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Beyond learning the skills necessary to isolate and clone fungi, there is a range of other techniques to learn and master on the path to growing Mushrooms. This workshop builds on the techniques taught in our basics workshops and requires little prior knowledge other than familiarity with the peroxide agar tek.

This workshop will cover how to use your agar cultures to grow your own edible and medicinal mushrooms. We will demonstrate agar to spawn to bulk to fruiting and discuss variations based on species.  We will also discuss basic equipment that you will need along the way, Still Air Boxes, and fruiting chambers.

Over the last decade, advances in mushroom cultivation have made growing considerably easier and available to any citizen scientist within a home kitchen.  If you already have mycological Mad Skillz you are welcome to attend and share.

Please note: This workshop is separate from the Intensive workshop being held on the 2nd of December.

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Caine Barlow is a Mycologist and Fungi Educator based in Melbourne, Australia.  He gives regular talks on mycology, fungi conservation, and teaches gourmet mushroom cultivation.  He is a member of the Australian organisations Entheogenesis Australis, MYCOmmunity Applied Mycology, The Australian Psychedelic Society, and the Entheome Foundation.

Caine started foraging for mushrooms in the early 1990's, and started cultivating gournet fungi in the mid 2000's. He did his Bachelor of Science at the University of Tasmania, and a Master of Science at the University of Melbourne where his research project was based around Conservation Mycology.

In addition to fungi, Caine has had a long term interest in ethnobotany, ethnobotanical literature,  and growing medicinal plants - in particular Cacti and Acacias. He writes for DoubleBlind and ThirdWave, is a “Trusted Identifier” on The Shroomery, and a moderator on many Facebook fungi groups. Caine posts regularly on his Instagram, @guerrillamycology, sharing adventures from cultivation, foraging, and ethnomycology, to interesting observations from his home lab.

Darklight has been working with aseptic medicinal and endangered plant species propagation for over 20 years. Moving into fungal propagation was a natural progression ( or unfortunate side-effect, you choose 😉 . Right now, Darklight is working on long-term archiving of local NNSW fungal species for future remediation and revegetation work- the culture library consists of a fair range of local macrofungi whose ultimate purposes have yet to be revealed to us. But they're here for a reason, and so are we.

What fascinates Darklight is the progression of fungal lab technology towards being more accessible to citizen scientists. Kitchen mycology is easy, safe and productive these days. The teks keep getting better and the outputs more diverse and rewarding.

Our workshop welcomes people at all skills levels. Learn and share.

Jess is a botanical illustrator and tattooer living in Northern Rivers NSW/ Bundjalung country.

A love of the natural world, gardening and science have lead her to ongoing involvement in a citizen mycology project, cactus farming, low harm off-grid living and study of plant tissue culture.

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