Cultivation guides
Step-by-step procedures with the temperatures, ratios, and timings that matter, and a troubleshooting table for when something goes wrong.
These guides cover four things: the PF Tek method, running a monotub, working with agar, and recognising contamination. Each one is written as numbered steps with the temperatures, ratios and timings attached. The contamination guide is the one to read before you discard anything, because the most common mistake is throwing away a healthy culture or keeping a contaminated one.
Cultivating psilocybin mushrooms is illegal in many places, and the rules for spores can differ from those for grown mushrooms. The legal status page is a starting point; check your local law before you start. For the species you are growing, see the species database, and for the mushrooms that must never be confused with them, see mushroom look-alikes. Newer articles live in the guides section.
PF Tek for growing mushrooms at home
beginnerThe standard first method. Brown rice flour and vermiculite in half-pint jars, sterilised in a pressure cooker, colonised, then fruited as bare cakes. It is slow and low-yielding compared with grain-to-bulk, and it is forgiving of the mistakes beginners actually make, which is the trade it exists to offer.
- Duration:
- 6 to 10 weeks from inoculation to first harvest
- Steps:
- 8
Monotub
intermediateGrain spawn into a bulk substrate in a plastic tub. Yields an order of magnitude more than PF Tek for roughly the same work, and demands better sterile technique because a contaminated grain jar can take the whole tub with it.
- Duration:
- 7 to 11 weeks
- Steps:
- 7
Agar work
advancedGrowing mycelium on nutrient agar in petri dishes, to isolate a clean vigorous culture from a contaminated or mixed one, and to store genetics indefinitely. It is the step that turns cultivation from repeatedly buying syringes into keeping a strain.
- Duration:
- 2 to 4 weeks per isolation round
- Steps:
- 5
Contamination identification
beginnerWhat the thing in your jar is, whether it is recoverable, and what caused it. Most cultivation failures are one of six organisms, and telling them apart is mostly colour, texture and smell.
- Duration:
- Reference
- Steps:
- 4
Recipes and troubleshooting
Shorter articles that answer one cultivation question each.
No-pour agar tek for mushroom cultivation
No-pour agar tek sterilizes media inside ketchup cups, skipping the open-air pour step and cutting contamination risk for beginners.
6 min read
Tomentose mycelium in a monotub grow
Tomentose mycelium looks fluffy in a monotub but is healthy growth driven by genetics. How it compares to rhizomorphic and what to expect.
5 min read
CVG recipe for mushroom substrate
A CVG substrate mixes coco coir, vermiculite and gypsum, pasteurised in a sealed bucket with boiling water and squeezed to field capacity before spawning.
6 min read