Well let us jump right into the process of breeding mushrooms! The genomics of mushrooms is fascinating and yet still somewhat mysterious. Most common mushrooms do not require mating types in order to reproduce. Older texts presented all mushrooms this way. Each fungal cell spore or mycelium is eukaryotic meaning having nuclei enclosed in a cell membrane. Mycelium can be monokaryotic (having 1 nuclei per cell wall) with just 1 haploid (single set of chromosomes) spore germinating, which will not produce fruits. The fruits are produced by plasmogomy to form dikaryotes (two nuclei sharing cell cytoplasm) to complete the reproductive genetic structure.
Some mushrooms require spore mating types! Sexing of cells was discovered around 1965. These are heterokaryons, having a mulitnucleate cell that contain different codes genetically in each of the nuclei.
There are several different ways to isolate a single spore to introduce to another spore with compatible breeding traits to grow fruits for the mushrooms future reproduction. What is you favorite spore isolation technique and why? Do you know of any hybrid type mushrooms? There are plenty of them out there!
Here we are isolating ascospores! Along side of some cordy cake preparation.
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