by johnah on November 2, 2020
How To Make A Spore Print: How To Harvest Mushroom Spores
Sporeprint Syringes are used for making spores. They have been around since the early days of science.
They were first developed in the late 1800’s when it was discovered that they could be used to isolate DNA from bacteria or other microorganisms. Today, these syringes are still being made today and they continue to serve their purpose well.
The use of spores to grow mushrooms is not new. It was actually discovered in the 1950’s by two men named Richard Bartz and John Dicke.
Both of them had studied fungi in great depth before they began to experiment with growing mushrooms using spores. These experiments led to the creation of what would become known as “Bartz & Dicke’s Method”.
They found that if you took a piece of mycelium (the vegetative part of a fungus) and placed it into a flask filled with water, then added some alcohol, they could start to grow spores. However, the problem was that the alcohol killed off most of the mycelium within minutes.
So they decided to try something different. They put the pieces of mycelium back into their flask and left it alone for 24 hours. When they returned they found that the alcohol had evaporated and left behind a spore-filled liquid.
This was the start of what would become known as the “Spore Print”. These spores were not the kind that could be used to grow mushrooms, however.
The two men continued their experiments and eventually figured out how to correctly prepare a spore solution, which allowed them to grow mushrooms from it.
Sporeprints and spore syringes are still used to this day.
Recent studies have shown that many types of psilocybin mushrooms grow in areas with large Africanized bee colonies. This means that a sporeprint might also include the spores of certain bees that produce a toxin when mixed with the mushroom spores.
This is yet another reason why you should order your syringes from a reliable source. You never know what is being cultivated along with the mushrooms, so it is best to get them from a source that you know has a good reputation.
You should never try a “Do It Yourself” sporeprint unless you have a lot of experience working with the stuff. If you try to do it wrong, you could end up with nothing at all.
If you want to try your luck, then follow these directions:
You will need a couple of things before you get started. These things can be easily purchased from a hardware store or online.
First of all, you will need some petri dishes. These are available at many different places and can be bought in bulk if you want to do a lot of sporeprints.
The size of the dish should be around 15 millimeters across.
Next you will need a Bunsen burner and something to act as a stand for it. You will also need a watch or clock with a second hand.
Finally, you will need a source of live mycelium. This can be a piece of wood, grass or anything else that can grow mycelium.
To begin, sterilize all of your equipment by exposing it to direct flame until it changes color. It should eventually turn from its natural color to black.
Set up your Bunsen burner so that the flame is coming out of the bottom. Get your watch and time it for twenty seconds.
Then, place your petri dish upside down over the burner so that the bottom is exposed to the flame. Move the dish slowly up and down over the flame so that all parts of the bottom are exposed.
Once you have done this, move on to step two. This is where you will introduce the spore-filled liquid to the dish.
Sources & references used in this article:
Cultivation technology of paddy straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea) by OP Ahlawat, RP Tewari – 2007 – researchgate.net
Development of sporeless and low-spored mutants of edible mushroom for alleviating respiratory allergies by M Pandey, S Ravishankar – Current Science, 2010 – JSTOR
Outcrossing via the Buller phenomenon in a substrate simultaneously inoculated with spores and mycelium of Agaricus bisporus creates variability for … by P Callac, M Imbernon, JM Savoie – … conference on mushroom …, 2008 – researchgate.net
Yield performance of collected wild milky mushroom (Calocybe sp.) by V Singh, P Kumar, S Kumar, K Kumar – Plant Archives, 2017 – plantarchives.org
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