Now is the time when MycoMalta is laboring intensely to switch from the warm-weather mushrooms to the cool-weather mushrooms.

“Labouring intensly?” some may ask? “Don’t you just sow them?”

Well, no, it is not that easy…not at all!

At MycoMalta we cultivate our own cultures so we do not simply buy the seeds and sow them. Our fungus cultures are stored in a sterile environment in a dormant state throughout all summer. When this time of the year arrives, these cultures are revived on a special mixture of sugar where they are tested for vigor, contamination (usually bacterial or yeasts) and to ensure it is a monoculture (a singe genetic variant of the fungus). When contaminated, a tedious process of cloning and cleaning begins that might take up to 6 weeks!

Once the culture is ready to be started on the substrate, it is first started on a sterilized cereal to give it a boost and then finally on the substrate. If all goes well, then the first colonized substrate is tested for fruiting because sometimes the dormant period causes the culture to produce ugly distorted fruits or none at all.

Once 100% confident the culture is viable for sale, production begins.

The process from beginning to the end takes an average of a whopping 12 weeks…but damn are the results worth!