Reddit mentions: The best propagation & cultivation books

Okay, I'm replying in a second comment, because I wanna make sure you get to see it. I'll add an edit to the main comment too, in case anyone wants to look up information.

Books:

• Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, Paul Stamets
  
• The Mushroom Cultivator, Paul Stamets
  
  Those are the standard grow manuals, but if anyone has a suggestion for a more comprehensive or up-to-date manual, it'd be welcome. Mycelium Running is a great book if you're just looking for a fun read about mushrooms.
  
  Websites:
  
  
• /r/mycology - The subreddit devoted to mushroom growing and identification. Probably more relevant info here if you're interested in growing mostly edibles.
  
  
• Fungi Perfecti is good for equipment (I bought all my HEPA filters there, at the time they were the cheapest around). I think they have a YouTube channel too, and that's got some interesting stuff on it.
  
  
• Shroomery.org is a moderately famous mushroom growing forum, with a bit of a bent more toward psychedelics. However, I found tons of great people and information in the edible mushroom forum, and I received a few commerical grade cultures from a very generous member. There can be a bit of a circlejerk surrounding some "celebrities" that post there, but take what they say with a grain of salt, and always fact check against your grow manual. If you see something that looks stupid, it probably is, unless it works. Edit: I don't think Reddit likes linking to the Shroomery, removed the formatting.
  
  Videos:
  
  
• TED Talks: Paul Stamets - Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World - This is basically his "standard" speech he gives when he does talks. There have probably been additions and improvements to it, but the message hasn't really changed. This is "Mycelium Running" in about 5 minutes. Watch this to decide whether you want to read that book.
  
  
• Let's Grow Mushrooms! by Roger Rabbit - One of the aforementioned Shroomery celebrities. His videos are helpful, but make sure to fact check why you're doing stuff, because he tends to leave a lot of that out. This is very nuts and bolts demonstrations of how to prepare substrate, how to provide humidity at a low cost, and several different methods of growing for different species of mushrooms.
  
  I hope that helps, friend! Good luck, and if you get something going, please send me pictures! I miss the old days!

I would not recommend the Audubon guide it is very out of date (this can range from outdated taxonomy all the way to toxicology that has changed over the years). It is useful because it lists species other guides lacks but you'll learn to hate it.

Buy a location specific guide. It depends on where you live. If you get really into field hunting buy some specific guides that give you a more in depth understanding and help you not to die. Joining a local mycological society is also an extremely valuable resource in understanding mycology.

Here's a bit of everything

Regional guides

Alaska

Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams

Western US

All The Rain Promises and More
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest

Mushrooms Demystified This is an old book, while still useful it definitely needs updating.

The New Savory Wild Mushroom Also dated but made for the PNW

Midwestern US

Mushrooms of the Midwest

Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States

Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest

Southern US

Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide

Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States

Common Mushrooms of Florida

A Field Guide to Southern Mushrooms It's old so you'll need to learn new names.

Eastern US

Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians

Mushrooms of Northeast North America (This was out of print for awhile but it's they're supposed to be reprinting so the price will be normal again)

Mushrooms of Northeastern North America

Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America(Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America)

Mushrooms of Cape Cod and the National Seashore

More specific (Advanced) guides

Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World

North American Boletes

Tricholomas of North America

Milk Mushrooms of North America

Waxcap Mushrooms of North America

Ascomycete of North America

Ascomycete in colour

Fungi of Switzerland: Vol. 1 Ascomycetes A series of 6 books.

Fungi Europaei A collection of 14 books.

PDFs and online Guides

For Pholiota

For Chlorophyllum

American species of Crepidotus

Guide to Australian Fungi If this is useful consider donating to this excellent set of guides.

Websites that aren't in the sidebar

For Amanita

For coprinoids

For Ascos

MycoQuebec: they have a kickass app but it's In French

Messiah college this has a lot of weird species for polypores and other things

For Hypomyces

Cultivation

The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home (If your home is a 50,000 sq ft warehouse)

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms

Mycology

The fifth kingdom beginner book, I would recommend this. It goes over fungal taxonomy Oomycota, Zygomycota and Eumycota. It also has ecology and fungi as food.

The kingdom fungi coffee table book it has general taxonomy of the kingdom but also very nice pictures.

Introduction to fungi Depends on your definition of beginner, this is bio and orgo heavy. Remember the fungi you see pop out of the ground (ascos and basidios) are only a tiny fraction of the kingdom.

NAMA affiliated clubs

The Mushroom Cultivator is a fantastic book. Can't do without it. Sterile culture, expansion, fruiting, everything. Must have. Same goes for all of Paul Stamets' books, really.

Cloning is actually pretty easy if you have the right environment and a few bits of kit. Good luck! I look forward to photos of your grow.

TMC gives:


Spawn Run:

Humidity: 90-100%

Substrate Temp: 78-84F

Duration: 10-14days

CO2: 20,000PPM or 20% by volume

Fresh Air Exchanges: 0

Light: None



Pinning:

Humidity: 95%

Air Temp: 55-60F

Duration: 7-14 days

CO2: less than 600PPM

Fresh Air Exchanges: 4/hr

Light: 2000lux / hr for 12 hours a day. Grow-lux type bulbs recommended.

Watering: regular misting once to twice daily until fruiting bodies are 30-40% of harvest size, at which point water is used to prevent cracking.



Cropping:

Humidity: 85-92%

Air Temp: 60-64F

Duration: 5-7 weeks

CO2: less than 600PPM

Fresh Air Exchanges: 4-6 per hour

Flushing Interval: 10 days.

Light: 2000lux / hr for 12 hours a day. Grow-lux type bulbs recommended.



Edit: Giving credit where credit is due. It's a good book. Buy it.

One of the handiest texts I had to get for my horticulture classes was Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. The 2017 version only costs 13 USD new and is pretty much the same textbook as the 2019 version. If she really wants to go into horticulture propagation, I really recommend this to supplement a program. It has great info on the hows and whys of cuttings, root stocks, and most common species of herbaceous and woody plants.

Read Paul Stamets book Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, and also The Mushroom Cultivator which details a lot of info on spore storage and culture practises.

Its so easy to get one contam spore into whatever you're doing - ordinary air has so many contam spores in just 1cm^3, its almost impossible to work 100% sterile. But not to worry: the best we can do as cultivators is hold off the inevitable. A good cultivator will do what he or she can to work clean but all the time understands that all grows will ultimately end in contamination - thats just natures way.

The contaminations themselves often sporulate on the surface of cube spores which after finding residence on nutrient media will then 'piggy-back' using the spores which touch each other. The contaminations can often be 50 times smaller, and so can easily rest like a pest on the spores surface. An electron microscopy picture can really show you well what I'm trying to say here. They also reproduce far faster than their larger basidiospore cousins in the cubensis family, so can out compete them for the available resources that you have so kindly provided for them.

Its not that having a lot of spores in a syringe is a bad thing, its just that throughout my experience with cubes I've found that 'less is more' - the more spread out the spores are from each other, the more you can isolate the good strains and culture out the contams. :)

Mushroom god paul stamets has made leather out of mushrooms. His hat that he wears is mushroom leather and is over 3 yrs old.

The indoor mushroom growing guide. Great book.

I'm also looking at other non-mushroom eating ideas like using the mycilium as packing/building materiel.

Were are you located? I think most states in the US have agricultural extensions that offer outreach programs, classes, etc. It was originally geared towards commercial growers/foresters, but they're very friendly to the hobbyist in my experience.

A book i've seen recommended everywhere (which i've yet to buy myself) is the Grafters Handbook.

A skill to add to that is to understand how to get these seeds from plants and how to process them (some seeds require dormant periods). This Book is one of the best books out there to teach you.

If you want the holy bible of plant propagation get this one. Any edition will work as each update is very minor and the older ones are cheaper.

Source: I have a degree in Horticulture and have done seed collection, breeding, rooting, grafting, in vitro plant tissue propagation. Propagation IMO is one of the most interesting area in Horticulture.

So I was kinda lazy after my cakes, and I bought everything I needed (grain spawn, casing layer, manure, etc.) from shroomsupply.com. it was a little expensive but worth it if you don't want to waste time and just to see if you can give it the right conditions.

I had spore syringes left from my last grow so I used those.

For the mono tub, I used this book: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide Simple Steps to Bulk Cultivation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992558409/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_KPffAb4FWNZ2H

As far as conditions, I used this book as a guide as well.

I'm still pretty new to this stuff, so I apologise that I can't be more helpful

Paul Stamets cover everything in this book. Avoiding syringes will require you to use agar methods and this guy does a great job of explaining it all.

No worries man! I’m about to start my fourth grow when my spores come in so I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s such a fun process and I’m constantly learning more and more. You should check out this book called The Mushroom Cultivator. It’s such an invaluable reference tool that I’m constantly flipping through when I’ve got questions.

Edit: It’s a little dated, and PF-Tek was published about 10 years later, but everything in the book is still valuable and informative.

This is a really good book

This book and this book are the bibles of growing mushrooms. They cover growing both psychoactive and non-psychoactive including Coprinus.

Try looking for The Mushroom Cultivator by Paul Stamets.

http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800

I am just getting started into grafting myself. I'll tell you how it turns out in several years. I did get this book, and it is very informative.

http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Kuo/e/B001ILI9G2/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603582142/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=pd_sim_b_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V56Q93CSRKQYV2W1C0B http://www.amazon.com/Mycelium-Running-Mushrooms-Help-World/dp/1580085792/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0V56Q93CSRKQYV2W1C0B http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472030361/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472031260/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394519922/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580085792/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800

Check out this book by Paul Stamets His work is highly regarded in the mushroom community. You can learn everything you need to know from his books.

https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0961079800

https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800

If your serious about it, https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Growing-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800 , this is your fucking bible.

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Gourmet-Medicinal-Mushrooms-Stamets-ebook/dp/B004GTLS2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396469718&sr=8-1&keywords=growing+mushrooms

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396469733&sr=8-2&keywords=growing+mushrooms

My complaint about these books is that they are geared for exactly what you're talking about and not necessarily low-tech home cultivation. They cover just about everything you would need.