The Clone

Preserving the perfect specimen. Replicate the exact genetics of your best finds.

My philosophy? Fungi want to live. All you have to do is try not to kill them while giving them a clean environment.

The Sanitizer: Briefly dunk your donor mushroom in alcohol to help eliminate surface contaminants.
Clean: With every process in sterile work its better if your work area is clean. Clean hands, gloves, tools with ISO.
Tool Sterilization: heating up your tools to red hot ensures they are sterile. A blow torch, alcohol lamp, lighter, induction heater, etc... you can wait for it to cool before using or cool it by poking it into your agar.
The Core Sample: Pull the mushroom apart in your sterile field (SAB or FFU). Never cut from the outside in—split it and take tissue from the protected inner core. Flame sterilized scalpel works good to remove the tissue sample. you only need a small piece to replicate your favorite mushroom from a tissue culture.
Transition: Transfer that inner tissue to an agar plate. If it contaminates, just transfer the healthy growth to a new plate as soon as you notice the contamination. its also good practice to do a transfer before using the agar for anything else like grain spawn to remove the risk for contamination that the original tissue sample could impose, however, in impoverished countries its common to use tissue culture to inoculate grains in jars using a flame cone to maintain sterile conditions.