Growing Mushrooms with Liquid Culture

Growing Mushrooms with Liquid Culture

Growing Mushrooms with Liquid Culture

If you’ve spent any time researching mushroom growing, you’ve probably come across the term liquid culture. It sounds high tech, but it’s simply a way of growing mushroom mycelium in a nutrient-rich liquid so it can be easily transferred to a suitable growing substrate later on.

For many growers, liquid culture has become one of the most convenient ways of getting mushrooms started.

This post breaks down what liquid culture is, why people use it, and what to know before buying something from our culture library.

What Is Liquid Culture?

Syringes of Liquid Culture

Liquid culture (often abbreviated to LC) is a suspension of living mycelium floating in a nutrient rich broth.

People use LC because:

  • Mycelium can expand through liquid more quickly than it does on solid media.

  • Liquid cultures, when handled correctly, can remain viable for a very long time.

  • A single drop of liquid culture can be used to start multiple grows.

Think of LC as a “starter” similar to sourdough, once you have a good culture you can keep it going and share it with other growers.

Why growers Like Liquid Culture

Even though mushrooms can be grown in many different ways, LC stands out because it provides a predictable, uniform starting point. When you work with spores, the genetics are unknown, with liquid culture, you’re working with a clone of an existing mushroom, so its characteristics are already known.

Why folk rate LC:

  • Helps reduce the guesswork involved in early mushroom growth

  • Allows easier observation of mycelium health

  • Makes it simpler to expand or repeat a production run

These attributes can be especially appealing when you’re growing mushrooms for culinary use and want consistent, reliable harvests.

A Note on CLEANLINESS

Anyone researching liquid cultures will quickly notice one common theme: Cleanliness! Clean environment and clean tools means clean cultures! 

Liquid culture is not just an ideal environment for mushroom mycelium but also for most microorganisms in general, contamination is the biggest challenge.

Successful LC use depends on:

  • Keeping outside microbes from entering the culture

  • Being able to visually assess whether the culture looks healthy

  • Handling cultures and accessories accordingly 

For first time growers, our ready-to-use, Liquid cultures, make it easier to get started without dealing with the technical aspects. For the more experienced we have our modified Liquid culture lids, great for expanding large quantities of culture in an asceptic environment 

Modified Lid

Using Liquid Culture to Grow Mushrooms

Whether you’re a first time grower, injecting LC into your first container of sterile grain, or whether you’re a time served grower, expanding litres of LC for a commercial operation - We’ve got you covered. 

We keep a wide variety of both Native and Commercial Liquid cultures within our library. If you have any questions relating to LC’s please don’t hesitate to contact us!

The benefits aren’t just about speed. A healthy LC can help the mycelium get a strong head start, which can in turn mean bigger and better flushes of yummy mushrooms! 😁

Troubleshooting

While everybody has their own issues along their cultivation journey a few things for growers to look out for, are:

  • Healthy mycelium often appears bright, uniform, and threadlike.

  • Unhealthy cultures may show discoloration, unexpected cloudiness, or textures that don’t resemble mycelium.

  • Slow or stalled growth may signal temperature issues, old genetics, or microbial competition.

Understanding these signals helps growers know when a culture is okay to use and when it needs binning and running again.

Final Thoughts

Liquid culture is one of the most accessible ways into the world of mushroom growing. By understanding what LC is, how it fits into the growing process, and what makes a culture a healthy culture, you can appreciate its role without diving into lab-level procedures. We started playing around with Liquid Culture in the downstairs bathroom once all the surfaces had been sprayed down with IPA. Once happy working with LC’s we moved to working with agar and cloning mushrooms in the same small bathroom! 🤣

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