And like any man who has just seen an incredibly beautiful thing, he screeched to a halt, and there was this old man sitting on a front lawn surrounded by a bunch of steel equipment. The old man turned out to be the retired Pickle King, and Bertha was his retired sterilizer. You see, the biggest enemy a fungus has is other fungi. And if that isn't enough, he turns on a blower, which forces a stream of sterile air into the trailer through a filter, which removes unwanted bacteria and spores. All of which makes me wonder what fungus-farming insects do.
Ants have chemical inhibitors in their saliva and anal fluid.
Glad not to be an insect, I watch as Meads prepares to clone a wild chanterelle, which he found growing under an oak tree earlier that morning. Usually, I wait a few days, and if the mycelium grows, I cut it up and pour the mixture over sterile wheat in a jar. If spawn fills the jar, this growth will become the mother spawn from which other jars will be inoculated. The odor of walnuts fills the room. This is the spawn of Pleurotus ostreatus , otherwise known as the oyster mushroom.