Hello all,

I've got some bio-luminescent mushrooms that I ordered that are growing nicely. No fruiting bodies yet, but plenty of nice white glowing sheets spreading out over my substrate.

Soon (hopefully) I will get actual mushrooms, and with mushrooms, spores.

I'm looking at collecting the spores and trying to grow more that way, so I've been reading up on the subject. Pretty much everywhere I've found talks about sterilizing your vermiculite and using a spore syringe that you sterilize in an open flame, etc etc etc.

My question is, how necessary is all of that, really? I mean, mother nature does this out in the woods in the dark, it seems rather far fetched that full clean room conditions would be required for species propagation.

I could understand such precautions if I were going to grow edible mushrooms, as you never know when a spore of something poisonous might mix in from the general air, or not knowing what all could end up growing from a mix specially designed to promote fungal growth.

But for a decorative mushroom, is it really necessary to go through all these hoops, or can I just collect spores, mix with rainwater, and pour onto a new piece of wood and call it done (with decent success rates)?