Updated: - Download Now - Blog - FAQ - Contact & Support

Where to Get Mushroom Spores Online

Where to Get Mushroom Spores Online

One of the things that are crucial in the process of growing mushrooms is ensuring that you’re using good spores – much like seeds for regular plants, spores are what starts the whole growth process and play a large role in determining the outcome of your growing – if you use the right spores for the job, you would be left with great results in the end (provided you did everything else properly of course), while using inferior quality spores may leave you with a less than perfect result and with a lot to be desired.

There are various ways to obtain your own spores – and as you progress with your experience in mushroom farming, you’ll likely find out ways to collect the spores that your own mushrooms produce; however, you’re still going to need something to start from, that initial batch of spores with which to start your growing experiments and get yourself on the right track towards owning your very own, infinitely replicating mushroom colony.

While it’s entirely possible that someone in your local area might be selling mushroom spores – especially if you live in a larger town – it’s still a good idea to not limit yourself to those local options and instead explore what other methods you have for acquiring spores for your cultivation. For example, the Internet can be a great source of spores of all kinds for you, and you just have to find the right sites that deal with the kinds of spores you’re interested in obtaining. Some websites only sell specific types of mushroom spores – e.g. rare delicacy mushrooms – so you might need to search a bit before you’ve found one that looks like it could work fine for your needs.

It’s important to know how you’ll be given the spores that you order and what are the differences between the various methods for storing/delivering your spores. For example, do you know the difference between a spore print and a spore syringe? Or the difference between spores in a syringe and spores in, say, sawdust? There are various things that you’ll learn in the process of becoming an experienced mushroom farmer, and it’s crucial that you familiarize yourself with the different products as best as possible.

With regards to the above questions, prints are a type of material that contains the basic genetic structure of the mushroom strains that the spores are meant to develop into, sort of like a DNA sample for mushrooms. They’re perfect for research purposes and also for replicating your spores in order to grow more batches with a single set, but as a beginner they likely won’t be of much use to you. On the other hand, spore syringes contain spores in a sterile solution, which can be directly used to form a spawn and start growing mushrooms from it as well. In most cases you’ll want to buy mushroom spores in syringes as they allow you to directly start your wok on growing them. Some mushroom spores may be delivered to you in other ways, such as mixed in with sawdust, because this is a precursor towards mixing them in with the substrate and starting to grow them further.

In any case, once you’ve learned the basics and you’ve figured out what kinds of spores you’d like to get for your growing, you should look up some online shops that sell these specific types of spores – just remember that the Internet is a vast place and you shouldn’t automatically settle for the first store you come across, but rather explore your options and make sure you’ve looked up all the stores that have good delivery deals to your location. If an online store which you’re considering has a physical branch somewhere close to you, it might be worth checking it out – if the store carries all the spores you’re going to need in your growing and it looks like a suitable place to do your shopping from, then that’s a smart way to save on some delivery fees while also getting a better look at the store’s merchandise and checking out everything they have to offer better.

When you’re placing your order, make special notice of the delivery time – in some cases it might take a while to bring you your spores, in which case you would want to utilize that time for other purposes, such as starting to develop your substrate or something else that would save you time in the long run. Even if the predicted delivery isn’t going to be delayed that much, it’s still good to start those preparations as early as possible in order to be better prepared later, when the spores actually arrive and you’re supposed to start cultivating them.

If you’re satisfied with the store you bought your first spores from, make note of its name – you would likely need to shop for various other supplies and materials later on, and it’s good to have the contact details of a reliable store that you’ve been satisfied with once before. That’s especially valid when you consider the sheer number of stores that sell mushroom spores online which have a less than perfect ability to work with their clients properly. That’s not to say that you’d be at a high risk of getting scammed – but it’s going to save you a lot of headaches later on if you manage to get in touch with a reliable store as early as possible.

Last but not least, for those of you who progress sufficiently to be able to grow their own mushrooms from scratch and notice that they’re producing some high-quality spores, you may want to consider contacting one of the stores that you’ve built a better relationship with, in order to sell your surplus spores. You can always make a hefty profit from this if you work with the right store, and in some cases it might not just offset your expenses for growing mushrooms, but put you in the green zone by a long shot as well!