How and Why to Make a Spore Slurry

Making a spore slurry is an easy way to distribute a mushroom’s genetic material and can aid in the propagation of hard-to-cultivate species, including Stropharia, Chanterells, Boletes, Shaggy Manes and Blewits. And it’s really simple!

This low-tech mushroom cultivation technique mimics the natural process of fungi spores in the forest being distributed by rainfall. You simply collect the spores (see video below), mix them with water in a bucket and then spray the liquid in the forest. Alternatively, you can take the entire mushroom and blend it with water, then spray that in the forest.

Of course, you want to make sure that the area you spray is a preferred natural habitat of the mushroom you are cultivating so that it has the most optimal environment to grow in.

We used a spore slurry of King Stropharia (Wine Caps) in our garden last year and got some delicious results. The video below shows some of the fruiting bodies that emerged.

The following video shows how to take a spore print

This is one of the low-tech, outdoor mushroom cultivation techniques we cover in our weekend program Backyard Mushrooms which happens on the farm twice a year.