Amanita Research Forum

Apparently, you can grow Amanita buttons to maturity in a pot of earth after after you have picked them in the wild.
This is great if you don't want to leave any behind because it might be days before you can return to the spot.

Take a look at the video below, and see what this guy, Myco Gio, has done for a film time laps of growing Amanitas in a pot of earth.

Title of YouTube video:
'The American yellow fly agaric Amanita muscaria var guessowii The Yellow mushroom with white spots'.


By the way, personally I would not feel confident enough to consume washed out Amanitas.

Rebis.

Thanks for posting the video! I have not seen anyone do this before. I've noticed that if I keep a button moist, they tend to expand within a couple of days but not quite like this. I will definitely try this, as John Allegro in his book the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross talks about many mythological plants that "bloom the day they are planted".

Or of the Adonis gardens where Adonis is planted and sown in a single day. He suggests that instead of picking the mushrooms when expanded, many ancient mystery schools would dig up buttons and then plant them in their own gardens or groves. Definitely something I want to try the next time I find some buttons.

I happened to see something about this, posted by one of our local mycologists Paul Stamets - a time lapse series of a detached Amanita muscaria growing up over six days.

Stamets wrote: metamorphosizes from the button to mature stage in 6 days. Detached from the ground, and although appearing larger, the mushroom does not gain additional mass.

He was excited, because it means that whatever directs all those hyphae in the button to grow into that mushroom shape, it's already in them and not coming from the mycelium mat. Which I think he would have guessed would be the case, but it's nice to see it proven out. Maybe it's more interesting that they're apparently somewhat self sufficient, and not only survive for a few days disconnected but continue to "grow." He just put it in a bowl, no dirt needed.

Whether it changes in any other respect as it matures, no idea. I wouldn't leave anything to grow, myself, because mushrooms around here are so worm infested that I'd be worried there'd be one or two worms (or fly eggs) already on it, and when I came back next week they'd have been going to town on it. Whatever I get, I've been drying hot enough to do the worms in - slicing it up first if it's thick at all.

@ Splinters Shards, and @ Donn.
It was John Allegro's book, 'The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross', that got me interested in Amanitas. I must read it it again.
I suppose the bugs can be a problem munching away on the mushrooms - I hadn't though of that.

Seeing Amanita Dreamer's latest video, 'Make Stunted Amanitas Grow Again', where she wonders what to do with the Amanita buttons, to pick them or to leave them to grow with added water, reminded me of Myco Gio's video, and though I would post it here, so that if Amanita Dreamer sees it, She can then do some experiments and maybe make her own video on it for us to see.

I shall certainly try it out myself next season.

Rebis.

The main point of interest, if you try any experiments, I imagine would be whether the disconnected mushroom grows in terms of size only, or also mass. So at least you would want to weigh them before and after. It would be more ideal to compare dry weight, in case any added mass turns out to be just water, but I can't imagine how one would practically do that.

I've seen where Laccaria species of mycorrhizal mushrooms were grown over a short time frame in the same pot as a very small pine sapling... It would be interesting to know how much time it would take to develop a mycorrhizal mat with a potted seedling to produce flushes of muscaria? Being a larger mushroom it would probably take a while for the inoculated seedling to produce the photosynthetic output needed to fuel the fruiting...

Awesome. I had a similar idea, growing a tree sapling in a pot, trimming it like a bonsai and then adding an Amanita Muscaria mycelium cake to it.

RE: mczero | Is it possible to grow muscaria mycelium cakes? I haven't been aware of any way to propagate the mycelium other than the rather uncertain Dune method (the Dune author came up with mixing the mushrooms in a bucket of water and sprinkling on appropriate mycorrhizal hosts for chanterelles and claims it worked and A.D. has something on her channel about doing that with muscaria)

What he shows here in this video is not growing amanita. It's common that if you pick an amanita button that is still in a growth phase you can take it home and put it in water. The button will continue to OPEN, but will not grow any more. Growth means it is getting larger AND continuing to increase the ibotenic acid. Once you pick it it no longer has access to the mycelium which is providing all the elements needed to continue to increase the ibotenic acid. But you can force the cap to open on its own. You don't need soil. The soil just provided a water base.
He had simply picked it and shoved it in dirt and the cap opened. Pay attention to the stipes, they don't get larger or wider or taller, no growth is happening. The caps also don't get larger, they simply open in both of the time lapse videos. Using the word "grow" as he is is misleading.
I have had them open but mostly the caps I've picked had their growth stunted which happens if it rains and new caps show up 3 or 4 days later after the mycellium is starting to dry out. Not enough moisture and the growth gets stunted. It seems like once the growth stops, no amount of water wil help it open at that point. So you have to pick caps that were still in the growth phase. But since ibo isn't increasing once you take it, it's really just a party trick watching the cap open. The same amount of ibo is in it, open or closed.
To date there are still no studies that I have found that we can grow mycelium in any conditions, nor can we force an amanit mushroom from the mycelium. Keep in mind, they are not plants and have no roots. They can't grow mycellium from a stipe the way a plant can grow roots from the plant body when planted. Mushrooms are more like the animal kingdom than they are like the plant kingdom.
While science does somewhat understand the exchange of nutrients between the tree and mycellium (and still not completely) there is still more than is unknown like why it chooses the tree that it does, or doesn't. Why it can take years once spores are laid for mycellium to connect with a tree then make fruiting bodies.
If anyone finds a true study of mycellium growth NOT in nature, please share it.

I don't know if growing mycelium cakes of amanita muscaria at home is possible. But I want to give it a try. I have dried caps and I want to make liquid mycelium first.
It is already in a bottle, I will check periodically if there is something visible inside. Because I don't know how and at which temperature the caps were dried, this could be possible or fail. Then I would use the liquid mycelium to make grain spawn or something similar, and from there on the doing the cake.

I am at the very beginning and have not very much experience with growing mushrooms. At least I have a ganoderma lucidum (reishi) cake which is pinning now.