In this post, we will go over the differences between Liquid Culture and Multi Spore Syringes. Mainly we will go over three main factors (CONTAMINATION POSSIBILITIES) (GROWTH RATE AKA SPEED) (YIELD AND MUSHROOM SIZE POSSIBILITIES)

(CONTAMINATION POSSIBILITIES)

The main cause of contamination during inoculation is either improperly sterilized grain or contaminated spores/liquid culture. The main cause of contamination in your syringe will be from an unclean lab, faulty Spore/LC-making process, or old expired dead liquid culture. To better understand these, let’s dive into how spores and liquid cultures are made.

(LIQUID CULTURE)

There are a few different methods for creating liquid culture, the most popular and fastest being using sterilized distilled water and adding colonized agar plates of your choice to the water and blending. The agar acts as the food inside the mixed solution allowing the liquid culture to continue growing. The second more time & material-consuming method is to use sterilized distilled water with an added sterilized sugar water solution such as honey or corn syrup mixed at a 4% ratio to sterilized distilled water. Once your sugar water solution is made, you will add mycelium and wait for it to grow.

(MULTI SPORE SYRINGE)

The easiest and oldest tried and true method of collecting spores from mushrooms involves cutting the cap off the mushroom of your choice and placing it on tinfoil gill-side down. once placed gill-down on the tinfoil simply place a cup over the mushroom cap and leave for 24-48 hours. Once you return to remove the cup, gently remove the cap to ensure no damage to the spore print that is left behind. Now that you have successfully collected your spore print you will want to simply scrape off some of the print into a jar of sterilized distilled water, then pull said mixed solution into syringes. *It is best to do both these methods under a flow hood or still air box (SAB). Now that you know how Liquid Culture and Multi spore syringes are made you can see where possible contamination can occur.

(GROWTH RATE AKA SPEED)

When it comes to growing mushrooms, patience is a huge part of what it takes to be successful. That said, what you choose to start with can drastically affect your growth time. We love to use Liquid Culture for our gourmet grows because we can begin to see growth within a day or two sometimes! With spores, it can take up to a month!

(YIELD AND MUSHROOM SIZE POSSIBILITIES)

Liquid Culture is usually made from colonized mushroom clone agar. When done correctly Liquid Culture tends to grow much bigger yields and bigger fruits because it already has its genetics established. When using spores you will have a variety of different size mushrooms growing per flush. it’s your job to clone the best one! *Remember taking a spore print from a mushroom does not clone it.

(CONCLUSION)

It is up to you as a grower to decide which option is right for you. For general mushroom cultivation and maximum yields, Liquid culture Wins every time. But growing with spore has its advantage, such as getting to hunt for your perfect mushroom clone.