Trying out a mushroom growing kit

You can buy kits online with ready to go spawn, all it takes is some water and a little time and they will grow large mushrooms. As shown in my recent mushroom cultivation post, these blocks can be broken down and used as grain spawn to grow more mushrooms. I have transferred grain to all the jars and now I wait. While I do, I started one of the grow kits normally as instructed, I have never grown them from these kits so I figured it would be nice to see how it all works.

I bought Pink Oyster mushroom spawn from Amazon. They cost around $30 and can be reused at least twice. After that you could transfer them to new media and get them to spawn all over again.

The blocks came in a simple box, just says mushroom growing kit on the outside. But inside is a living organism.

It comes with a quick start guide, a spray bottle and a block of Pink Oyster mushroom spawn.

X is where you cut it open to start the fruiting process.

So basically you cut open the top where the marking is (The X). Scratch the surface to stimulate fruiting growth. Put them by filtered light, in my case a window facing north. And keep the block hydrated by misting twice a day.

My spawning jars in the back ground. Was pressure cooking at the time of making this, finishing off the last of the bag of spawn.

With it cut open now the fungi can breathe and have a place to form its fruiting bodies.

We use a fork to break up the top layer, when this is done the fungi feels threatened by being damaged. It will start the process of reproduction by making fruiting bodies (the mushrooms).

Giving it a starter tablespoon of water should help it get ready to form big mushrooms.

Now we leave it, and just give it a few mistings a day. Soon it will form into a food producing brick..

It may look strange but lots is happening below.

Four days later:

The surface has changed color around where I scratched it. Turning a bright pink color.

Oh man this block looks like some strawberry cheese cake.. lol! I promise not to eat it.. well at least not till it fruits.

Getting indirect sunlight it helps the fungi's circadian rhythm. They do not need light to grow, like plants do. But they do need it to regulate their cycles.

Thermogenesis:

These blocks of fungi produce heat, as they consume the grain and regulate their own metabolism they give off heat.. Not much, but noticeable to a thermal camera.

The cold window behind it has little effect on the block, it stays nice and warm from all the microbial activity inside.

We can see the wrapped part is much warmer, and where its cut open on the time some of the heat escapes there.

It is quite alive :-) The room being around 60F these bricks are 5 to 10 degrees warmer than their surroundings.

Even my dormant block is showing some signs of heat production. It is important not to leave these bricks in areas where it gets too much below 50F otherwise it could kill them.

My bag is almost all used up from my grain spawn transfer project. It is also getting warm, forming condensation inside. The bag itself feels slightly warm as well.

Some of the jars are showing rapid growth, will do an update post on them soon but heres a peak at one of them.