GROWING GOURMET - Anto2ni.it

scape, the inycosphere, will give rise to an even,
high-density population of rapidly forming primordia.Visible
to the naked eye, the mycelium's
surface is punctuated with a lattice-work of valleys
and ridges upon which moisture droplets
continually form, rest, and evaporate. In the
growing room this period corresponds to 98-100
% rH, or a condensing fog. Even in a fog, air currents
have an evaporative effect, drawing
moisture to the surface layer. The careful management
of this mycosphere, with high oxygen,
wicking, evaporation, and moisture replenishment
combined with the effect of other
environmental stimuli results in a crescendo of
primordia formation. Cultivators call these environmental
stimuli, collectively, the initiation
strategy.
Primordia, once formed, may rest for weeks,
depending upon the species and the prevailing
environment. In most cases, the primordia ma-
Figure 47. As tile basidia mature, sterigmata project
from the apices.
THE MUSHROOM LIFE CYCLE 69
Figure 48. Scanning electron micrograph of young
basidium.
ture rapidly. Rhizomorphs, braided strands of
large diameter hyphae, feed the burgeoning primordia
through cytoplasmic streaming. The
cells become multinucleate, accumulating genetic
material.Walls orseptae form, separating
pairs of nuclei, and the cells expand, resulting
in an explosive generation of mushroom tissue.
As the mushroom enlarges, differentiation of
familiar features occurs. The cap, stem, veil,
and gills emerge. The cap functions much like
an umbrella, safeguarding the spore-producing
gills from wind and rain. Many mushrooms
grow towards light.A study by Badham (1985)
showed that, with some mushroom species (i.
e. Psilocybe cubensis), cap orientation is foremost
affected by the direction of air currents,
then by light, and finally by gravity. Beneath the
cap, the gill plates radiate outwards from a centralized
stem like spokes on a wheel.
Over the surface of the gills, an evenly dis-
PDF compression, OCR, web-optimization with CVISION's PdfCompressor