First of all, I want to teach you how to know edible fungi. As we all know, animals, plants, bacteria and so on. All reproduce in different ways. For example, plants reproduce by seeds, so edible fungi are what we often call mushrooms. How does it breed? In nature, mushrooms also have seeds. Their seeds are usually on the leaves of mushrooms, which are so small that individuals can't see them clearly. What you usually see under the leaves of mushrooms is a layer of white or other colored powder, which is its seed. Mushroom seeds are called "spores". As shown in the following figure

The white powder on the left is mushroom spores.

In nature, the spores of mushrooms are blown everywhere by strong winds, some on trees, some on weeds and some on the ground, so they will germinate and grow into mushrooms when they meet the right conditions.

Wild Hericium erinaceus

Wild termites

Let's learn about the whole process of spore germination and mushroom formation. First, the spores propagated by mushrooms are scattered by the wind, and then they encounter suitable conditions, such as rain (providing suitable moisture), seasonal or cold changes (providing suitable temperature), wind blowing (providing more oxygen), falling objects (providing nutrients for growth) and so on. Under such suitable conditions, spores germinate hyphae first. The following figure

A single spore germinates mycelium.

After spores germinate hyphae, a large number of hyphae will kink together to form fruiting bodies, which is what we call mushrooms.

These are the propagation ways of mushrooms in nature, so how do mushrooms propagate in artificial cultivation? Mushrooms are usually cultivated in two ways to obtain their "seeds", also known as strains. One is spore culture, that is, mushroom spores are collected manually, and then their culture medium (mushroom food) is placed in the culture medium to germinate, producing a large number of hyphae to obtain strains; The other is tissue culture, that is, using a small piece of tissue of mushroom body part, preparing culture medium for it, and then allowing it to germinate hyphae in the culture medium to obtain strains.