Tools of the Trade: Setting Up Your DIY Mycology Lab

What’s in your lab setup? Are you working from your kitchen counter, a home SAB, or a full flow hood set up? Drop a comment—we love seeing how others create their lab spaces! Before you can start working with fungi—whether you're culturing wild mushrooms, building a material archive, or conducting any other fungal research—you’ll need a few basic tools to set up a clean workspace for isolating cultures and avoid competing microbes. In this video, we walk through some of the tools we use in our home lab setup, from beginner to more advanced. →A microscope can help you get up close with spores, hyphae, and strain interactions →Petri dishes and agar are your foundational workspace for growing cultures →An inoculation loop lets you transfer tissue or spores with precision →A pressure cooker works just as well as an autoclave for sterilizing media and tools →Containers are needed for incubation and growing materials—these can range from glass jars to trays to custom molds →And if you don’t have access to a laminar flow hood (most people starting out don’t), you can opt to make your own still air box (SAB) with just a few materials Creating a clean workspace is one of the most important aspects of fungal cultivation and material development. The good news is: you don’t need fancy gear to begin. You can build up over time, using what’s accessible and adapting to your space. 🧪 Want a deeper breakdown of tools, agar recipes, and home lab hacks? Join us on Patreon to access: → Full-length fungal learning sessions (2hr+ deep dives) → DIY agar guides, toolkits, and printable protocols → 1:1 consultations and mycelium artifact commissions → Early access to Fungal Matters, our book dropping in 2025 (Routledge) 📖 Our book Fungal Matters explores practical, speculative, and artistic approaches to working with fungi and living materials. Coming 2025. ✨   / fungalmatters   📷 Follow our lab adventures on Instagram: →   / fungal.matters   →   / slimy_futures   →   / formalisedcuriosities   📌 If this was helpful, please: 👍 Like 🔔 Subscribe for more open lab content 💌 Reach out for guidance on setting up your own mycelium lab or design workflow Stay entangled (and clean), Catherine & Jess