the nature of mycelium

[cattlexing]

Could someone please explain the condensed version of Mycelium and the life cycle, maybe broken down into axioms or rules.

Like. What happens? The spore germinates than it goes through what life cycle until it's a full blown mycelium colony? What structures does it form? What nutrients does it need? What environmental conditions does it like. Like ones does it not like or will prevent it from growing. Can it get sick/unhealthy? Once it's a colony than what does it do... how long does it live, how does it fruit and what happens after it fruits?

I think most of us here would benefit from an all in one sort of synnopsis of what we're trying to do here, in a nutshell.

[Azuloso83]

Well, here goes nothin'...

From my understanding, the spore germinates and sends out a tube that gets large at the tip, where a great many cells form in succesion. This cluster of cells then ramifies variously, producing more tips comprised of cells which themselves ramify and so on, forming a filament. This filament is called a hypha, and these filaments are what constitute mycelium. Two hyphae from the same mycelium, or more often from different mycelia, combine to form a new mycelium. In essence this mycelium is the "child" of the two "parent" mycelia because it contains a nuclei from each of them. This mycelium, now genetically diverse, will wait for the right conditions to form a carpophore or "fruit body", which is of course great news for all of us who love a good fruit body! The carpophore produces spores, which hopefully find their way into some delicous substrate to start the process all over again.

Since an important factor in initiating fruiting is the lack of nutrients, the mycelium will eventually be rendered inactive after some period of time because it will have nothing left to feed on. If it did have something substantial to feed on, it would keep "eating" and put off fruiting. After fruiting as much as it can from the water and nutrients left, the mycelium is "spent".

Sorry, I will try to answer some more of your questions.

The nutrients mycelium needs vary from fungus to fungus. Some myceluim can form in the ground, feeding on dead matter and live matter as well. Whatever it is that the particular mycelium is "feeding" on is called a substrate. If the mycelium forms in the ground, it can "feed" by decomposing organic substances present, or by forming a relationship with green plants (trees, grass, etc.) which provides "mutual-aid" for both the fungus and the plant. In the latter case, this symbiotic relationship is known as mycorrhizal symbiosis. In the former case, the fungus is known as a saprophyte because it engages in saprophytism, which is the breaking down of dead organic matter or like substances. Saprophyte also applys to mycelium that forms above the ground on dead organic matter such as dead tree/plant matter, feces, fallen fruit, dead leaves, etc. There is a third category of fungi that engage strictly in parasitism, forming on living plants and their living components (leaves, roots, stems, etc.) as well as living on animals, insects, and even other fungi.

Each of these three basic "types" of mycelium form fungus from various substrates, so even within the three categories it would be impossible to give a general idea what conditions would be favorable. You would really have to get right down to species in most cases to get accurate details as to temperature, humidity, favorite substrate, etc.

To my knowledge, for most mycelium lowering the temperature will stall their growth and allow for some storage time, but I couldn't say how long it would last like that, and again it may depend on species. Someone else may have to field that part of your question.

Basically if you want to know what I think you want to know as far as growing a particular species, I have to reiterate that you would simply have to investigate that particular species to learn its favorite substrate, favorable conditions, etc.

Checking out the Vaults would be invaluable if you were trying to learn about say, P. Cubensis or something. Just a for instance. You can also find information on edible, non-psychoactive fungi here at 'topia, so don't hesitate to avail yourself of the wealth of knowledge that is there.

Hope this helps a little bit.