Supalemonhaze said:

Senescene gets put on hold in cold storage. Plates can be kept for a couple of months, probably more but if you want long term storage, master slants is definitely the way to go. Also, cold storage is done in a fridge, exposed mycelium is not able to survive freezing. When  you use a piece of wood like the tek I linked, cultures are able to survive a couple of years in slants during cold storage. It is always recommended to make a new slant before 2 years though, just in case. Without the wood, slants are said to last a whole year less.

Cloning is just as easy as a spore inoculation. Just grab the best looking shroom from the biggest cluster and prep your SAB. Use your hands to manually split the shroom down the middle and rub your flame sterilized scalpel in the newly exposed tissue until you get a piece. Transfer that to a plate and treat it like any new culture, that is to make a couple of transfers to ensure cleanliness. It is actually easier to clone than to get healthy mycelium from a spore inoculation since the clone is already alive. A lot of times, molds and bacteria are able to grow before your mushroom mycelium when using spores so you have to clean them up. A clone normally grows enough to take a transfer before any molds are able to germinate. I find bacteria is more common with molds but they are easy to get rid of.

Some vendors go to extra trouble to make sure the syringes/prints they supply you are super clean yet even with a vendor bought syringe, sometimes you come across contams. Homemade prints can be rather clean but going from print to syringe is an extra step where something is bound to end up in your solution. I have yet to use a syringe straight to grains, be it vendor and homemade. I started with agar from the get-go and I am very pleased with it.

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