To make a spore syringe for growing magic mushrooms, you will need the following materials and should follow the steps listed below.
Materials required:
- Spore print of the desired fungus
- Sterile syringes (10-20 ml) with needles
- Distilled water
- Pressure cooker
- Small glass containers or jars with lids
- Aluminum foil
- Scalpel or sterile knife
- Tweezers
- Lighter or Bunsen burner
- Sterile gloves
- Face mask
- Disinfectant
- Clean room or a working environment that is as sterile as possible
Steps for the production of a spore syringe:
-
Sterilization of the water:
- Fill the glass containers with distilled water.
- Cover the containers with aluminum foil to prevent contamination.
- Sterilize the filled and covered containers in the pressure cooker for about 20 minutes at 15 psi.
- Then allow the water to cool to room temperature without removing the cover.
-
Preparation of the work area:
- Clean the work area thoroughly with disinfectant.
- Wear sterile gloves and a face mask to avoid contamination.
- Work in as sterile an environment as possible, ideally in a sterile bench or still air box.
-
Preparation of the spore print:
- Carefully open the container with the spore print in the sterile working environment.
- Use the sterile scalpel or knife to scrape off a small part of the spore print.
-
Production of the spore syringe:
- Remove the aluminum foil from a cooled water container.
- Draw up the sterile water with the sterile syringe.
- Carefully spray the water onto the scraped spore print to pick up the spores.
- Draw the now spore-laden solution back into the syringe.
- Repeat this process as necessary to achieve the desired spore concentration.
-
Storage of the spore syringe:
The spore syringes should be stored in the refrigerator at a temperature of 2-8 °C. This keeps the spores viable for several months to a year.
- Close the syringe securely with the cannula and the protective cap.
- Label the syringe with the mushroom strain and the date of production.
- Keep the spore syringe in the refrigerator until use to preserve the viability of the spores.
By working carefully and maintaining sterile conditions, you can ensure that your spore syringe is free from contamination and delivers optimum mushroom cultivation results.
"Work in as sterile an environment as possible, ideally in a sterile bench or still air box."
That's the crux of the matter, because even a Still Air box is not clean enough to ensure that there are no rejects. Hardly anyone has a sterile bench.
"Label the syringe" - if you have a sterile bank, you know this, and if you don't, it will take many attempts before one works. This is not effective
Using a professional spore ampoule (better than syringes) to produce liquid mycelium is quite simple, apply the liquid mycelium to sterilized cardboard soaked in nutrient solution in a sealed cultivation bag or jar, let it grow there and then simply allow it to dry. The dry mycelium on the cardboard can be kept for years without refrigeration and can be brought back to life with a new nutrient solution. And the liquid culture in the bag (or jar) can then be used to inoculate substrate at a later date.
If you can work very cleanly but without a sterile bank, you can also use the spore lid method to have spores in a clean jar, into which you can then inject fairly sterile nutrient solution with a syringe as soon as you need it.
Thanks for the detailed instructions, would it also be possible to provide instructions for activating the spores and for the appropriate substrate?
What is a sterile bench, is it a box like the ones used in laboratories with access via gloves built into the glass front?
How big should such a sterile bank be in order to be able to work sensibly for personal use?
How do you get such a box completely sterile inside, I suppose you need an air filter, and maybe UV light, and 2 chambers to have something like an airlock for the in & out of material ?
The best thing is a fan with a hepa filter that blows permanently cleaned air from the front or top, so that you don't need a screen at the front and can clean it much better, "laminar box". New ones are available from 2000 euros, used ones are sometimes much cheaper and I know people who have built something like this for a few hundred euros.
You can also simply take a box and spray it with disinfectant - but then no flame is allowed in it...
with pockets for gloves would be cool.
For the harvest, or spore prints etc. Let's see, I'll probably be drawing on it for months until the construction starts. How high should a box be when the mushrooms grow a little higher?
The mushrooms themselves are sterile and if the mushroom cap is opened downwards, you do not need a laminar box or sterile box to put them in a Petri dish, for example. If you take a pair of scissors or scalpel + tweezers that you have cleaned with alcohol and then heated over a flame and hold the mushroom head by the cap directly under the head with the tweezers and cut it off with the scissors or a scalpel and then place it quickly in a Petri dish, you can do this practically sterile without a box.
But then you have to take the hat out later, pour sterile water into the dish and scrape off the spores and put them into the water and that is a problem without the box, because instead of a second the Petri dish may be open for minutes and contamination flies in from the air.
Or if you inoculate substrate using the spore cap method, this is super-clean, but if you then want to place the mycelium on Petri dishes or use it to inoculate nutrient solutions, then you need the box.
A size of approx. 40x40x30 or 40x40x20 (height) should be completely sufficient for this job. Probably even less is enough.
On the other hand, with a little more space you could let the mushrooms grow completely in the box and harvest them without having to move them to a grow bag in between. For the 12 hours in the fridge, a lid would be put on them anyway. Would it make sense to do the spore imprint and inoculation process, as well as the growth and harvesting process completely in a box?
I have just seen that there are mushroom breeding boxes for sale on the internet that are supposed to prevent you from contaminating your fry. Even reasonably affordable, and foldable when not in use.