Questions: stem butt cultivation and dried mushrooms

I tried once to grow shop bought stem butts on cardboard in the cupboard and failed. About half of them developed a mycelium, but then it didn't grow further.
I want to try that once again, some questions:
1. The picture in mycellium running sows stem butts sliced across, I did sections lengthwise as shown in youtube, what is better?
2. How much moisture is right?
3. Do I transfer when everything is full of mycellium or earlier?
4. Stamets then puts it on a bigger cardboard does this happen still in the cupboard in a box or outside?
5. When do I transfer this outside? Is it always on a bed of woodchips?
I will start with shop bought mushrooms because I know only two edible mushrooms here which grow under pine trees. I would love to attend a mushroom hunting class but this is not available.
My second question is how to grow reishi mushroom. I have some dried reishi mushrooms and I wonder if I could use the spores. Stamets describe a method extracting them in water. But I am not sure weather my spores are viable, to get into Australia they are irradiated. Worth a try?? And then can cardboard be used together with the spore slurry?
I am very much interested in the non sterile method, because I know that the sterile method is not for me (it is the same issue that I don't make plans about crop rotation).

Good question. I also grew mushrooms (king oyster) from stem butts on pastuerized cardboard, successfully, and then tried to transfer them to sawdust and chips, which didn't work. I would love to know why.
John S
PDX OR

Angelika Maier wrote:I tried once to grow shop bought stem butts on cardboard in the cupboard and failed. About half of them developed a mycelium, but then it didn't grow further.
I want to try that once again, some questions:
1. The picture in mycellium running sows stem butts sliced across, I did sections lengthwise as shown in youtube, what is better?

not sure about this one

2. How much moisture is right?

for the cardboard it should be damp but not soaking wet

3. Do I transfer when everything is full of mycellium or earlier?

never used this method but in sterile tissue culture you just transfer the leading edge of growth. If you don't see any mold you could wait till it's grown over and break it up into pieces, then innoculate more substrate.

4. Stamets then puts it on a bigger cardboard does this happen still in the cupboard in a box or outside?

it just needs about room temperature and high humidity

5. When do I transfer this outside? Is it always on a bed of woodchips?

You can use more cardboard, newspaper, woodchips, etc in a plastic bag with holes poked in it for fresh air.

I will start with shop bought mushrooms because I know only two edible mushrooms here which grow under pine trees. I would love to attend a mushroom hunting class but this is not available.
My second question is how to grow reishi mushroom. I have some dried reishi mushrooms and I wonder if I could use the spores. Stamets describe a method extracting them in water. But I am not sure weather my spores are viable, to get into Australia they are irradiated. Worth a try?? And then can cardboard be used together with the spore slurry?
I am very much interested in the non sterile method, because I know that the sterile method is not for me (it is the same issue that I don't make plans about crop rotation).

You're wasting your time with button mushrooms, shiitake too. They ususally don't have much life in them by the time you see them in the store. If you have a farmer's market try to find some oyster mushrooms, since they will be fresher, you have pretty good odds of success.

if you want to grow reishi, I don't think spores are a very reliable method for propogating them outside. see if you can get a culture from inside australia. Reishi should do well in non-sterile cultivation- it grows quite fast!

I think there is something I made wrong too: I ripped the mycellium into pieces and transfered the pieces....

Angelika Maier wrote:My second question is how to grow reishi mushroom............to get into Australia they are irradiated.

There are several places in Australia to get mushrooms supplies, mycelium (on petris), and mushroom spawn.
Here's a great forum with lots of Australians:
http://www.ediblemushroom.net/