metalhead said:

Hello everyone! I’ve been watching the progress of this thread and it’s amazing to see what’s it’s grown into after all the years since I’ve started this thread.  I haven’t had a chance to pursue this endeavor in quite a few years. But and starting to get back into it. I recently came across a group of people in Denmark who have seemingly perfected this indoor cultivation to the point that they are claiming commercial applicable results. Has anybody read into this at all? It’s called the danish morel project. They are using an undisclosed black morel variant. Seems like Elata or Conica from what I gather. But it’s exciting to say the least. They are very careful about not letting slip any trade secrets but I feel there has to be some clues in their information.

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BIG THANKS, metalhead!!!!!!!

7Suns said:

Blushing said:

17-23°C it was a temperature for sclerotia.

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Sclerotia will form at 38f and up, I can verify this, I put a liquid culture in the fridge a week after it was made , there was no sclerotia, about 4 months later and the whole thing was sclerotia

These are morchella angusticeps sclerotia from liquid culture at 38f for 4 months in the fridge

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7Suns said:

Also I just want to point out that morel mycelium is pretty easy to isolate because it sends out fast runners and germinates quickly, it actually reminds me of pin mold , it’s not like you’re typical Agaricomycetes mycelium that’s dense and slow moving
Ascomycetes have to be quick to compete and they function more like their ancestral yeast forbearers they are said to derive from

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GourmetGod said:

My recent interest in the subject has come the the interest in learning more on the morel life cycle. I am no expert in this subject, just a culinary mushroom farmer that is looking for a new challenge to explore after getting bored with the daily grind of growing the typical oyster/shiitake/brown beech/enokitake/lions mane varieties. I did stay at a holiday inn once though...

If you look at the successful indoor cultivation by a couple groups with morels, both seem to take an approach that would not be sterile. The original success was using only partially composted native soil to the morel, and the danish morel project appears to be doing something similar. It is my hypothesis that the beneficial bacteria play a critical role in triggering fruiting of morel after sclerotia formation. As the soil warms up and the bacteria go out of dormancy, it releases a chemical(s) that is the signal for morels to fruit. Does this make sense to you or am I talking nonsense? (please let me know if I am speaking nonsense as I am entirely self taught in mycology)   

I found a very interesting paper on this subject:

https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1462-2920.14765

Particularly interesting passage:

"The environment within and surrounding fungal hyphae, sometimes known as the mycosphere, influences and is strongly influenced by bacterial communities, to the extent that many macrofungi are unable to produce fruiting bodies in a sterile environment (Noble et al., 2003, 2009)."

When following other articles I found NH4 come up several times. I will try to track down a few that I have found. Then again, the NH4 could be triggering growth in surrounding plant life and it is an indirect cause of fruiting as it triggers the plant to release the chemical that triggers the mushroom to fruit.

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Pezizales said:

I figured someone would have answered you already. Thread's pretty slow these days.
I've had great success using even six year old dried morels. Just drop them in a blender with some distilled water, let it hydrate for a bit and then inoculate many petrie's as there will be contaminants. If you're unfamiliar with isolating from contam's there's much info to easily be found.
Regards.

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Nice thanks for the tips, I got a couple more morels to try the blender method. What I got growing already on some potato agar though, I'm curious if some of it could be morels. Some started as white and spotty all over the plate and now are brown and extremely fluffy, mostly from black morels, And some are more like classic mycelium, growing outwards in a white circle, mostly from common greys. Hopefully these pics are good enough:

These are from black morels, which I'm assuming is just contams. These pics are terrible but in pic 2, you can see the starting white fluff from the sample in the top right corner. The rest shows rising little brown fluffy "pods" that could resemble little sclerotia, to me.


And these are what the grey's are producing, also heavily contamed but if the white is myc, it could be saved:



Thoughts? Never seen a solid example of morel myc so just don't know what to be looking for.

7Suns said:

Also I’d be willing to send you guys some spawn if anyone is interested in trades ? Pretty much open to what ever and I apologize in advance I know this isn’t the market place but I’m just trying to help if anyone wants sclerotia as starting material to experiment with

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Quote:

7Suns said: The mix that I’ve found to be the simplest and most productive is 1/4 cup rice flour / 1 tablespoon fresh unbrewed coffee grinds, and enough Pickling lime for ph adjustment, you want to shoot for 7- 8 ph  and I only fill each jar 1-2 inch’s

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