ABC’S OF MYCOLOGY PART 3

It’s time for another entry into our ABC’s of Mycology! 

Today we’ll be covering G, H, and I in the Alphabet of Mycology. I hope that this series has so far been fun and informative as we’ve been putting this out for everyone! 

Starting off, we’ve got 

G- Golden Teachers, Gold Caps, or just ‘Goldies’! 

Back when I first got introduced to mushrooms when I was just about to go to college, I hadn’t started cultivating mushrooms yet, so I did what any young kid did and bought some mushrooms from a friend of a friend. When we got the bag, I asked what type they were and the guy said ‘they’re gold caps man, the best around!’. After doing a decent amount of research back then, I concluded that the name ‘gold caps’ was just a street term, maybe Golden Teachers at best. This portion of our blog today is going to discuss naming schemes and discrepancies throughout the years! 

As I previously mentioned, ‘Gold Caps’ used to be a term used to describe magic mushrooms of all sorts, rather than passing the name from person to person to person, gold caps was the standard name to describe psilocybin cubensis mushrooms. The name comes from the coloration of the mushroom caps, as they dry the mushrooms go from a light yellow off orange to a nice gold color, usually with a bright sheen to them. However, ‘gold caps’ has never been a name for any exact variety, the closest we have is ‘Golden Teacher’ which is an old variety that is still around to this day, frequently recommended for newer growers and eaters. If someone told me today they were growing gold caps, I’d probably giggle a bit to myself. 

At least when it comes to names given to things to make them easy to tell other people there’s a fairly good reason behind it. What isn’t a good reason though, is a name to try to sell something, or to make a name for yourself. Every week I see new vendors pop up on Instagram and Reddit touting some new variety that they’ve personally named, either after themselves, or in an attempt to sell something crazy. These vendors are always new accounts, little to no proof of actual breeding/crossing of varieties, and they typically disappear after a few weeks. The best vendors will be honest and name their crosses just that, crosses. You’ll see things like Rusty White x Melmac, which I know to be a cross several years in the works. Then you see things like ‘Big c*ck magic f*ck’ which claims to be an unknown Penis Envy cross, with no backing research, and looks the same as every other PE grow. These are the vendors to watch out for, their schemes are just meant to make a quick buck. 

With the plethora of good vendors out there, it’s always a good idea to shop with a vendor who has made a name for themselves in the community. You want to look for vendors who use typical naming conventions, either stating the crosses, or using a reasonable name and not something that looks like it’s just meant to sell some genetics. We recommend Full Canopy Genetics and Eden Shrooms for your genetic material. They both are verified clean, and we warranty our products with their genetic material when used correctly! 

H- Hyphae! 

In mycology, the Hyphae is the growth that make up the mycelium. Mycelium itself is made up of a sort of ‘web’ of small tendrils that are individual hypha, with hyphae being the plural term for the ‘web’. The hyphae allow the mycelium to uptake nutrients and moisture, facilitate the transmission of these materials throughout the organism, and grow. The hyphae is also what eventually allows mushrooms to fruit from the mycelium, from the formation of hyphal knots. These hyphal knots are different type of growth which forms from the hyphae when the mycelium has been signaled; either through the environment or internal factors, to begin reproduction and start forming fruit bodies. 

The most common formation of hyphae is from the germination of spores. When spores are together, they will extend a structure from one spore to another which when these structures touch, the genetic information is shared, then hyphae begin to form. This early network of growth is very delicate before it begins to form the entire mycelium network and structure. The early hyphae normally looks like very wispy, weblike growth. As the hyphae grow more, more nutrients and moisture are able to be consumed, forming stronger and stronger growth. This strong growth can be transferred to agar, expanded to liquid culture, or added to grains to being growing projects of all varieties. 

With hyphae being such weak growth when first starting off it’s important to remember that any movement can damage this early growth and cause projects to stall or not grow. Agitating the earliest growth of hyphae is easy to do, doing so much as picking up a jar or bag of grain can cause the grains to shift or move, crushing or tearing this early growth. If this early growth is interrupted, the hyphae will be damaged and not grow, the grain will either need inoculated again, or thrown out and a new project will need to be started. This is why our instructions for our products always recommend waiting a minimum of 14 days after inoculation to inspect grow growth. 

I- Inoculation! 

The process of inoculation is fairly simple. For our purposes here to define the term, inoculation would be adding genetic material to a medium. This could be a grain to grain transfer, agar to agar, a syringe full of spores to grain, liquid culture to agar, or any combination of these options. The most common inoculation method; especially with our products, is going to be a syringe with either liquid culture or spores being injected into a bag of grain or any all in one grow bag. The main things to keep in mind when inoculating materials is that this process needs to be sterile, aseptic techniques are extremely important for this process. 

When inoculating any medium, you want to start with something that’s going to grow. You can’t inoculate something not alive with something else not alive. You need to inoculate with material that is already growing, or going to grow. For our cases that means you want to inoculate agar, grain, or liquid culture with mycelium or spores. Doing this will cause the spores to germinate and grow, or the mycelium to expand its network and colonize the material it’s been added to. You always want to start with clean materials; meaning free of mold or bacteria, or you’re going to grow unwanted contaminants in addition to the material you do want to grow. If you grow contaminants, your project will fail and you’ll have to start over. This is why we recommend testing your genetic materials on agar before adding your genetics to grain. This can be done by dripping a single drop or two of spore solution to agar, placing a colonized grain onto some agar, or again dripping a drop of liquid culture on to agar. After placing your material on agar, incubate the agar somewhere for several days in a warm dark environment, then check the agar to ensure there is only mycelium growing, no other unwanted growths. If your agar is showing only mycelium, then the genetic material can be used to inoculate other things such as grain without worrying about the genetics causing contamination. 

Inoculating requires sterile techniques to be followed. When using clean genetic material, you only have on life form that will grow from the material. The material that you are adding the genetics to is assumed to be sterile, so if you only add one life form to it, only that life will grow and expand. The trouble comes when mold or bacteria is also added to the grow material, which then grows alongside or instead of what you intended to grow. This can be the result of bad inoculant material, or a mistake made during the inoculation process. The most common mistake made when inoculating is wiping off syringe needles. Doing this can add unwanted bacteria or mold to your grow material, even when wiping with alcohol. Some molds and bacteria can withstand a quick application of alcohol, then when they are inserted into the grow material they come loose inside, then are able to grow and contaminate the material. This is why we always recommend only flame sterilizing your syringe needles and will never, ever recommend wiping the needles with anything. Of course the other rules of aseptic technique which can be found in our first ABC’s post apply for inoculating grow materials, and aseptic technique should always be followed when inoculating grow materials. 

So there you have it! I hope that this blog has been informative and that there has been some takeaway from reading it. For any questions or comments please feel free to contact us, we’d love to hear from you! As always, happy growing and mush love!!