Lab Techniques for Mushroom Cultivation

From Spore to Spawn

Imagine being able to find a wild mushroom then use its spores to create your own spawn.

Learning sterile lab techniques allows you to select genetics that are optimized to your bioregion and never have to buy spawn again. You can grow whatever mushrooms you want.

What You Recieve

• Access to Chris’s 35 years of experience growing and working with mushrooms

• Tour of our mushroom cultivation lab, spawn and grow rooms

• Understand which equipment you need to set up your own lab

• Hands-on experience with sterile lab techniques

• Create your own spawn to take home

• Learn everything you need to select optimized fungi genetics from your local forest, turn it into a culture and make your own spawn

Decades of Experience

Chris Parker has been growing various kinds of mushrooms for 30 years. He created the Southeast’s premier resource for mushroom cultivation supplies.

Chris is also deeply experienced in permaculture, organic gardening, regenerative agriculture and herbal medicine. He has gained all this knowledge from his ancestors, local teachers and through his own study.

During this one-day masterclass Chris combines practical demonstrations, hands-on experiential learning, presentations and is available to answer questions about your specific growing situation.

Topics Covered

Facilities Tour

Chris’s brand new mushroom cultivation facilities at the farm show you what’s needed to create a mushroom production facility on any scale. You will receive a tour of the lab, spawn room and grow room and detailed explanations of why it was built and arranged this way.

Equipment

Chris will take you through the major pieces of equipment you need and you’ll get hands on experience using some of it. We can help you with where to source much of it if you are planning on setting up a lab at home.

Lab Techniques

For beginners we will cover the basics, both in theory and practice. For more advanced students Chris will share essential tips and tricks gained from 35 years of cultivation experience.

Spore Prints

Learn how to capture spores from wild mushrooms that you can turn into cultures and spawn to grow more. You are welcome to bring a favorite wild harvested mushroom if you would like to culture it.

Agar Recipes

Learn to make nutrient dense medium for optimal mycelium growth.

Selecting Genetics

Learn how to select strong genetics for optimal growth or other traits.

Spore & Tissue Cultures

Understand the pros and cons of using spores and tissue from wild harvested mushrooms in your mushroom cultivation process.

Petri Plates & Liquid Culture

Learn how to handle petri plates effectively for low contamination rates. Use petri plates to grow out mycelium from spores and tissue and preserve your cultures for continuous production.

Grain & Sawdust Spawn

Using your cultures to inoculate grain and sawdust then how to use that to inoculate bulk substrate and grow mushrooms.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Forest Farmacy, 24 Davis Lane, Marshall, United States