shitake from spores

[bluecat]

this is a picture of a shitake grown from a mass spore injection on a regular pf cake

[Alkady Mycomania]

Bluecat,

I've read that the Chinese especially use multi-spore solutions to reliably grow/fruit shiitakes... it's nice to see it working on the basic old PF-tek, I know I've seen you post pictures before. I'll have to clone a shiitake and give it a shot last clones didn't work out. Did you collect the spores yourself?

Very nice. I had been under the impression most spores were sterile, but obviously not. Shiitake is next on my list. I cloned a grocery store fruit three months ago, and I now have pins forming on wood chips and coir. Shouldn't be long. Good to see you back around bluecat.
RR

[Davet]

Now thats cool. I have a couple jars of Shiitake grain spawn in the fridge (just waiting for the move to the new house). But I was under the impression that they would not fruit on a cerial grain. Be curious as to how much yeild one could get. I will have to try the multi-spore technique.

Peace,

DaveT

[bluecat]

while this proves shitake can be grown from spores, it also shows why it is not normally done. after 3 years, and many hundreds of jars grown with spores, i have only gotten about 20 to fruit. the fruits i did get were tiny like in the picture above. my theory was that if i grew with spores taken from mushrooms grown from spores, i could gradually get spores with better fruiting traits. it actually went the other way. i never did get any to fruit. the amount of spores dropped from these tiny fruits was very small. i did get many jars to grow mycillium, but none fruited. the way i collect spores is with a foil collar around a growing fruit. leave it on overnight, and it will be covered in what looks like milk. the jars i got to fruit were always made with EXTREMELY large quantities of spores. an entire thick print in 10cc of water, and using 2 cc per jar spead into about 8 injection sights in a half pint cake.

I think a logical next step would be to swipe those spores on agar, then isolate each individual sector, or substrain. Grow each one out separately to determine the best fruiter. After that, keep the master culture in the refrigerator and only take it out when your clones begin to senesce.
RR

[bluecat]

yes,i did many isolates,but with the poor germination rate,it was tough.i grew out so many, with very poor results. it all takes so long. i never got a good fruiter that way. i also cloned fruit grown from spores, which didn't improve as an isolate either. tiny fruits, and not many of them. i'm not sure if it can be done with spores from the cultures commercially available now. pf told me he thinks these cultures we're using have been cloned for so long, the traits to fruit well from spores are gone. i wonder when the last time anyone has isolated a good strain from spores was. i have a new respect for the product available from spawn suppliers.they are so aggressive,and produce so many giant fruit, it is amazing. with so much time invested, and such poor results, i've put this experiment on a way back burner. i would like to see some people try similar experiments,just to see a fairly decent fruiting strain that would have dominant traits to produce enough to eat from a multispore injection.i'd like to even see a good isolate from the spores.i did eat a couple of mushrooms grown from spores, just to say i did. they were tiny.

[bluecat]

for anyone wanting to collect shitake spores,here's a good way to get them. they drop lots of spores this way.when you cut them off, they don't drop nearly as many. you can see in the pic the white on the foil.the white haze on the cake is also spores.

[Alkady Mycomania]

Well, that's depressing. Looks like it'll be a little too hard to get a good shiitake strain isolated in my limited space. I think you're right in the end, Rodger (like always ) - too difficult to do with spores. Thanks for sharing, Bluecat, the details were very interesting for any budding gourmet growers.

I'm still stuck on Stamet's statement that the Chinese grow shiitake from mass spore liquid culture, he's even got pictures of giant aerated fermentation vats (GGMM, pages 133-135).
Is it at all possible they have different genetics over there than the spawn/strains available here? Since it's such a popular mushroom and used over such a wide area, maybe quite a few strains have arisen over time. I may just be babbling; surely there's been someone who has visited other mushroom farmers worldwide.

[bluecat]

alkady, i keep thinking about what paul stamets says in many of his books about shitake being good to grow from spores. in ggmm, he is talking about mass spore innocs. i've spoken to people at fungi perfecti (not paul), oyster creek farm,and others. they all claim not to use spores. i wonder if this is true. i've discussed it many times with pf also. pf says this trait has been cloned out. i have a strain that was given to me maybe a year ago that was supposedly brought in from china.it is super aggressive, and fruits many giants. i've tried the spores from these with poor results. i keep thinking about what rodger said about isolates. i've tried about 30 isolates with no good results. maybe i'll put some serious effort into isolates from my chinese strain. maybe if i do a couple hundred, i can get 1 good strain. i hope others might try this also. it would be nice to know if it can be done. this is a pic of a fruit from my chinese strain.

[Hippie3]

archive material

[slp]

After all the years of shiitake growing, and I'm talking about very large outside farms,
there has never been a reported wild sighting of this mushroom! So even after having
all these billions of spores released, they still can't catch hold anywhere. And yes,
all commercial growers use bought cultures, otherwise it is a waste of time from spores.
Trying to find a good strain from spores is a worthwhile task. I'd like to see that one appear in the wild......Many professional mycologists agree that a good
fruiting strain from spores no longer exists.......slp/fmrc

[Hippie3]

try cloning that & see if it will work ?