Here are a couple of cool pics from a commercial morel grower in Michigan:


It's a company called Diversified Natural Products, Inc. in Scottville, MI - http://www.dnpworld.com/

Read about them in Shroomery News - "Western Michigan facility grows morels indoors, year-round"

Excerpt:

Quote:

How to turn cells into morels
At Diversified Natural Products Inc. in Scottville, growing morels requires many steps, perfect conditions and advanced scientific techniques.

The process starts with a substrate, or growing medium, made of leaf and bark composts, plus a second medium of steamed wheat mixed with sugar and yeast. The wheat is the food for the morel's first stage of growth.

Each day, 600 one-gallon starter bags of substrate are prepared by hand, with a layer of wheat on the bottom and compost on top. The bags are wheeled into a walk-in steel chamber, where they're sterilized to kill organisms that might hinder the growth process.

After cooling, the compost is sprinkled with wheat grains covered in morel inoculate -- the microscopic cells that start the growing process.

The inoculate is continuously produced in DNP's high-tech lab, which features HEPA filters, biohazard hoods to kill contaminants, and a cryo-freezer where the company's proprietary stock cultures are held at minus-80 degrees Celsius.

After being inoculated, the bags of compost and wheat are set in a climate-controlled room.

There, over the next five to six weeks, the inoculate will grow white, weblike strands that reach down through the dark compost and into the nutrient-rich wheat at the bottom of the bag. At the end of this stage, the web-filled compost will have solidified into a black, rock-like mass called a sclerotia.

The sclerotia is broken into chunks and planted in trays of soil. Over the next six weeks, the trays are moved through a series of rooms with varying levels of heat, light and humidity.

Ten to 12 weeks after being started, a new crop of brown, elongated, crinkly-capped morels is ready for harvest.

DNP's other strains of mushrooms are less labor intensive, because they grow in the bags in which they're first planted, but like the morels, all require individual handling and carefully controlled growing conditions.

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