Tiger Paw Mushroom (Agaricus Comtulus) that are dried in a carefully controlled environment to preserve the viability of the spawn. Instructions to extract spores are included. (Kit includes a metal tin of dried spawn, and instructions for creating the appropriate substrate and for growing indoors or in the field or lawn.) This product is our Agaricus Comtulus (Temple Gardens Strain), which has hybridized with a smaller Agaricus mushroom so it will fruit in smaller areas and produces a slightly smaller mushroom than other Agaricus Comtulus strains. This is a rare strain!
A good quality edible mushroom, can be eaten raw or cooked. Requires less cooking than white buttons. This is considered to be an excellent culinary mushroom, with a mild flavor. Medicinally it helps the body to compensate for chemical exposure due to contemporary living, and may help balance the immune system.
This is a button type mushroom with orange streaks on the cap and stem which naturalizes easily. The cap is more flattened than commercial button mushrooms, and is generally a little smaller in size. It has pale gray gills when young, which brighten and then darken to a deep brown as the spores mature. The spores are brown in color. The mushroom has a partial veil, which creates a fragile skirt on the stalk when the cap bottom edge separates from the stem, but the skirt may rub off or reabsorb into the stem as the mushroom grows, so it may not be easy to see in older mushrooms. The cap is brown with streaky orangish tones.
Tiger mushrooms like conifer forests with thin litter and little underbrush. They tend to grow on areas that are kept down or where occasional traffic keeps the vegetation more spotty. They like an area that receives dappled sun, and will fruit on warm days just after heavy rains, during the winter, spring, or fall. May be grown in containment on compost like other button mushrooms, though they require a compost with some conifer litter content. They will also grow well in container gardens, in containers as small as 6" as long as the pots have mulch on top with some conifer litter content - with pots that small though, you would want to sow the mushroom into many pots, so you get ample harvests. Copper Browns may be grown across most of the US.
May be used to culture into compost to create spawn, or can be direct sown into substrates or into the soil using several simple non-sterile methods.
Each order of dried spawning mushroom contains enough to create two batches of active spores, which may be cultured and expanded, and then sown into the desired substrates.
Dried Spawn is EASY to use! Just reconstitute in water, and either finely chop or use a blender, and pour the resulting spore and mushroom mixture over your substrate or onto the ground where they need to be sown.
Packaged in metal tins for longest storage and viability. We do not use plastic in handling this product (plastic leaches chlorides, which are fungicidal in effect), and our products are not exposed to chlorine or other harmful chemicals during growth, processing, or handling on our property. You may be assured of the highest quality and maximum growth potential.
NOTE: Dried spawning mushrooms must be selected and handled correctly to produce viable spores. They must also be used correctly to extract spores, and then to culture the spores into the receiving medium. Our proprietary methods ensure viable spores, and we give you instructions for culturing them in a non-sterile environment. (If cultured improperly in a non-sterile environment, things go terribly wrong.) You are not only paying for the mushroom spores, you are paying for our expertise in both the processes we carry out before you see the product, and the instructions we give you for using the spawning mushroom.
Cross contaminations DO occur with non-sterile mushroom spawn (they seem to occur with alarming frequency with supposed sterile spawn as well!). In general, these contaminations are harmless, they may produce other non-edible, or other edible mushrooms, but for the most part, the mushroom you paid for will outnumber the contaminations by many times, and will not establish ahead of the desired mushroom.
Additionally, when using non-sterile methods to culture in natural materials, prior colonizations of unwanted fungus may occur, resulting in the fruiting of unexpected, random mushroom types. This is not at all a disaster, and normally does not cause problems. These mushrooms will typically be inedible, and may be ignored - in our experience, the cultured mushroom still establishes well and will produce well in spite of the interlopers! The chance that a poisonous look-alike would grow instead is virtually non-existent - because dangerous look-alikes don't grow in the same environment as visually similar edible species.
We do advise that you KNOW YOUR MUSHROOM - and that you know what it looks like, so you correctly identify anything coming up. This is wise in every instance, because even when you are using "sterile" kits or materials, rogue mushrooms may grow.
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