How To Inoculate Grain Jars And Make Any Grain Spawn You Want

To make your grain spawn, you first grow mushrooms from scratch. And fortunately, the art of inoculating grain jars is an easy-peasy process!

It would help if you had a viable mushroom culture for a start, either grown out on agar or in liquid culture form, which you can add sterilized grain to so that we get the result we desire within the next week or so. The mushroom mycelium saturates the grain and excitedly gobbles the nutrients and moisture of the grains.

When the mycelium has fully saturated the inoculated grain, we get our grain spawn that can be used to get more spawn with grain to grain transfer. You can also add it to a bulk substrate to start growing mushrooms straightaway.

To make our first-generation grain spawn, we must follow specific steps and use suitable materials to inoculate sterilized grain. This article will mention them to you.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

1. A viable mushroom culture, either on agar or a liquid culture syringe.
2. A laminar flow hood or still airbox to prevent contamination
3. A jar of properly prepared sterilized grain with a breathable filter lid.
4. A scalpel or sharp knife and a flame.
5. You can also get gloves and rubbing alcohol.

INOCULATING GRAIN JARS FROM MYCELIUM ON AGAR

STEP 1: GATHER YOUR MATERIALS

You must get appropriate and sterilized grain to prepare your first-generation grain spawn. Doing that might be hard at first, but once you get used, it becomes easy. You need a viable mushroom culture, either on agar or a liquid culture syringe. To buy cultures you can use, you get them online from some honest suppliers. For more details about accurate transfer and store culture, read this article.

STEP 2: SET UP IN A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT

The need for a clean environment for this process cannot be overemphasized. Get a laminar flow hood to prevent contamination while inoculating your grain spawn. You can use a "still air box" if you don't have a laminar flow hood. The use of alcohol to clean your grain jar and your agar dish is advised. While it is necessary, keep the lid on the top of the grain jar closed slacken it off for easy access.

STEP 3: GRAB SOME MYCELIUM

Use your flame to sterilize your scalpel or blade until it is literally red hot to avoid contamination. Dip it inside the agar dish to rapidly make the blade cool off.

Use your cooled blade to cut out of the agar dish approximately 1 cm x 1 cm piece of mycelium, and stab it with the tip of your scalpel.

STEP 4: INOCULATE

To inoculate, take out the piece of mycelium you dipped into the agar dish and toss it into the jar. Keeping the mycelium in a direction against all other materials throughout the process will be the best. To avoid contamination, keep the jar's lid open for as little time as possible. You can put no less than 3 pieces of mycelium into each jar. This allows for more inoculation points, speeds up the colonization process, and reduces contamination.

To add extra pieces, reiterate steps 3-4.

TIP: To reduce the amount of time you open the jar to avoid contamination and get the desired results, cut a grid in the agar dish so that you can pick up 3-4 pieces at once.

STEP 5: SHAKE THE JAR

Shake the jar well and the right time to cause the pieces of the recently colonized grain jar throughout the dish. It's essential to ensure colonization speeds up. 

STEP 6: ALLOW TO COLONIZE

Label your jars to prevent any mix-up, especially if you inoculate several different species.

You don’t need to place the recently inoculated jars under direct sunlight. Just a room temperature is needed to incubate the grain.

When you feel the jar is 25% colonized, you should shake the jar once well to spread the gran to make the colonization speed faster.

Within one to three weeks, your jar should be fully colonized depending on the species of mushrooms you use. When it is fully colonized, you can either add it to a bulk substrate or do grain to grain transfer to make even more spawn!

INOCULATING GRAIN FROM A SYRINGE

You can also inoculate sterilized grain from a syringe- either a liquid culture or a spore syringe.

First, expose the tip of the syringe to a flame to sterilize. Swiftly inject the syringe into the grain jar. As the syringe hits the first liquid, it cools the tip. And a liquid culture of 1 – 2 CCs is adequate per quart-sized grain jar.

Suppose you don't have access to a laminar flow hood. In that case, you can inoculate the grain jar directly by injecting the liquid culture right straight through the filter without even opening the tip of the top of the jar.

FIRST-GENERATION SPAWN

A first-generation spawn stems from the inoculation of pure mushroom culture on agar. It still has substantial potential to grow till its viability drops. So they are used to create more grain spawn and are not seen as the end product.

So you do grain to grain transfer in a ratio between 1:10 and 1:20 to boost the amount of grain spawn tremendously.

A WORD ON CLEANLINESS

Newly sterilized grain jars can easily be contaminated as they are high in nutrition and susceptible to many probable competitors that can effortlessly relinquish mushrooms. Examples of potential competitors are Trichoderma molds, cobweb molds, and other project-ruining contaminants.

Please do all you can do to avoid contamination. In fact, don't open the jar unless in an entirely clean environment and leave it open for as little time as possible.

If you have followed all the appropriate hygienic procedures, you still can't get clean jars; either the culture is contaminated, or the sterilization method for the grains is not adequate.

NEXT STOP: MUSHROOMS!

The ability to inoculate grain jars and make your own spawn opens you to endless possibilities.

Conclusion

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