Mushrooms arouse enormous curiosity – especially how they develop. The fact that you can create liquid cultures from which you can later obtain the entire mycelium and fruiting bodies by inoculating them into a suitable substrate shows how strong the life within them is. They also provide incredible research material for both professionals and amateurs. It’s worth knowing that psilocybin mushrooms, or at least their early development, are observed in this way. If you want to learn more about how to prepare liquid mycelium and other information about it, I encourage you to read on!
What are liquid cultures?
For the sake of clarity, it’s worth providing some basic information that will make it easier for you to work with this material later. Liquid cultures are simply mycelium in liquid form. Naturally, this vegetative part of the mushroom exists in, let’s call it, a solid form. It resembles a tangle of hyphae permeating the chosen substrate – soil, wood, mulch, and other materials that provide it with nutrients.
In the case of liquid cultures, the process is slightly different. The mycelium is placed in a liquid nutrient solution in which it has the right conditions to survive. Typically, this liquid is a mixture of sterile water with the addition of selected sugars, such as honey. Sometimes the mixture includes additional ingredients that enhance the culture’s performance. These may include vitamins or amino acids, for example, which stimulate the product’s activity after inoculation.
What are liquid cultures used for?
Much depends on the mushroom species itself. It’s worth knowing that liquid mycelium is a popular way to inoculate wild mushrooms in the garden. They need the right conditions to thrive, but as long as the right trees grow on your plot, you can enjoy even the most elegant specimens in your yard.
On the other hand, these products are often used to cultivate the fruiting bodies of more exotic specimens. They are used to create grow kits of species such as reishi, lion’s mane, and other varieties, used not only in cooking but also in traditional Chinese medicine.
Finally, liquid cultures are also used for mycological research on Psilocybe cubensis. However, it’s worth noting an important point here, perhaps repeated ad nauseam by many. Psilocybin mushrooms are generally banned in Poland and many other countries. This means that their fruiting bodies should not be cultivated. However, these regulations do not apply to the mycelium and liquid cultures of this species. Why? For a simple reason.
Psilocybe cubensis fruiting bodies contain alkaloids, including: Polish law classifies them as psychedelic substances, which are not even permitted for regulated sale. Therefore, only licensed research labs can cultivate them. However, since the mycelium does not produce these compounds, it is not subject to any restrictions. Therefore, you can confidently conduct research on the hyphae and the various forms these extraordinary fungi take during their developmental stages. With the help of liquid cultures, such as Psilocybe Natalensis, you can create further grow kits, allowing you to obtain a lot of material for observation under a microscope or on a glass slide.
Liquid mycelium – how to prepare it yourself?
It should be noted at this point that propagating mycelium and encapsulating it in liquid is a tedious process that requires a lot of commitment and attention. This is definitely a task for more advanced mycologists, regardless of the mushrooms they work with. Now that we’ve cleared that up, it’s time to tell you a little about how liquid mycelium is made and how to make your own supplies.
Above all, when working with it, and even with psilocybin mushrooms, you should commit one thing to memory: sterility. Even the slightest contamination can ruin long hours, even days, of work. Therefore, you should sterilize and ensure the cleanliness of every tool or container used.
Well, propagating mycelium requires, among other things:
- appropriate sugars,
- water,
- selected yeast,
- jars with a lid to facilitate gas exchange and an injection port,
- laminar flow hood (i.e., sterile air supply) OR
- Still Air Box (SAB), a special box that limits the impact of external conditions on its contents,
- scalpel,
- syringes,
- Finally – sterile hyphae of the chosen mushroom.
As you can see, this is already half a small laboratory. However, it’s necessary to be able to create liquid cultures on your own.
Preparing Liquid Mycelium
Once you have all the equipment, you can get started. However, before we talk about liquid cultures themselves, it’s worth knowing that you need one more thing – a suitable medium. There are many recipes for these online. Mycology enthusiasts often use honey for this purpose. It’s definitely one of the simplest and most effective ways to nourish mycelium in liquid form.
Okay – it’s time to begin the main process. First, place the sugars in the jars, then add water and stir until a relatively smooth liquid is obtained. More advanced mycologists use a magnetic stirrer, which offers an optimal combination of ingredients. The next step is sterilization, after which the entire mixture should be cooled to at least 35° Celsius.
The hyphae are inoculated into the prepared material. This should be done before the flow hood or after placing it in the SAB. It’s crucial that they are sterile, so you need to make sure they come from a reputable source and, moreover, that you know how to actually do it. The material can be easily contaminated if you don’t have the necessary experience! Just remember that the air is often filled with not only dust particles but also spores of other fungi, including molds that are deadly to the mycelium of various species.
Done? It’s time to provide the prepared product with the right conditions. Ideally, place it in a shaded place with a relatively constant temperature between 20° and 25° Celsius. At this point, leave it alone for three days. After that, stir the mixture daily. It’s best to use the aforementioned magnetic stirrer, but not everyone has one. As a last resort, at home, shake the contents to achieve the desired effect. However, it’s important to remember that this method often leads to contamination of the product. Therefore, propagating mycelium on your own is often a trial-and-error process.
This process should continue for several days. After a total of 10-14 days, the material should be ready. You can now inoculate the substrate with it.
Proper storage of liquid cultures
Once everything is prepared, you need to provide the cultures with the right conditions. Liquid cultures require a specific temperature to survive. Therefore, it’s best to store them in the refrigerator, at a temperature around 4° Celsius. This deactivates the mycelium and prevents it from aging.
What do you need to inoculate a liquid culture?
Okay… once you have liquid cultures, no mycologist wants to simply enjoy having them. After all, they have to work! And for that, you have to inoculate them properly. To do this, you’ll need the following:
- Properly prepared, sterile seed,
- Previously prepared liquid culture,
- Syringe,
- Flow hood or SAB.
What’s the process like? Liquid cultures should be placed in a SAB or in front of a flow hood. Next, the needles need to be annealed. Don’t rush, as they need to cool after annealing. Next, gently shake the cultures to evenly distribute the hyphae. They are then drawn into a syringe through the needle, and then inoculated onto the substrate (grain or agar). How much liquid culture should be used? Practice shows that with grain, about 2 ml of material should be completely sufficient. With agar, however, sometimes only a drop is needed. Voilà! Inoculated cultures.
Or maybe ready-made liquid cultures?
As you can see, obtaining such materials is quite demanding. It requires a lot of commitment, precision, and attention to sterility. However, it’s always easier to obtain such a product by choosing, for example, the liquid cultures available from Mykolaborian.
Working with each of them is similar, although the developing mycelium may behave slightly differently. Ghost, for example, is a crazy ghost that will devour the appropriate substrate with gusto. Those seeking a more intense observation experience will definitely appreciate Jedi Mind F**k. Its name doesn’t come from nowhere – the rate of hyphal growth is incredible, and their forms are absolutely unpredictable. And these are just two of many examples you’ll find in the catalog on the website.
Will you join the researchers investigating psilocybe mycelium?
Inoculating, observing, and working with liquid cultures is an extraordinary adventure. Anyone passionate about these extraordinary organisms will appreciate it. Above, you could see a rather simplified explanation of what it looks like. However, it’s best to gain practice and create such liquid mycelium yourself. If you want to be sure you’ll have good material to work with, you can always choose preparations available in the store presented. So equip yourself with a microscope, get the varieties you’re interested in, and start your mycology adventure!