GROWING GOURMET - Anto2ni.it

CHAPTER8
Home-made vs.
Commercial Spawn
S
pawn is any form of mycelium that can be dispersed and mixed
into a substrate. For most would-be cultivators, the easiest way
to grow mushrooms is to buy spawn from a company and mix it
(inoculate) into a substrate. Spawn can be purchased in a variety of
forms. The most common forms are grain or sawdust spawn. Grain
spawn is typically used by commercial cultivators to inoculate steril-
ized or pasteurized substrates. The White Button industry traditionally
depends on highly specialized companies, often family-owned, which
have made and sold spawn for generations.
Most amateurs prefer buying spawn because they believe it is easier
than generating their own. This is not necessarily the case. Because
spawn is a living organism, it exists precariously. Spawn remains in
a healthy state for a very limited period of time. Usually after 2
months, even under refrigeration, a noticeable decline in viability occurs.
After this "honeymoon" period, spawn simply over-matures
PDF compression, OCR, web-optimization with CVISION's PdfCompressor