Check out the photo of this first flush of EQ on oats, using shoebox tek. What's so special about it?
This is EQ cloned from a
dried specimen. A shaman friend gave it to me. It had been partially dried in front of a fan and then cracker dried in a box with desiccant.
This was the first dried tissue clone I ever attempted. I've read dried tissue cloning can be tricky. But I figured, why not try. I sat in front of my flow hood with dried shroom and agar plates ready. I snapped the base of the shroom to expose the sterile interior tissue and the stem exploded in my hand. I didn't realize the stem was hollow. Doh!
In the aftermath of the explosion, in the debris, I spotted a little shard of dried mushroom with some fuzzy mycelium. I figured it was surely contaminated because I don't think it stayed within the laminar flow of the flow hood. But oh well - might as well try. I do my work in a little powder room with a HEPA air cleaner running, so the surrounding air is fairly clean. I scraped two samples of mycelium and placed on separate agar plates. I didn't use peroxide, bleach, or sterile water or anything else to hydrate or clean the sample.
A month later, nothing. Figured the experiment was a fail. A couple more weeks and I see a dime-sized spot of new mycelium on each agar plate! And no sign of bacterial or mold contamination. The growth became faster and more vigorous over the subsequent month until I transferred slivers to new agar plates. After further growth, I used a few bits of agar to inoculate a bag of oat grain. That colonized normally and eventually lead to spawning in a couple shoeboxes with 50/50 coir/vermiculate in a 1:1 ratio with the spawn. A couple weeks later and voila, now we have photos and a fun story to tell.
shroombee attached the following image(s):
EQ Cloned from Dried Tissue - 2021-08-10.JPG
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