many fungal products are useless and/or contaminated.

This is similar to the probiotic industry for us. Most of those probiotic pills contain little to no viable bacterium. My mom is a dietician and always recommends real fermented foods like the sauerkraut in the refrigerated section (ones that don't have vinegar) or kefir or homemade yogurt (which tastes SOO much better anyways). Studies show they usually contain 100-1000x more live probiotics.

So as an experiment last year, I placed a chunk of the mushroom mycellium substrate that I used to grow some mushrooms into a fig tree pot. That tree really thrived! And I had tiny mushrooms trying to develop throughout the season. From now on I will just grow a 1lb of mushrooms and use the inoculated substrate to add fungi.
 
julie said:
So as an experiment last year, I placed a chunk of the mushroom mycellium substrate that I used to grow some mushrooms into a fig tree pot. That tree really thrived! And I had tiny mushrooms trying to develop throughout the season. From now on I will just grow a 1lb of mushrooms and use the inoculated substrate to add fungi.
Click to expand...
Will you teach us all how to grow mushrooms?
 
Spectrum said:
Will you teach us all how to grow mushrooms?
Click to expand...
I'm no expert. All I can teach you is to buy a mushroom grow kit from North Spore or Back to Roots (it is smaller and cheaper and all I think you need for 10-20 pots) and follow the instructions on the box. It was pretty easy- just stick it in a closet and mist it daily.

I think mine was Oyster or Shiitake but not for sure on that. When I put the mycellium in my fig tree pot (5 gallons), I probably only added in about 1/2c per pot broken into maybe 4-6 chunks buried about an inch in so it would stay moist and dark. Then covered back up with wood mulch.

Side note: This was just my experience with this batch. I would test a few trees out with just a little at first to make sure nothing bad happens.

But if you do do this, let us know the results! I would love to know how it works for other people.
 
My pots grow mushrooms everytime we get a good rain lol. Can’t imagine too much bad would happen as they are just decomposing material in your pot.
 
I wonder how they get away with "undisclosed chemical fertilizer". I would have thought that disclosure would be required.
 
I would like to see more studies like this and even reviews by an independent lab. There's no reason the major brand products couldn't be tested at our research universities. I don't think extension agents have the means to determine if the labeling is accurate and the microbes viable/present.

I also don't see why an astute State's (or States') AG couldn't looking at some of these companies for a fraud action if they are knowingly selling bunk, most (all?) states already have consumer protection laws on the books - this and branding are enough. A whole new agency to regulate this will greatly increase the barrier to entry (a benefit for the author, she'd probably be involved in such regs) and will normally end in regulatory capture - all of which will increase the cost.

We need these products to become more reliable AND cheaper.

I normally trust brands in this space like Bayer, BASF or Lallemand (e.g. Lalstop K61) - but these products are also usually much more expensive.

I also trust Paul Stamets' company Fungi.com
 
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