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Jeremiah Stevens takes mushroom hunting to a new level. When he finds edible or medicinal mycelium growth, he takes samples home to his lab in Wheeling, WV. Once clean and in a nutrient-rich agar, he makes clones. Finding different genetics, he builds up the varieties.
Stevens’ sterile growing environment enables him to cultivate a nice mess of wild-sourced mushrooms.
“After the first original tissue sample is transferred to nutrient rich agar, and one or two transfers after to clean it up, you can continue cloning from the repeated new fruiting bodies that appear as you grow out the species,” he said. “The mycelium from the first few transfers can be extended to a number of new petri dishes.”
The oyster mushroom tends to do exceptionally well as it is forgiving when it comes to coping with possible contamination.
Today Stevens sells his goods as Ohio Valley Mushrooms. Besides the the fruiting body he also offers a range of grow kits and cultures for folks to try to grow their own wild mushrooms at home.
You can check him out here https://www.ohiovalleymushrooms.com/
Edible Mountain is a bite-sized, digital series from WVPB that showcases some of Appalachia’s overlooked and underappreciated products of the forest while highlighting their mostly forgotten uses.
