Oyster mushroom is a useful and available mushroom for growing in the garden or at home. Before you start cultivating it, you need to purchase or grow the mycelium of the fungus. Self-production of oyster mushroom mycelium is a rather complicated sterile process.
Necessary
- - 1 liter of beer wort (7-8 °);
- - 20 g of agar-agar;
- - several fresh oyster mushrooms;
- - test tubes;
- - knitting needle or steel wire;
- - equipment: autoclave, burner.
Instructions
Step 1
Prepare inoculation medium. The best is wort agar. To make it, take a beer wort and add agar agar to it. Cook the mixture until smooth. Without cooling, pour the agar wort into 1/3 test tubes, plug them with cotton-gauze plugs and sterilize in an autoclave at a temperature of 101 ° C and a pressure of 1.5 atmospheres. After sterilization, the tubes must be installed in a highly inclined position, so that the surface of the culture medium is maximal, but does not reach the cork of 3-4 cm.
Step 2
Make an inoculation loop, which is necessary for introducing a part of the fruiting body of the fungus onto the nutrient medium. To do this, take an ordinary knitting needle, bend its tip into a small loop and grind it down hard. Instead of a knitting needle, you can take a piece of steel wire. Before use, the inoculation loop must be calcined over an open fire to avoid contamination of the culture medium by foreign microorganisms.
Step 3
After the wort agar has solidified, add a part of the fruiting body of the fungus to the test tube. Take a good, fresh oyster mushroom, break it in half and use an inoculation loop to cut a piece of the fruiting body of the mushroom from the top of the stem. To ensure sterility, dip it in hydrogen peroxide. Very carefully, holding the test tube over the flame of the burner, open it and place the piece of mushroom on the nutrient medium. Stopper the test tube with a previously burned cork. Avoid contact of the stopper, tube or inoculation loop with any surfaces or objects during the process.
Step 4
Place the tubes in a dark room or a 24 ° C incubator. In two weeks, the mycelium will completely master the nutrient medium, and it can be used to grow oyster mushrooms. The mycelium can be stored for a year in a dark place at a temperature of 1-2 ° C. After a year, it must be subcultured onto a fresh nutrient medium.
