How is Cordyceps sinensis cultivated artificially? Latest technical method tutorial
Is there artificial cultivation of Cordyceps sinensis now? Is artificial cultivation of Cordyceps sinensis very difficult? Wild Cordyceps sinensis is truly very rare, and people are now researching how to carry out artificial cultivation of Cordyceps sinensis. In recent years, research on artificial cultivation of Cordyceps sinensis at home and abroad has been carried out extensively and in depth, but under completely artificially controlled conditions, research work on infecting host larvae with Cordyceps fungi so that they can produce the same fruiting bodies as natural Cordyceps has still not achieved breakthrough progress. Let us take a look below!
Can Cordyceps sinensis be cultivated artificially?
Since Cordyceps has such great medicinal value, and there is so little of it in nature, can it be developed artificially? The answer is yes. At present, there are mainly the following three methods or approaches in the industry:
1. Artificial cultivation of “Cordyceps sinensis”: Theoretically speaking, a phenomenon like fungal infection of larvae is actually very easy to achieve in the laboratory: as long as the living environment of the Cordyceps bat moth is simulated, and then a specific strain is directly inoculated onto the larval body. However, this is limited only to small-scale experiments. If it is scaled up for production, there will be many technical problems. A brief introduction will follow.
2. Cordyceps mycelium culture. This means directly isolating the strain of Cordyceps fungi, culturing it artificially, obtaining the product, and then carrying out artificial development. On the market, it is also often called “artificial Cordyceps sinensis”.
3. Looking for substitutes with the same medicinal functions as Cordyceps sinensis, such as Cordyceps militaris, also known as northern Cordyceps sinensis, which is also a precious medicinal fungus. The price per kilogram of Cordyceps militaris fruiting bodies produced mainly from rice and silkworm pupae is around 600—800 yuan, and the lowest price per kilogram of Cordyceps militaris produced from silkworm pupae with the pupa and stroma as one integrated body is around 1000—1500 yuan, much lower than the price of Cordyceps.
Main techniques for artificial cultivation of Cordyceps sinensis
1. Strains: The strains mostly come from natural Cordyceps sinensis and are obtained by conventional isolation and culture. According to research, during the sexual stage of Cordyceps fungi, a certain humidity is needed to meet the water requirements demanded by the complex physiological changes in the body, and there is a correlation between temperature and humidity. Under a certain humidity, if the temperature changes slowly or remains relatively constant, it is not conducive to the extraction of fruiting bodies. The occurrence of the sexual stage must go through low-temperature and variable-temperature treatment. After many years of subculturing, the Sanming Fungus Research Institute of Fujian Province also only grew incomplete young stromata. They believe that the generation of Cordyceps fungi must involve certain active substances from bat moth larvae in order to complete.
2. Techniques for breeding bat moths: The Sichuan Provincial Institute of Chinese Materia Medica has conducted long-term research on artificial rearing of bat moths. Even under constant temperature conditions, it takes 230-570 days to complete one generation, let alone the need to handle the specific operations of each insect stage as well as feed and rearing environment. Such harsh conditions are impossible for ordinary people to achieve.
3. Infection route: Cordyceps sinensis grows fruiting bodies only after Cordyceps fungal spores contact larvae, infect them, and cause death. According to observations, the infection rate is highest in host larvae of the 4th-5th instar. Older mature larvae are rarely infected, and larvae below the 3rd instar are not infected. How to grasp the timing is also very difficult for ordinary people to master. On the issue of infection, if the conditions for artificially breeding insects are relatively good, then the insect body is too strong and has strong antibacterial ability, making infection difficult. If the conditions are poor, then after the fungal infection invades, it causes death. The appearance of either of these two situations will lead to failure.
4. Simulating the ecological environment of the place of origin: that is, the conditions of temperature, humidity, light, soil, vegetation, and so on found on high mountains at an altitude of 3500-5000 m. This is also difficult for ordinary people to achieve. It is precisely for these reasons that ordinary people absolutely cannot grow Cordyceps sinensis. Claims about how much yield can be harvested in a very short time are all deceptive. Even so, why are there still some reports of successful artificial cultivation in some newspapers and magazines? In fact, what they describe is merely mycelial culture of Cordyceps sinensis or culture of species in the same genus as Cordyceps sinensis, not true Cordyceps sinensis. Recently, scientist Hiroki Sato and others at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute of Japan announced that cultivating Cordyceps sinensis requires only one and a half months. In fact, what he cultivated was only a kind of Cordyceps militaris, also not true Cordyceps sinensis.
The above are the main points about artificial cultivation of Cordyceps sinensis. Cordyceps sinensis is a traditional precious medicinal material in China, distributed in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and other places, and has special pharmacological effects and therapeutic efficacy. If artificial cultivation can be developed, it will be a major development!