The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home

My only interest in getting this book was growing magic mushrooms so this review will only be of interest to people wishing to grow mushroom species that produce psilocybin. I had found a free online grow guide and after reading it, I decided I would like to try growing mushrooms myself but I wasn't totally sure of what to do. This book cleared up all my questions about growing magic mushrooms because while the online growers guide is a very good explanation, I needed more photographs of the procedures described to help me fully understand what I had to do. This helped me produced a crop that was 100% successful on my first try. I would not recommend this book alone to someone with no previous experience unless they already had an understanding of how to grow magic mushrooms. If you want to grow but have no idea how, use a search engine to find 'magic mushroom growers guide' and read it first. If you still have questions then get this book. While it is geared towards growing on a large scale, it will help those who are interested in growing a small personal garden. If you want to grow on a larger scale later, everything you need to know is in this book. While it is not only about growing magic mushrooms (Psilocybe) I can not comment on using the procedures described for growing other species because I have no experience.

This book is a excellent reference and guide for the intermediate to advanced mushroom grower. The emphasis is not necessarily on growing at home because the techniques described in the book require a pretty sophisticated lab. To grow mushrooms in the average kitchen with the dog walking by and shaking would be difficult using the info from this book. Of course if you buy the laminar flow hood from the author then things will be much easier for 800 dollars. The book is weak on sterile technique methods needed to sucessfully cultivate without laminar flow hoods. Overall the book is a very comprehensive outline for successful cultivation indoors and outdoors. I reccommend it

I have read this and several other mushroom cultivation books. This book, coupled with Stamet's Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, makes for the absolute best reference materials for growing your own mushrooms.That said, I'll mention the only thing that may disappoint a reader. His treatment of agar techniques in either of his cultivation books leaves a little to be desired. If you feel uncomfortable working with petri dishes after reading his sections on it, you may wish to check out "Laboratory Excercises in Microbiology" (ISBN 0-697-35443-1) by Harley and Prescott. It is a little more than a fellow needs to know about microbiology, but it is an excellent reference for aquainting on with aseptic agar techniques.Aside from this, Stamets has certainly beaten the competion with this book!

This book excellently describes exact details for mushroom cultivation in a very understandable fashion. It gives precise parameters for several commonly cultivated mushrooms and a lengthy list of common contaminants and their cure. The book gives methods for small time cultivation as well as professional large-scale production. In general, it is a great primer on the subject of mushroom cultivation.