How To Grow Mushrooms?

Researching how to grow my own mushrooms at home. Noob Questions!?

• I’m watching instructional videos on how to grow mushrooms at home and it looks like it might be something I can do… I’m watching part 2.1 of “Lets Grow Mushrooms” called “Cloning Mushroom Tissue and it says to clone a mushroom, you can use a tissue clone method that allows the spread of the mycelium on to agar then you can transfer the mycelium to a grain or rice flour base. After only about 24 hours, you will see the mycelium begin to grow out in to the agar… Knowing that almost every tissue from the mushroom can produce viable mycelium, would it be possible to just buy a pound of mushrooms, take them to your back yard, break them up, and bury them with pasteurized substrate and be able to get your mushroom of choice to colonize and fruit in your back yard? I know I may be WAY over simplifying the process which seems much more fragile and easily contaminated then I think it is but still… I know that MANY forms of wild mushrooms grow wild around the MI/IN area and a friend has some land up there and I was thinking of trying to seed his property with edible varieties… Can you tell me if this is even a viable option and if not, why? Thanks!!

• Answer:

  Mushrooms need to grow in temperature, humidity, and light controlled environments, as well as being in a particular type of substrate. Just throwing them out in the backyard would probably produce very inconsistent - and disappointing - results.