costs 13 USD new and is pretty much the same textbook as the 2019 version. If she really wants to go into horticulture propagation, I really recommend this to supplement a program. It has great info on the hows and whys of cuttings, root stocks, and most common species of herbaceous and woody plants.
Paul Stamets cover everything in this book. Avoiding syringes will require you to use agar methods and this guy does a great job of explaining it all.
Mushroom god paul stamets has made leather out of mushrooms. His hat that he wears is mushroom leather and is over 3 yrs old.
The indoor mushroom growing guide. Great book.
I'm also looking at other non-mushroom eating ideas like using the mycilium as packing/building materiel.
If your serious about it, https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800 , this is your fucking bible.
This is a really good book
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Kuo/e/B001ILI9G2/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603582142/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=pd_sim_b_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V56Q93CSRKQYV2W1C0B http://www.amazon.com/Mycelium-Running-Mushrooms-Help-World/dp/1580085792/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V56Q93CSRKQYV2W1C0B http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472030361/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472031260/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394519922/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580085792/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1
No worries man! I’m about to start my fourth grow when my spores come in so I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s such a fun process and I’m constantly learning more and more. You should check out this book called The Mushroom Cultivator. It’s such an invaluable reference tool that I’m constantly flipping through when I’ve got questions.
Edit: It’s a little dated, and PF-Tek was published about 10 years later, but everything in the book is still valuable and informative.
https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800
The Mushroom Cultivator is a fantastic book. Can't do without it. Sterile culture, expansion, fruiting, everything. Must have. Same goes for all of Paul Stamets' books, really.
Cloning is actually pretty easy if you have the right environment and a few bits of kit. Good luck! I look forward to photos of your grow.
Check out this book by Paul Stamets His work is highly regarded in the mushroom community. You can learn everything you need to know from his books.
http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800
This book and this book are the bibles of growing mushrooms. They cover growing both psychoactive and non-psychoactive including Coprinus.
I am just getting started into grafting myself. I'll tell you how it turns out in several years. I did get this book, and it is very informative.
Were are you located? I think most states in the US have agricultural extensions that offer outreach programs, classes, etc. It was originally geared towards commercial growers/foresters, but they're very friendly to the hobbyist in my experience.
A book i've seen recommended everywhere (which i've yet to buy myself) is the Grafters Handbook.
https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0961079800