Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

by Paul Stamets

Remember our mycomotto: Move it or lose it! A mycelium grower is really a mycelial herdsman; no matter how successful you are in getting mycelium to adapt and grow in one habitat, that success is a temporary episode in the theater of life. Mycelium consumes its preferred habitat resources and then strategizes for transporting itself to new niches.

Mycelium is, in essence, a digestive cellular membrane, a fusion between a stomach and a brain, a nutritional and informational sharing network. It is an archetype of matter and life: our universe is based upon these networking structures.

The wisest method for generating mycelium is the one that works. My experiences of success and failure may differ from the experiences of someone in India, for instance. Climate makes a huge difference, as do the seasons.

Every failure is the price of tuition I have paid to learn a new lesson.

The materials upon which mycelium is grown or inoculated are called substrates by mushroom growers.

it’s possible to grow many mushrooms using spore slurries from elder mushrooms. Many variables come into play, but in a sense this method is just a variation of what happens when it rains. Water dilutes spores from mushrooms and carries them to new environments. Our responsibility is to make that path easier.

Frank went on to tell me that much of the premise of Dune—the magic spice (spores) that allowed the bending of space (tripping), the giant worms (maggots digesting mushrooms), the eyes of the Freman (the cerulean blue of Psilocybe mushrooms), the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the Bene Gesserits (influenced by tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico)—came from his perception of the fungal life cycle,

These hats, being used as temporary vessels for carrying mushrooms (in this case Psilocybe azurescens) are impregnated with billions of spores, allowing for the spread of this species as far and wide as the wearer travels.

Mushrooms increase in their spore release as they mature from adolescence to adulthood. The length of time of spore release in a mushroom’s life cycle varies from species to species.

The classic method for capturing a spore print is to place the mushroom, spore layer down, on a piece of paper. The spores then descend like a fine mist. These same spores can be used for culturing in the laboratory (see my book Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms [2000a]) and for growing mushrooms outdoors.

Wear a dust mask when handling masses of spores. Anyone whose immune system may be compromised, is allergic to fungus, or suffers from lung disease should be especially careful. Wash your hands

Most mushroom spores love to grow on the moist surfaces of dead plants, especially when they’re scattered like checkers on a checkerboard. Spores germinate quickly in water. The problem is that most life on this planet also loves water. So when you immerse spores in water, other organisms, especially bacteria and protozoa, consume the fungi as food. The art of cultivation is to give the mushroom spores a head start, in advance of competition, to initiate the ever-increasing spiral of germination. Ideal spore dispersal is a balance between the conduciveness of the habitat and its background population of competitors.

Germinating spores on corrugated cardboard is a good method for creating cultures. Corrugated cardboard, with its ridges and valleys, favorably selects mushroom spores to the disadvantage of many other fungi. The sweet wood-based glues used in cardboard provide a boost to mycelial growth.

Spores germinate into mycelium. When this mycelium is used to inoculate more material, it is called spawn.

In a sense, the mycelium “breathes,” emitting a fragrance that is a valuable feature to the experienced mushroom gatherer. The outgassing from the mycelium carries scents that are often species specific and recognizable.

Mushroom scents, even in the absence of mushrooms, inform us that the mycelium is alive and thriving.

Once you find mycelium, you need to give it a new, friendly environment. Mycelium needs moisture, air, and darkness.

Natural spawn can be generated from the basal rhizomorphs radiating around the stem’s connection to the nurturing mycelium. If you cut the base away from the stem, carefully protecting its rhizomorphs, the tissue stays alive.

with many saprophytic mushrooms, stem butts, but not the areas above the stem base, regrow with astonishing vigor when transplanted into wood chips, cardboard, or wooden dowels. This method of regrowth is another smart evolutionary advantage of the mushroom, since foraging animals, including humans, prefer to eat the softer flesh of the upper fruiting body rather than the tough, often woody flesh at the stem base.

To use this method, harvest mushrooms with stem bases intact and ideally with their radiating rhizomorphs—dangling stringlike mycelial strands—attached and infused with substrate particles

The rhizomorphs by themselves do not grow as well as they do when attached to a stem butt. The stem butt acts as nutrient source for the rhizomorphs as they grow rapidly onto new materials.

a saprophyte with rhizomorphs, its stem butt will likely regrow when replanted. However, I encourage you to experiment with the stems of likely and unlikely mushrooms, since new knowledge about species’ regrowth abilities could be put to a positive use.

Mixing fine and coarse materials together often creates a friendly matrix for the mycelium, since it loves complex mixtures with fractal-like microstructures.

If you are uncertain which material to choose for running mycelium, choose a few that are readily available and run a preference test by placing mycelium on each one. By inoculating several materials on the same day, you start a mycelial race. The materials most quickly colonized, as a general rule, are usually the best. Experimentation using mini-trials will give you ideas that can make larger projects less tedious and more likely to succeed.

mushrooms grow most prolifically not in the darkest depths of woodlands but in environments of both shade and dappled sunlight. Light stimulation is absolutely necessary for the healthy fruiting of most saprophytic mushrooms.

A few mushrooms are heliotropes—sun lovers—and do well in exposed areas, often in association with grasses. Good examples are the garden giant, the shaggy mane, and many of the Psilocybe mushrooms.

You can grow heliotropes in the shade and log-friendly mushrooms in sunny areas, but your yields will be a fraction of what they could have been.

Once the mycelium establishes a foothold, it naturalizes and increases in its appetite for more food as the mat differentiates, enlarges, and migrates. More animal-like than plantlike, these digestive cellular networks often achieve great masses.

I like the phrase “mycelial wave” because it calls to mind the coordinated action of mycelial cellular energy whose life force has become synergized with millions of its once-fragmented cellular colonies.

The high art of a mushroom cultivator is to surf these mycelial waves by creating debris fields they can strive for. In effect, you can steer mycelium through an ecosystem by incorporating its favored debris into your landscape design.

the computer and Internet industries and astrophysics have been inspired through use of this fungus, which has stimulated the imagination and fields of vision of scientists and shamans with complex fractals, hyperlinking of thoughts, and mental tools for complex systems analysis. Many users over thousands of years have elevated this and other Psilocybe mushrooms to the level of a religious sacrament.

Some strains of this mushroom fruit well on straw, and to a lesser degree on wood, provided ample spawn is used. Stem butts with rhizomorphs still attached regrow with vigor when replanted into supportive habitats.