February And March 2002 Newsletter
Morel Mushroom Hunting Club
"Indoor Morel Cultivation"
Written By: Patrick Algrim , Editing and webpage format by: Chris Matherly
Part 1
This contains extensive scientific information. There are only a few (under 3 or 4) commercial growers that are capable of growing morels in quanities large enough for resell. And those few certainly have not perfected their methods. This newsletter contains, in detail, how to grow morels indoors non-commercially. Along with the newsletter, we are trying this ourselves, and will be doing a follow up in the future as soon as we can see results, hopefully positive ones.
It obviously can be done. People are doing it. But nobody said it would be easy. There are several specific materials required to accomplish this. They are listed below along with known references to purchase these items. Before we go on, I want to say that if anyone out there has attempted growing morels indoors, please email me with your results, good or bad. -Chris Matherly
The Indoor-Home Cultivation of Morel Mushrooms
Above are the results we hope to achieve!
Welcome to the first and hopefully not the last Indoor Morel Cultivation newsletter, brought to you from the Morel Mushroom Hunting Club.
To start this off I would like to tell you, in my personal opinion, that growing morels in your own home is very difficult. If you have the right information on growing morels, it will make it alot easier when you start to grow morels. Without the right tools it makes it even more difficult. So I hope that this newsletter will help you.
When growing morel mushrooms inside of your home you have to know how many different types of bacteria and germs are inside of your own home. I live in the mid-west where the most common form is a vain type bacteria. These, "vain" share the nutrients that it gains from the agar (Agar: Agar is a gel like substance most times used to keep the ingredients together. This gel is from the seaweed family. Once heated turns into a water like substance. Then when dryed it turns into a gel) and the mushroom mycelium/spores.
In order to prevent bacteria from getting into your mushrooms, it takes many tries before success. The most common ways to prevent bacteria growth on your mushrooms is to keep everything inside of your, "flowhood" sterile. To keep everything inside of your area sterile you need to wash your hands probably every 20 minutes or even more when you enter and leave the area. Wash your hands with antibacterial soap. I have just learned in these past couple of months that the process of growing new morel mycelium is a very hard task. Also another way to prevent bacteria growth is to keep your "flowhood" away from CARPET! When you step on carpet, it fluffs up the bacteria into your "flowhood". So keep your flowhood away from carpet, and always keep the area around it clean with Lysol disinfected.
To keep the area around your flowhood bacteria free, you may use these tools:
1) A Pressure Cooker/(for sterilizing the agar)
2) Alcohol Lamp/(for heat treating other small tools)
3) Laminar Flow Hood/(very important)
These items can all be obtained at a science and surplus store. These can also be found at Http://www.fungiperfecti.com
What is Morel Mycelium?
The mycelium of a mushroom is the area of new growth of the spores. The spores of a mushroom are like the seeds of a plant. It must replant itself for new growth to occur. Once these spores come in contact with the right materials needed for growth, they turn into mycelium. Mycelium is a thick growth of the spores. Below photo shows mycelium growing in a petri dish.
There are many different types of kits for growing morels indoors. I've been testing , and have found the most effective kit available has been from The Spore Trading Post, Inc. kit. I do suggest buying the laminar flow hood and a pressure cooker to get better results. You must buy a pressure cooker that goes to the 15 PSI level.
The Process of Morel Growth
1) Morels will grow on specially mixed pressure cooked agar to make a thick mycelium. This will be inoculated to speed up the process of growing, which usually takes seven days.
In the Wild:
When a morel drops its spores, it will grow only if that area has the right materials. When the agar is pressure cooked that stimulates mushroom growth.
2) Now that we have large amounts of mycelium we can mix it into a sterilized and soaked rye grain. We mix these materials into Mason jars. This rye grain is known as the medium for mushroom growth. We pressure cook the jars then shake them to mix the mycelium. Then we will incubate the jars. This takes 6-8 weeks
In the Wild:
Morels will only grow with the right materials, so most of the time either wild grain, sand, straw or organic composted soil will act as the agar.
3) We now have enough of spawned rye grain which should look white in color, and will appear be attatched. This will have to be spread across the areas of the soil.
In the Wild:
Morels from materials like, straw, organic compost, sand, and wild grain.
Your probably wondering what Spawned Rye Grain is?
Spawned Rye Grain looks like a large white block. This is sometimes known as the "cake". These cakes can very easily grow bacteria inside of them. The common type of bacteria inside of the Rye Grain jars has an oily appearance.
4) We have all the spawned materials we need to grow the morels, but now we can get to the fun part. We need to place potting soil mix into small, deep brownie pans. Any pan should work that is 9X9 and about 3" deep. We need to mix the soil with many organic materials. Many people at least use coffee grounds and other decomposable material. I myself like to use:
1) Sand-35%
2) Hardwood Chips-10%
3) Lime-3%
4) Sphagnum-5%
5) Potting Soil-50%
6) Soy Bean Meal-25%
These items can be bought from a nursery or health food store.
In the Wild:
Morels would find organic soil, or composted material to grow on.
Everything varies from the method of cultivation.
5) Now that we have the inoculated jars of rye grain, and the right composted potting soil we need to mix the two together. Once we have mixed the two, set the mixture aside for a couple of days. Then you will need to flood the soil with water to act as a stimulant for the "sclerota".
You will also need to have a grow lamp and a timer to keep an air flow process. Soon the water will be emptied out and the tray kept for a little while under these conditions. Soon you will come across sclerota from which the mushroom will grow.
In the wild:
A good rain and hot summer conditions stimulate the mushroom growth. So in this process we are just imitating the weather for good morel growth.
The sclerota of a mushroom is the last seed of the growing process. This sclerota is like a hard covering for the mushroom. It will protect the mushroom from most bacteria's and will absorb nutrients from the soil around the sclerota. The actual mushroom body will grow from this sclerota.
Problems I Have Come Across
Recently I have come across many problems, the most common problem involves the bacteria. If you don't have the right tools, it makes growing morels next to impossible. Other mushrooms are much easier to cultivate, being that it may attract less bacteria than morels. I can give you a couple directions to keep bacteria away. I have found these very useful before and during the stage of cultivation.
1) Keep all areas around you clean with antibacterial wash
2) Wash your hands with antibacterial soap
3) Cultivate your mushrooms inside the bathroom
4) Always wash the inside of your area with Lysol disinfectant
5) Before the process wash out your area with a strong disinfectant
6) During the process use alcohol rub to kill germs
7) Spray your filter with Lysol disinfectant
These will help you from keeping bacteria away from your flowhood.
Some Cultivation Information
The recent development of growing morels indoors has been a breakthrough for cultivation. Morels have been seen to grow on Phlox plants. Now I am going to try and mass produce morels in an easier way. What my experiments are going to do is combine all of the elements needed for morels to grow. Then I will be taking mycelium and cutting it into small pieces, and adding it to the soil. I will then take burnt apple and oak chips and some sand and mix that with the mycelium. I will take that mixtures and combine it in with the potting soil that was given to me with the phlox plant. The phlox plant has been a wonder that many people have tried to figure out. Why do morels grow from these plants? In the book, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms-Third Edition, it says that a morel came from everyone of phlox plant . I am hoping to find out the reason why these morels grow from this Phlox plant. This is going to be a great breakthrough.
Where I am Right Now
You might be wondering what step I am at in the process of growing morels. Well, I had a large setback because I did not have the right tools. I would heat the agar up with a pot and not a pressure cooker, it did not stimulate the mushroom mycelium to grow. Once I got a nice pressure cooker, I ran into problems with bacteria. That was around the time I found myself asking for information on how to prevent bacterial growth. The easiest way was to start the process in the bathroom. You may think its the most dirty place in your house, but it sure did work. Now I have mycelium growing almost every week.
Step One
I am going to describe to you the first step in cultivating mushrooms. Maybe in the next newsletter I can send out the next step in the process. The first step, after you have a flowhood, is to spread the mycelium. Things you may need:
1) Petri-Dish
2) Morel Mycelium or spores
3) Lysol
4) Paper Towels
5) Sandwich Bags
6) Masking Tape
7) Flowhood
8) Agar
9) Pressure Cooker
10) Knife-Hobby Knife
11) Turkey Baster
These items can be found at Wal-Mart. Petri-dishes can be found at a science and surplus store. Try finding the flowhood at Fungi Perfecti(http://www.fungiperfecti.com)
Now that we have all of the materials we can get started. Run your flowhood for a little while to get air circulating. Spray the filter with Lysol to kill the bacteria that may be on the filter already. Wash your hands and then spray the inside of the flow hood with Lysol. Let it run for a couple of minutes to kill all bacteria. You should be doing this in your bathroom. Clean the surface area around you with Lysol. Take all of your materials that you need like pertri-dishes, sandwich bags, masking tape and turkey baster and put them inside of your flowhood. It may be a good idea to swipe the outside of the bags with Lysol just in case the bacteria landed on the bags. Take your hobby knife and go to your kitchen stove. Light the burner and put the knife in the blue flame for a couple of seconds, this killing any bacteria on the knife. Now that you have all of your materials inside of your flowhood it is time to get the agar.
I personally find that Dog Food Agar|(DFA) is the best agar that you can get from your own home. Most people like to buy it from Fungi Perfecti. That is a good option, but if you want to find materials in your home, then DFA is good. Here is my personal mixture for DFA:
1) High Quality Dog Food
2) Yeast
3) Peptone|(soybean meal)
4) Agar Powder
5) Barley Malt
Take 1 cup of dog food and grind it up in the blender until it is in small pieces. Then take your yeast and add a small amount to the dog food in the blender. Peptone is derived from soybean, and acts as a stimulant. In order for morels to grow they need some sort of a sugar and a salt. Sometimes adding a pinch of table salt will help. Take some of your soybeans and grind them in the blender. Take a small amount of barley malt, which you can get at any health food store and add it to your mixture. Now that you have all the ingredients mixed, it is time to put it in a jar. Take the mixed materials and put it into a jar, add half a small bottle of agar powder. You can get agar powder at any science store. Take well water or spring water and add it to your jar, proportionate with the jar. You want to try and use a small mouthed jar, to decrease chances of contamination. Make sure the jar fits inside the pressure cooker. Add 1 1/2" of water to the bottom of the pressure cooker to make steam. First leave the top of the pressure cooker off for 4 minutes until steam is rising. Now close the top and cook the agar in the jar for 45 minutes at 15 PSI. Once the cooking is done take your paper towel and spray it down with Lysol. Cover the top of the pressure cooker where the air flows out, because when it cools the air will suck back in. This paper towel will act as a small filter. Set your timer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes your agar should be cooled. Use a couple paper towels soaked in Lysol to hold the jar. Put the jar inside of the flowhood. Take your turkey baster and from the bottom of the jar squeeze up some agar. Fill each of the petri-dish es halfway. Take your masking tape and seal the top of the petri-dishes. Once they have cooled take your morel mycelium that you bought and bring it inside of the flowhood. Cut a small piece of the mycelium and put it in the middle of each petri-dish. Put the tops back on and take your sandwich bags and put the petri-dishes inside of the bags. Now you should have at least 3 petri-dishes full of agar and a slit of mycelium. Incubate these for 7 days. You could leave them out at room temperature, above 70 degrees. Never let the agar get below 70 degrees inside of the house. This will take much longer for the agar to grow.
To all the cultivators out there who want to grow morels. Do not stop trying, trial and error is a big process in growing morels.
Glossary Of Terms:
Flowhood:
The flowhood is a large air filter. It will pump air in, then clean it, and then release the cleaned air into your glove box.
Petri-Dish:
A petri-dish is a small circular tray. This tray is about 1/3 of an inch deep. The petri-dish is most commonly used by scientists.
Agar:
Agar is a gel like substance most times used to keep the ingredients together. This gel is from the seaweed family. Once heated turns into a water like substance. Then when dryed it turns into a gel.
Alcohol Lamp:
An alcohol lamp is similar to a bunsin burner. The alcohol lamp is smaller and uses alcohol.
Incubator:
The incubator is most times a storage box. This storage box is a temperature controlled area. It may be controlled by humidity or by water.
Glove Box: 
The glove box is a bacteria controlled environment. This area is cleaned by a hepa filter or by the flowhood.
Refrences
The Fungi Perfecti
http://www.fungiperfecti.com
The Spore Trading Post, Inc.
http://www.sporetradingpost.com
Science Surplus
Science Items
Wal-Mart
Basic Items
Osco Jewel
Basic Items
Drug Store
Basic Items
The Spore Works
http://www.sporeworks.com
-Patrick Algrim