Life Stages of our Mushrooms
On a nutrient-rich medium in a petri dish the mycelium grows as a fine network of hyphae that branch and interconnect, eventually forming a dense white mat. This controlled stage ensures a clean, vigorous culture, and prevents contamination.
The substrate (macadamia and coffee byproducts) are mixed before steaming and bagging. Steaming the substrate in a bulk pasteurizer kills bacteria, mold, and other contaminants. This creates a clean environment for mycelium to colonize without competition. The process ensures that only the desired fungus grows in the prepared substrate.
Inoculating the bags with mycelium is a crucial step in mushroom cultivation, as it introduces the fungal culture into a sterilized, nutrient-rich substrate. This process is performed under sterile, lab conditions—such as in front of a flow hood. This careful inoculation step ensures that the desired fungus has the best chance to dominate the environment and produce healthy, abundant fruiting bodies.
After inoculating the bags with mycelium, the fungus begins to colonize the substrate. As the hyphae advance, they release specialized enzymes that break down complex organic matter which are converted into simpler sugars and nutrients that the fungus can easily absorb. By doing so, the mycelium not only feeds itself but also conditions the substrate, preparing it to support the energy-intensive process of mushroom production that follows once colonization is complete.
As the hyphae fuse together, they form a dense, interconnected web—eventually turning the substrate uniformly white during colonization. Once nutrients are established and the substrate is fully colonized, the fungus shifts from vegetative growth to reproductive mode, ready to form mushroom primordia when environmental triggers (light, oxygen, humidity) are introduced.
In the final stage, the mycelium form tiny knots known as primordia, or “pins,” on the surface of the substrate. Primordia are clusters of densely packed hyphae that represent the very first stage of mushroom development. At this point, the fungus is responding to environmental cues such as light, humidity, oxygen, and temperature, which signal that conditions are favorable for fruiting. These pins rapidly absorb water and nutrients, enlarging into recognizable young mushrooms.
A fruiting wall is a setup where fully colonized mushroom bags are arranged on shelves in a grow house to create the ideal environment for fruiting. The grow house provides high humidity, fresh air exchange, and indirect light, which trigger the mycelium to form primordia and eventually mature mushrooms. As the mushrooms emerge from slits or openings in the bags, the vertical arrangement maximizes growing space while keeping the crop organized and easy to harvest.
Mushroom cultivation often produces multiple flushes, or waves, of growth from the same colonized substrate. After the first harvest, the mycelium rests and then redirects its energy to forming new primordia, which develop into another crop of mushrooms. Each flush typically yields slightly less than the previous one, but with proper care—such as maintaining humidity, fresh air, and hydration—the bags can continue producing for several cycles before the substrate is spent.
Once the mushrooms have fully matured, they are carefully harvested by hand. From there, the mushrooms may be sold fresh for immediate culinary use, dehydrated to extend shelf life, ground into powders for convenient incorporation into food, smoothies and coffee, or processed into concentrated extracts valued for their medicinal and nutritional properties.
