Jochen Gartz - Magic Mushrooms Around the ... - preterhuman.net

Nature, but often need to be specially created for
mushroom cultivation inside glass containers or
enclosed rooms.
It is no coincidence that the saprophytic
species almost always fruit during the fall. Plant
substrates such as twigs and leaves fall to the
ground during this time and they are
immediately colonized by available mycelia
from mushroom spores as part of the natural
cycle. The concurrent drop in temperature and
increase in humidity are preconditions for
fruiting. The proverbial rapid growth of
mushrooms "overnight" is a function of mycelia
that have previously massed together into knots,
followed by a differentiation process into
primordia, with progressive divisions into caps
and stems. The whole mushroom is then ready to
develop very rapidly, given sufficient moisture
and ideal temperatures. Figure 42 illustrates a
comparable in-vitro fruiting process that took
about a week, with mycelia from Psilocybe
cubensis (Earle) on an agar substrate.
Cultivating High Yield Strains
Artificial cultivation is an attempt to
imitate and optimize the natural conditions
essential for mushroom growth, and may even
result in the discovery of additional nutrient
substrates on which these species cannot grow in
Nature. From the outset, this method of
cultivation requires a sterile environment, in
order to eliminate often fast-growing organisms
such as bacteria and molds. For this purpose,
laminar flow hoods are used in mycological
laboratories. A small sterile space is created
inside these containers by installing a filtration
system that removes germs from a stream of air.
The sterile space is used for the performance of
tasks such as isolation of strains, and the
production of sterile cultures and spawn for
fruiting experiments. Antibiotics such as
gentamycin (0.01%) are often added to the
nutrient media, especially in the early stages of
this process.
Two methods are used to produce sterile
cultures of fungal mycelia.
The first method mimicks the mushrooms'
natural reproductive process. Spores that fell off
or were removed from the gills are suspended in
sterile water. With microscopic
control procedures in place, the spore solution is
germinated on nutrients of various compositions
that have been thickened with agar. One
commonly used nutrient medium contains 3-6
malt extract along with 1.5% agar. It induces
spores from many different species to germinate
in a matter of several days. Prior to germination,
all substrates are placed in autoclaves and
sterilized with steam. The simultaneous
germination of a large number of spores will
result in the growth of monokaryotic mycelia
which spontaneously combine and go on to form
dikaryotic mycelia. Alternatively, one can attempt
to systematically fuse selected monokaryotic
strands in order to develop vigorous strains for
cultivation (criteria: rapid growth, high yield).
This is a standard technique that is widely used in
the cultivation of champignons (Agaricus
bisporus).
At the same time, such cross-breeding
experiments enable the grower to determine
whether mushrooms from different locations
belong to the same species. Using this method, I
was able to establish that mycelia obtained from
Psilocybe bohemica and from Psilocybe
cyanescens (collected in the U.S.) can never be
fused together, which means that these two
mushrooms are not of the same species.
The second method of cultivation
requires cutting a piece of tissue from the inside
of young, unopened fruiting bodies, using a
disinfected knife in a sterile environment. The
piece of tissue is then placed onto nutrient agar
medium. In most cases, visible mycelial growth
will occur within a few days. This method has the
advantage of all mycelia being genetically
identical to the mushroom from which they
originated, unlike mycelia grown from spore
samples. Therefore, this method makes it easy for
the grower to reproduce high yield strains of
saprophytic species. Some wild strains obtained
from various species do not fruit at all when
cultivated, or else, they do so very late, with a
yield of fruiting bodies that is sparse at best.
Such differences in response to attempted
cultivation were also observed by R. Heim with
various strains of Psilocybe mexicana Heim. As
early as 1956, he took spore sprints from a
number of fruiting bodies in Mexico. Later on, in
Paris, he was able to germinate the spores and
isolate mycelial cultures of five different species.
In collaboration with R. Cailleux, Heim