Masterclass:
Sterile Lab Techniques
From Spore to Spawn
Sunday September 27th, 2025
10am - 4pm
From Spore to Spawn
Ready to up your mushroom cultivation game?
Imagine being able to find a wild mushroom then use its spores to create your own spawn so you can cultivate that species at home.
Learning sterile lab techniques allows you to select genetics that are optimized to your bioregion and never have to buy spawn again.
What you get
Access to Chris’s 35 years of experience growing and working with mushrooms
Tour of our mushroom cultivation lab, spawn and grow rooms
Understand which equipment you need to set up your own lab
Hands-on experience with sterile lab techniques
Create your own spawn to take home
Learn everything you need to select optimized fungi genetics from your local forest, turn it into a culture and make your own spawn
Decades of Experience
Chris Parker has been growing various kinds of mushrooms for 30 years. He created the Southeast’s premier resource for mushroom cultivation supplies - Asheville Fungi.
Chris is also deeply experienced in permaculture, organic gardening, regenerative agriculture and herbal medicine. He has gained all this knowledge from his ancestors, local teachers and through his own study.
During this one-day masterclass Chris combines practical demonstrations, hands-on experiential learning, presentations and is available to answer questions about your specific growing situation.
Topics Covered
Facilities Tour
Chris’s brand new mushroom cultivation facilities at the farm show you what’s needed to create a mushroom production facility on any scale. You will receive a tour of the lab, spawn room and grow room and detailed explanations of why it was built and arranged this way.
Equipment
Chris will take you through the major pieces of equipment you need and you’ll get hands on experience using some of it. We can help you with where to source much of it if you are planning on setting up a lab at home.
Lab Techniques
For beginners we will cover the basics, both in theory and practice. For more advanced students Chris will share essential tips and tricks gained from 35 years of cultivation experience.
Agar Recipes
Learn to make nutrient dense medium for optimal mycelium growth.
Spore & Tissue Cultures
Understand the pros and cons of using spores and tissue from wild harvested mushrooms in your mushroom cultivation process.
Grain & Sawdust Spawn
Using your cultures to inoculate grain and sawdust then how to use that to inoculate bulk substrate and grow mushrooms.
Spore Prints
Learn how to capture spores from wild mushrooms that you can turn into cultures and spawn to grow more. You are welcome to bring a favorite wild harvested mushroom if you would like to culture it.
Selecting Genetics
Learn how to select strong genetics for optimal growth or other traits.
Petri Plates & Liquid Culture
Learn how to handle petri plates effectively for low contamination rates. Use petri plates to grow out mycelium from spores and tissue and preserve your cultures for continuous production.
Join us for the day on our 30 acre forest farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains