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A spore mass slurry was a method developed by mycologist Paul Stamets as a way to spread spores over a wide area in a way that helps give them a head start. It is for those times that it is useful to have a method for utilizing the spores that gives them the greatest chance for success. However, there are times when spores are available and a good medium for what you are trying to achieve. This is because it is so difficult to successfully and reliably achieve reproduction from spores. Often when I speak to friends about growing mushrooms, their first question is “where do you get the spores?” I have to explain to them that nearly all mushroom cultivation is done by the direct transfer of mycelium from one medium to the next. Spores are just not very effective or very efficient at producing offspring. There is a reason plants moved away from spores and towards seeds as a reproductive device.
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How is it that each individual must produce literally trillions of spores to simply replace itself in the ecosystem? Personally I think it speaks to the inefficiency of spores as a reproductive strategy. Only two spores are needed to reproduce they must land near each other on a food source, germinate, and then mate to produce a healthy mycelium. Each mushroom is capable of producing billions (yes, that big number is plural) of spores. Each year it can produce dozens of mushrooms. A mushroom with a decent source of food can live for 10 years, sometimes much, much more. Mushrooms have among the worst reproductive success out there. Its reproductive strategy takes into account the squirrels (who plant the acorns) eating most of each year’s crop as well as mortality of oak seedlings. Once it reaches maturity, it can produce thousands of acorns every year. An oak tree can live for hundreds of years. They pay a heavy price to predation, and this must be taken into account in the reproductive strategy. They can produce dozens of offspring in a single year and hundreds in a lifetime. Sure, many offspring are produced, but accidents and disease are taken into account and not much else. Top predators, like wolves and big cats most directly reproduce one to one.
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Looking at a species’ reproductive strategy can tell you a lot about their place in the ecosystem. Averaged across a population and over centuries, a population in balance with the rest of its environment will average one successful (in this case successful means “grows to adulthood and reproduces”) offspring per mature individual. Sure, all organisms would like to increase their numbers and increase their success, but gone unchecked, this is the path to starvation and disease. Each individual in the system seeks to replace itself, no more, no less. Ideally, a natural system, in its most natural state, is in perfect equilibrium. This is a concept that can be seen throughout natural systems, but nowhere more evidently than in reproductive rates. Wood chips 2 weeks after addition of spore mass slurry