I have many jars of 10 yr old spore prints from my own homegrown mushrooms, properly and hermetically sealed (in ziplock inside IPS cleaned mason jars) but with some temperature variation (+-5C) stored in the dark.

Viable? Anyone have any thoughts?

I just made 3 spore syringes (F+, Golden teacher and Mazapatec) and I am looking for reassurance from those experienced with old spores before I jump into the next process (PFtek in this case.)

Cheers,

JBArk

I haven't tried decade old prints, but 5-6 year old ones performed fine for me, and considering the storage conditions, I don't expect you'll run into any trouble.

Rehydration of the spores may become an issue once they get that old. Pressure - as in, an air pump - can be applied to expedite the process and this is said to improve the germination rate.

Cobbling something together with a pop bottle and a tyre valve should do the trick, to give a most basic outline.

It will be most interesting to see the outcome of your experiment.

So apply pressure to a water suspension to push it through the cell walls? Like construct a chamber with the mentioned materials, make a spore-syringe suspension and then place that into the chamber and pump it up?
Could you maybe elaborate on that technique or lead to some construction/use links?

Probably worth noting I scraped my dry prints/spores directly to agar, no syringes or attempts to rehydrate beforehand.

Fit a tyre valve into the cap of the plastic bottle. (Drill a 7mm hole into the bottle lid and fit the tyre valve, which you've recovered from a bicycle inner tube, through from the inside of the cap.)
Sterilise it all with alcohol or something.
Put spore suspension into bottle.
Close lid.
Pump with foot pump or whatever. (*Check what the safe working pressure of the bottle is, maybe deduct a bit for drilling a hole in the cap. Use a pump with a pressure gauge. Some thought is probably required as to how one might avoid airborne contamination entering the bottle.)
Leave for 20 mins.
Carefully release pressure.
Use spores as required.


Worth a try if your spores are over 7 years old, have been stored with a desiccant, and seem not to be germinating.

I'm not sure, but I would think that it would require an extreme amount of pressure to compress the water enough to force rehydrate the spores.

Or does simply putting them in a syringe and putting the screw tip back on and pressing the plunger a bit to compress the spore solution then securing with tape or something work?.

Is the water itself just rehydrating the spores while they are suspended, instead of pressure playing a roll?

I'd try both ways, spore solution and agar, if they are viable something will germinate.

I have recently ran a PF grow direct from a 4 year old spore print. The results were quite a bit worse than with a fresh print.

With fresh prints, I usually expect 100% success rate, large areas of hyphae germinating all over where the spore solution was soaked up inside the jar. With these older spores, the rate was more like 50%, and germination was more pinpoint-like in the successfully germinated jars as well.

Then your print wasn't' stored properly. I have a set of 7 year old Golden Teacher prints that I know are good. When stored properly (contaminant and moisture free) spore prints can literally last forever.

Search Shroomery, there are plenty of threads about people finding prints and the growing them out.

ps

Do you have a go to technique for long term storage?

Sorry for the newb questions, but that's what i am. I'm just learning how to cultivate these wonderful little things now that i have space to do so.

the method i use - lay your print on a piece of sanitized tin foil. make sure you have enough foil so that you can wrap it over the print and crimp the edges down. then store in a sealed mason jar in a cool place.


never apologize for asking for help or direction. that's how you learn and avoid silly mistakes.

ps

I did exactly that, but one step further - i put them in a sealed ziplock before putting them in the mason jats. I have about 2 dozen prints from half that number of strains.

JBArk

Thanks dreamer042! Very reassuring. Obviously I decide to make a spore print instead og going the pasta/potato/agar direct route as we discussed in chat.

Cheers,

JBArk

so - 9th day and zero colonization... no bacterial or fungal invasions either, so at least I know my technique is good, from spore print to syringe to (improved) pf-tek.

I'll post here if and when something shows up.

Cheers,

JBArk

Hmmm...

Day q5. Not one contam, but also zero mycelium... looks like these spore prints were fully UNviable. I will wait another few days before chucking them and starting over.

Cheers,

JBArk

That is indeed unfortunate. It sounds like you did everything right as far as storage, etc. I suppose the shelf life on prints may not be as long as I was led to believe.

If you happen to have some of your prints left and are up for a quick experiment, I'd be curious to know if you get any germ scraping a bit directly onto an agar plate.

Those 10 y.o. prints would be worth using for an assessment of the pressure rehydration idea/technique, outlined above, before finally committing them to posterity.

What were they printed on?

I'd love to try that. First I got a hold of some fresher spores for a grow. Once I get that underway, I'll get some agar and try it out. I actually have one syringe left from my print to syringe transfer also.

I have about 10 prints left - everything from Mazapatec to F+, golden teacher to Orissa. I'll keep you posted, but for now I'll grow the teonanacatl from the reliable syringe I have procured.

Cheers,

JBArk

Where did you hear about this (and why would it be necessary...?) Very curious, but the process doesn't jibe with what I know about spores and mushrooms (which, admittedly, is relatively little )

Cheers,

JBArk

just a little update:

Day 29 and nothing - so (extremely) safe to say that the prints were not viable...

However, the 10 teonanacatl spawn jars are all colonizing with fluffy and very ropey mycelium, so all is good on that front.

And the good news is - no con tams AT ALL.

JBArk