Terminology Guide

If you're just starting with mushroom growing, some of the terms might seem confusing. Here's a simplified list to help you understand the basics:

Agar: Agar is like jelly made from seaweed. Mushroom growers use it in petri dishes to grow mycelium (the mushroom "roots"). You dissolve agar in hot water, sterilize it, and pour it into dishes where it solidifies. Then, you can rub spores on it to start growing cultures.

Blue Bruising: Sometimes, the mycelium turns blue when it gets pressed against something. This doesn’t always mean it's contaminated. To check, gently wipe a cotton bud over the blue area. If it's mold, the color will come off on the cotton bud. If it's just bruising, nothing will happen.

Cake: A "cake" is a block of material where mushrooms grow. It's like the soil for the mushrooms, where the spores are injected.

Carbon Dioxide: Mushrooms breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, just like we do. Keeping an eye on CO2 levels is important to make sure the mushrooms grow well.

Casing Layer: This is a layer you add on top of the mushroom-growing material to keep it moist. It's usually made of things like peat, coco coir, or vermiculite.

Colonisation: This is the stage where the mycelium is spreading through the material but no mushrooms have appeared yet.

Contamination: This happens when unwanted things like mold or bacteria get into your mushroom setup. You need to remove contaminated stuff quickly to stop it from spreading. You can usually spot contamination by looking for discoloration (green, blue, gray, or black patches) or slimy spots.

Flush: A "flush" is what you call each batch of mushrooms that you harvest.

Fruiting: This is when the mushrooms start to grow after the mycelium has spread through the material. To make this happen, you expose the setup to fresh air and light.

Fruiting Body: This is the part of the mushroom you see and recognize. It contains spores for reproduction.

Fruiting Chamber: A controlled environment where you grow mushrooms, designed to mimic natural conditions.

Grain Spawn: This is mycelium that’s been grown into sterilized grain. Once it's ready, it can be mixed into more material to spread and grow more mushrooms.

Harvesting: The moment to pick the mushrooms, usually when a part of them called the "veil" starts to tear.

Hyphae: These are the thread-like parts of the mycelium that absorb nutrients and help the fungus grow.

Incubation: After you add spores to the material (inoculation), you keep the setup warm and humid to help the mycelium grow. This is also when contamination is most likely to happen.

Inoculation: The process of adding spores to the material to start growing mushrooms.

Liquid Culture: A liquid mixture with living mycelium in it, used to start new mushroom colonies.

Microscopy: Using a microscope to look at tiny things like spores.

Misting: Spraying water to keep the environment humid so the mushrooms can grow.

Mycelium: The part of the mushroom that grows underground or inside materials, absorbing nutrients and water.

Mycology: The study of fungi, including mushrooms.

Pins: Baby mushrooms that will grow into full mushrooms.

Psilocybin and Psilocin: Compounds in "magic mushrooms" that affect the mind. In some places, growing these mushrooms is illegal.

Spawning: Spreading mycelium into new material so it can grow and eventually produce mushrooms.

Spore Swab: A cotton swab used to collect spores from a mushroom for study or to start new cultures.

Spore Syringe: A syringe filled with spores in water, used to grow mushrooms.

Spores: Tiny seeds that mushrooms release to grow new mushrooms.

Substrate: The material mushrooms grow in, like soil for plants. It needs to be prepared and sterilized before use.

Trichoderma: Also known as green mold, it’s a common problem in mushroom growing. It spreads fast and takes nutrients away from your mushrooms, so you need to separate contaminated setups quickly.

Veil: A thin layer that covers a mushroom as it grows. When the mushroom matures, the veil breaks, which is a sign that it's ready to be harvested.

If you have more questions or need assistance, feel free to get in touch!