How To Grow Lion’s Mane Mushroom The process for growing Lion’s Mane is quite similar to growing any other type of gourmet mushroom- although there are some slight differences to watch out for. Depending on where you are at in your mushroom growing journey, you’ll want to a suitable approach to growing at home. By far the easiest way to grow Lion’s Mane at home it is to start with a kit. This is the best option for people who are new to the hobby. Looking for a more authentic experience for DIY Lion’s Mane at home? If so, you could start from commercially made spawn. This requires a few more tools and a little more experience, but you’ll get substantially better results. Even better- if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, you can even make your very own spawn starting from a pure culture on agar.

Lion’s Mane Grow Kit Mushroom growing kits are a great option for folks who are new to the hobby, or do not want to get too deep into into the art of growing mushrooms. They are basically just a fully colonized mushroom fruiting blocks. If you have a kit, most of the hard work has already been done for you. You can buy these kits from various places online, or perhaps even at your local farmers market. I have even seen kit at the grocery store, although never for Lion’s Mane. Once you have the block, all you need to do is to put it in a relatively humid environment and cut some “x’s” into the side of the bag. Put the block on it’s side on a plate, so that the mushrooms will fruit out the top. For humidity, place a sheet of perforated plastic over the block, making sure there is lots of free space between the block and the plastc. Lion’s Mane fruits will naturally start to form through the holes in the bag. Mist inside the bag with a spray bottle a few times a day, and make sure to fan in lots of fresh air. To make this even better, build a small shotgun fruiting chamber. You are likely to get 2 or 3 flushes with a kit, and depending on where you live, might not require any special environment whatsoever. Lion’s mane will even grow pretty well in sub-par conditions, so unless you are looking for spectacular results, you don’t need to be overly concerned about the block’s environment. I have even had Lion’s Mane blocks fruit heavily after placing them in the garage (humidity around 65% RH) and simply forgotting about them. The fruits themselves were large, with small spines, and lasted over a week in the fridge without looking any worse for wear. Talk about care-free growing!

Lion's Mane fruiting on grain spawn (way over colonized), and grown in a garage without due care and attention.

Starting From Spawn Of course, if you have experience with mushroom cultivation, you could also just get some Lion’s Mane spawn, and add it to a suitable substrate. Hardwood sawdust amended with bran is one of the best substrates for growing Lion’s Mane. The typical fruiting block recipe works great, and should give you a a good yield over a number of flushes. Recently, I have also had great success growing Lion’s Mane on the Master’s Mix, a 50-50 hardwood sawdust and soy hulls that has been hydrated to 60%. Yields seem to be slightly higher, and the shelf life seems to be a little better on this substrate, although some further experimentation is still needed. Lion’s Mane can also grow on straw, although I have not personally tried this method. (I try to avoid messy straw as much as possible!) Growing Lion’s Mane on straw might only yield great results for particular strains that have been specifically adapted to straw. For best results, you are better off just using a wood based substrate. Add the spawn at 10-15% spawn rate to sterilized substrate in a clean environment. A laminar flow hood works best. Although lion’s Mane is reasonably resistant to contamination, all precautions should still be still be taken to protect your grow. Once inoculated, a fruiting block should be fully colonized within 2 weeks. Lion’s Mane mycelium can be whispy and thin in places, and looks quite a bit different than something more robust like oyster or reishi. Dn’t be alarmed if the block doesn’t look fully colonized. This mushroom fruits easily, so chances are you’ll start to see small fruits forming in the bag before you expose it to fruiting conditions. When this happens, simply bring the block to the fruiting area and cut small “x’s” where the fruits are already forming. The pins will continue to develop, eventually forming large mushrooms outside the bag.

Growing Lion’s Mane From Scratch If you want to grow Lion’s Mane from scratch, you ‘re best to start with a culture on agar, and make your own grain spawn from there. You could also start with a liquid culture, although you are still better off to just put the liquid culture on agar for long term storage and re-use. The process for lion’s mane is the same as other species- grow out the culture on agar, make grain spawn, add it to a bulk substrate, and fruit. As long as you have a healthy culture, you should be able to grow fresh lion’s mane anytime you want. Lion’s Mane mycelium will last for a long time on a culture plate. In fact, I have cultures that are over 3 years old that still perform fantastically. If you want to store the plates for the long term, ensure that you keep them in the fridge. Lion’s Mane mycelium is prone to fruiting on the agar plate, forming long spines that eventually try to work their way out of the dish, leading to contamination. Keeping the culture in the fridge will prevent this from happening. Often fruit on the grain spawn as soon as it finishes colonizing. As long as you catch it in time it won’t be a problem. You don’t even need to remove the tiny fruits- just mix it up with the rest of your grain spawn before adding it to the bulk substrate.

-spread the spores-