Raising a Pet Fungus

The journey begun in 2016, when I joined the Mycological Society of Toronto. We would go into conservation areas to collect mushrooms, examine them, and record the species of mushrooms found in each location.

Since then I have visited professional mushroom-growing facilities, bought mushroom spawns, and even tried to cultivate mushroom strings from the wild. I’ve successfully grown two types of oyster mushrooms and wine cap mushroom.

Visiting an organic mushroom farm for research. This is in one of the grow rooms.

Learning with the Mycological Society of Toronto

Shitake spawn plugs. It’s made of hard wood dowels inoculated with mycelium for log cultivation.

Making substrates from sawdust and coffee grounds. Pasteurizing it by soaking it in hot water for a couple of hours.

Starting the inoculation process by mixing spawn plugs with sawdust.

Recycling woodchips. This is for growing Wine Cap mushrooms. The wood chips needs to compost for ~1 year, before the wine cap string can be introduced.

Drilling holes to insert spawn plugs on willow tree trunks. The holes will be sealed with beeswax to prevent infection. Once inoculated, it needs to sit for ~half year to allow the mycelium culture spread. When one can see spider web textures at both ends of the log, it can be soaked in water to simulate rain and then produce flushes of mushrooms.

Growing Oyster Mushrooms in a container. The first flush.

Another method to grow Oyster Mushrooms.

Mushroom growth in woodchips. This particular type of mushrooms welcomes competition.