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Garden Toolkit and curriculum provided by Back to the Roots® . Visit backtotheroots.com/curriculum to download all unit materials and view source listings.
5
A full grown mushroom has a cap to protect the place where the spores are made. Spores are the re-
productive units of mushrooms (similar to seeds in plants).
1
Under the cap we find the gills, which are the home to the spore producing structures called basidia,
and there are lots of them!
2
The spores are formed in a basidium (imagine it like a cannon-ball factory where the spores get ready
to fire). From the basidium the spores shoot out into the world. Millions of spores are released from the
basidiums on the gills. They can wait for a long time until conditions are right, but eventually they need
water, oxygen, and a food source to be able to grow (just like you!).
3
When they find the right conditions the spores can begin to grow one cell at a time as hypha.
(Remember the train cars with a nucleus like a passenger inside from Chapter 1?) In each spore there is
only half of the information needed to produce a new mushroom, but it can still grow more hyphae with
only one gender of nucleus inside. The hyphae are male or female threads which move through the soil
looking for a mate. When they find one, they combine and become mycelium!
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The mycelium branches out in search of food. The nuclei move throughout the network and
communicate to keep the mycelium moving in the right direction and using the right enzymes
to break down food in the most efficient way.
Understanding Mushroom Growth
Mushrooms are mysterious creatures and it can be tricky to see how they grow, mostly because they spend
the majority of their life below ground as a network of hyphae (see Chapter 2 if you need a refresher). To really
understand what’s happening as mushrooms grow, we need to take a closer look. Read each step of the growth
cycle below while looking at the diagram on Page 7. Can you label each part of the picture with the
numbered steps below?
Chapter 3: How do mushrooms grow?
Mycelium
Basidia
Substrate
Gills
(Inside Box)
Hyphae
MUSHROOM
GROW KIT
Stalk
Cap
Spores