Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms

Love this book! So interesting and so much information!

I really love this book. I knew nothing about mushrooms and I wanted to learn how to grow them at home for use in cooking. We use tons of mushrooms in my house...we love 'em. This is not a full color, step by step guide to starting a little mushroom log. This is more of a text book....though a very entertaining textbook...the writing is not completely dry, which was refreshing. It was a little intimidating at first. It definitely deals with things on at least a farm sized scale and easily on an industrial scale. There is however a wealth of useful information that can be gleaned from this book about. For instance: -- Temperature for mycelium run of a particular species -- temperature to initiate fruiting at -- humidity to hold the room at -- substrata to use for the different species -- different ways to sterilize substrata -- how to take a spore print -- how to inoculate substrata -- Basic principles of farming mushrooms -- how to assess your environment and practices to improve your sterility controls + more more more I am no science wiz, but I am curious and daring. For the amateur scientist who likes to take their hobbies a little to seriously sometimes, this is the uber book of mushroom cultivation. For the strict beginner that needs to be walked through things slowly and methodically...or just doesn't want all the scientific mumbo-jumbo, this could be an information overload that will frustrate you. If you're ready to do some additional research to figure out how to scale things down and where to find alternative equipment that doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars, this book will be great for you. I dream of a corner of my basement set up as a clean room for culturing spores and tissue from plants.

Absolutely recommended for anyone trying to understand how to grow mushrooms, and understanding mushrooms in general. Invaluable, accurate information. Although his description of commercial growing is geared towards large operations (pretty sure I've lived in apartments smaller than his autoclaves), even smaller and hobby growers can benefit from the explanation of procedures and precautions.

Very informative. I've been trying to learn how to grow mushrooms for a few months now. After a few failed attempts I decided to buy this book and I'm glad I did. I now know why I failed and am reinvigorated with excitement to pursue this endeavor. I spent months combing the internet for information about Mushrooms and cultivating them. This book contains everything i found and a whole lot more (I assume most of what I read up to this point actually came from this book). This book is more of a general guide to mushrooms and how they grow and how to grow them. Paul Stamets has another book, mushroom cultivator, is more specifically geared to growing mushrooms for production. It isn't as enjoyable as this one but is a great resource if you want to learn the specifics. Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms is very enjoyable and educational. I haven't been able to put it down since i bought it, and just now bought the ebook too to read when I'm on the go.

Very informative. I’m a novice.

I have a degree in microbiology and grow culinary mushrooms at home as a hobby. This book taught me everything I needed to know! My favorite part is the chapter with any kind of problem you might have listed in a table with the cause and the solution for easy reference.

Very comprehensive.

Beautiful book, great pictures - easy to follow instructions.

Un libro publicado hace 20 años pero no por eso deja de ser la biblia de cultivo de hongos con información detallada escrito por uno de los grandes expertos del mundo. Quizá para los principiantes sea una lectura un poco pesada por sus tecnicismos, pero en esta época donde el internet facilita el encontrar información, nada que un poco de investigación no pueda resolver.

Really neat and great book for any mushroom cultivation enthusiasts

But, it actually has information I can use with very basic equipment. Well defined growing conditions for lots of mushrooms. Numbers! Glorious numbers.

amazing information

The book arrived damaged, 1/4 of the pages are wet with mold!!! How can I attach images?