The fungi are taking over our wood blocks!

We're making progress!

After our fungi colonized the 2-liter flasks for almost 3 weeks, I added sterilized wood blocks to become colonized as our inocula for the experiment to come.

Here is a 3-week-old flask with Fibroporia vaillantii, just before adding the wood blocks:

 

The Fibroporia vaillantii is looking big and cottony!  This is the body of the fungus, which is generally hidden from view when you see a mushroom forming on a log or soil.

After adding the sterilized wood blocks, it becomes clear how thin the fungal tissue is.  Like cotton candy, the thin threads of the fungus get compressed down by the weight of these 1 x 2 x 2 cm blocks.  

 

Although the tissue was compressed by the wood blocks, it was not harmed.  The fungus proceeded to colonize the wood blocks quite quickly!

 

After only 1 week, Fibroporia vaillantii is happily taking residence in the additional substrate!

The white rot fungus, Stropharia rugosoannulata, is not growing with as much volume as our brown rot, but it is also colonizing its wood blocks nicely.

 

That visible mycelium creeping up the sides of the wood blocks is exactly what we want to see!

After 5 weeks, these wood blocks will be ready for use as a inocula, which simply means it will be the vehicle used to transport the fungus to the experiment.