Ever wonder how mushrooms are grown? It is a fascinating progression from spore to mycelium to fruit that can take weeks or months.

Below is a brief overview of our progress so far at McNeil farms to cultivate these yummy products.

It starts with a nutritious liquid culture in which spores are grown into delicate mycelium. Pictured here is a beautiful mycelium cloud floating happily in liquid culture.

When ready, the liquid culture is drawn into syringe for safe storage until we are ready to inoculate the grain culture.

Next is time to prepare the grain culture that this hungry mycelium will feed on to grow into a fully inoculated mycelium culture. The grain is pressure cooked to ensure sterility and placed in jars ready to be inoculated with liquid culture.

After inoculating the grain culture with the immature mycelium, the next stage of growth begins as the mycelium permeates the grain, resulting in a robust culture seen here.

This is where it gets trickier. The grain culture must be mixed with a supportive substrate to further mature with a specific blend of straw, bran, hardwood and more; dependent on the strain of mushroom you want to grow.

From here the inoculated substrate is placed in our Go Green effort reusable containers to fully mature and begin fruiting in a temperature and humidity-controlled tent environment.

And finally…… we get beautiful, mature and fuiting mushrooms from our home to your kitchen.