Sorry that there are no PICS along with this thread, as this thread is purely hypothetical and constructed out of supposition.
Throwing things away.
Don't do it. Why not? Some spores may lay extremely dormant, for months and then they may grow and can sustain life for many months after. So anytime a jar of substrate, say when using bell jars, just doesn't propagate into mycelia, keep it around and keep it in the dark.
Working with quart sized bell jars can be handy, especially when the lid has two pieces and the mycelia can slide out of it once it has grown. Very commonplace for the cakes to do so, when you're working with rye berries.
Fill a jar up with rye berries about a fifth of the way, that should measure out to 750 mg. As you can research through history and find that villages often kept there materials in storage like rye berries to make bread. St. Anthony's Fire occurs when ergot is ingested from rye berries that have grown fungus, typically ergot fungus, but since this happened often enough, you can understand why this is an excellent substrate to use for growing spores molds and fungus.
************W A R N I N G * W A R N I N G * W A R N I N G*************
In order to eliminate the possibility that you should: DO NOT GROW ERGOT FUNGUS, BECAUSE IT WILL MAKE YOU VERY SICK AND IS POSSIBLY FATAL AND SHOULD ONLY BE HANDLED IN EXTREME SITUATIONS IF AT ALL IN THESE MODERN TIMES, AND ESPECIALLY NEVER WHEN ATTEMPTING TO CULTIVATE ANYTHING AT ALL INTENTIONALLY.
So the first step in sterilizing the rye in case there are microbial items or anything on the rye berries, is adding 750 ml of H2O to each jar. Replace the lid, loosely, so it has breathing room, and place it in a pressure cooker at around seventy pounds per square inch for around forty five minutes. Upon viewing the jars again jars they should have been altered in appearance because the rye berries are going to have puffed out to full size, thus filling the remaining space in the jar.
It is possible to fit around seven or eight jars in an average run, although this depends on both the pressure cooker, and jar.
So the jars are pretty hot at this point huh? That's not good for inoculated culture stock!
In order to let them cool off acquire both of the following items : A DeLorean and Plutonium.
The coordinates need to be set for 25 days ago , and accelerate to 88 mph.
Agar can be made with a simple malt agar and aqueous solution and poured into a petri dish to about halfway full, and allowed to cool thus hardening the liquid for use.
Two ways of inoculation agar with a specimen: Loop, Syringe.
Heat an inoculating loop and push it on a spore print, the spores will stick then push it into the agar. do this in four equidistant areas of the dish.
Fill a large syringe 100ml. with H2O. Sterilize it in the pressure cooker, and allow to cool, place the remaining spores from your spore print into the syringe and it is ready for use. Drip 2 cc's (cm3/mg) at four equidistant areas of the dish and allow it to settle across the agar.
Intuitive Skills Enhancement:
Remember High School biology? Spindle fibers? They grow across a cell until they find another group of spindle fibers and connect. Nerves do the same thing, they grow until they find something to connect to, and regenerate. It takes exactly one spore to grow a mushroom. Each spore print has several million spores in it. More on spore printing later. Your petri dish is a sterile "cell" which is also another important fact, do not smoke around this process, and actually Lysol the entire area including the air as to eliminate germs and anything flying around the air. Agar will grow anything that touches it. So only allow spores to touch it. which means keep the agar covered for as much of time as you can. Keep this agar at room temperature.
There is a third way to inoculate coming up soon that will make most of this unnecessary, but its a learning experience.
At this point get back in the DeLorean and get back to the future.
The areas of the agar which have been inoculated with spores will grow out like spindles, as they are themselves going tot become fibrous. the fibers with appear as whit blotches and soon they will connect and become Mycelia. Congratulations this contains the elements required. Go ahead, its edible and fun! But hang on might as well keep going.
At this point two things can be done, cut each section of mycelium fibered agar dish into eight section like a pizza. Put one piece into a jar of its own after it has cooled to room temperature. Shake it vigorously. Beat the living hell out of it, and out it on a shelf at room temperature.
The second thing that can be done, is and this is if agar is not available or maybe this thought has occurred 'But Shpongle isn't it relatively impossible to get a DeLorean these days let alone Plutonium?'. Beforehand to sterilizing each jar, take the flat piece of the two piece lid, the second piece is a ring that tightens, drill four equidistant hole into the lid and cover with construction tape. Then sterilize, with the lids replaced but loosely. When the jars have cooled to room temperature this may take several hours, take your spore syringe and inject 2cc (cm3/mg) per hole, and then tape over the broken layer of tape. Shake vigorously and shelve.
watch over the course of twenty days the jars will begin to grow lots of white mycelium, but don't just watch. Every time there is white, pick that jar up and shake it vigorously! it will continue to grow and eventually all the rye berries will be white. this should also bind to itself and tighten in the jar, making it easy to remove.
So the jar is white and the lids are tight, right? Loosening them to release the pressure is OK the course of the growth, but never allow the sterility to be compromised. Its almost time to birth them. But first...
***********************************************************************************************************
LET'S BUILD SOMETHING!!
A hydroponic cloning system!
This need not be perfect or air tight but it does need to be water proof and virtually protective from the surrounding environment.
materials list: ( all of these things can be gathered at a hydroponics warehouse or home improvements store, or better yet the internet)
-Aquarium heater
-Aquarium thermometer
-A large plastic/Rubbermaid flat bottom dish. (This can be either round or square but keep in mind it needs to have a lid that is dome-like or heightened several inches to a foot.)
-Volcanic hydroponic rock beads(porous material, and virtually waterproof beads can be substituted)
-aquarium bubble unit (dolphin)
Substitution materials list: (easier to find or afford items)
-Large Styrofoam cooler
-chicken wire
-Plexiglas
Actual Item required:
-HydroPod(ask for it by name)
Take the lid and cut a small hole in it, large enough to fit the tube from the aquarium bubbler through, small enough just to do that. Run the tube through and put it in the bottom of the Rubbermaid dish. Fill the remainder of the dish with hydroponic beads, and fill that dish halfway with H2O. this should be kept at a constant level so refill it often.
The dome should have a hole cut in the and covered so that the amount of the hole can be revealed and adjusted. this is to allow heat and vapor to escape as you will need to check the temperature of the air and make sure its at a constant 70-80 degrees.
Now that this is built, some semantics:
Keeping water at a constant temperature is difficult, and this might be where those built-up hopes and dreams for the remotest hope of cultivation go spiraling out of control down the drain, but this can be done.
Some poor man's methods: Electric blankets, areas of the house are often constantly warmer than others (it doesn't take much heat to get this baby cranked up to eighty) and the top of a stove on a conventional oven. the pilot light on the stove will stay lit forever, that's just how those old stoves work, so you place this unit on top of the stove and it will do the trick. Other than that keeping the water at a constant heat could require the use of the aquarium heater. Set it to tropical and that's good job well done.
Or order the HydroPod open it up and read the instructions.
***********************************************************************************************************
This is the really easy part.
Take the cakes and birth them. This is called A birthday cake...pretty clever huh? This requires removing the lid and sliding the cake out of the jar. Sometimes they won't come out this means one of two things, Smash the glass and get the cake that way. Or grow from the jar.
In order to grow from the jar put a handful of soil on top of the cake, followed by a handful of vermiculite (it looks like gold Styrofoam) This is handy for two reasons, when the Mushrooms grow out they start with little pins, those turn into large pins, those turn into small mushroom, and those turn into little sticks will a round end. the round end expands until it bulbs out, the bulb breaks open at the veil and the cap forms. The purpose of this veil breaking open is to allow the spores to drop which they will do over night. The vermiculite protects the soil from getting too dry and you can easily keep it moist by adding a few sprinkles of H2O. The soil protects the mycelium from getting too dry and also doesn't let the spores that drop out to get all over the place. This is important to know if you are using the birthday cake method.
Getting back to that the cakes will sit in the hydro pod for around twenty days before anything grows, sometimes it helps to cut the cake in half or break it into pieces so that you get more surface area, this will allow more mushrooms to grow. After about twenty days you'll see little pins growing and then little mushrooms. Allow the pins to grow but if there are any small mushrooms growing into full blown veil ripping cap expanding mushrooms, take them off and ..eat them, or something. They just get in the way and removing them allows more pins to grow at a faster rate.
Remove any mushrooms when the veil open the falling spores suffocates the mycelium and nothing will grow where the spores have peppered it black. Also something to try is take four microscope slide and place them together into one large slide, and place a freshly open cap at the place where the slides meet. let this sit over night and in the morning there will be four fresh spore print. Spore prints can be placed into an envelope and kept for years.
Mushrooms can dry a few ways, regular old air, Epsom salts, or a food dehydrator.
Fresh mushrooms are better to eat because they not only taste good, the magic can take effect seconds after the first bite.
Fresh mushrooms are considered more potent.
This is all speculation. Always have a firm knowledge of what you are growing before ingestion, liver transplants are not cheap nor are they any fun, for some reason surgeons enjoy them.
A great deal of meditation is required
Fear the Journey not the cops
FunFUnFUN