I am doing research into setting up a mini farm for gourmet and medicinal mushrooms and am currently looking into long term mycelium storage.

On the surface, the answers seem simple: Once the mycelium runs out of nutrients, it dies. So mor food mor better? However…

Slants seem to be the #1 recommended long term storage method. However, the most economical types of slants I can get seem to hold about as much agar as your standard petri dish.

Questions that come to mind:

• Is the goal of a slant to reduce the propagation of mycelium to save on its nutrient supply?
• Is there a measurable difference in nutrient uptake between the different methods?
• Does it all just boil down to which method is more space efficient for storage?
• What questions do I really need to be asking myself in the context of this thread? ;)

Regardless, I think I will have to “update” or “refresh” my cultures every 12-18 months by transferring the mycelium to fresh media. Correct?

(Obviously, for substrate inoculation, the different methods have their own benefits which I am already aware of.)