What tools and equipment are needed for cultivating Armillaria in Gastrodia elata cultivation

Cultivating fungi is a highly technical and very meticulous task, requiring a considerable level of technical skill and the necessary equipment, tools, and so on. The main equipment and tools needed are:

1) Sterile box: The sterile box, also called an inoculation box, is a small box made of wood and glass that can be sealed to allow fumigation with chemicals and prevent contamination by unwanted microorganisms. The front and back of the sterile box are fitted with glass windows that can be opened and closed, and two openings are made at the bottom, fitted with cloth sleeves, through which both hands can be inserted to work inside the box. A fluorescent lamp or ultraviolet sterilizing lamp is installed at the top inside the box.

2) Sterile room: Like the sterile box, it must close tightly to allow disinfection. Because its area is larger, the requirements are somewhat stricter. Only when production volume is large is an inoculation room used for inoculation.

3) Sterilization pot: A sterilization pot is a pot that can be sealed and can raise the steam temperature inside the pot to kill unwanted microorganisms and achieve sterilization. Depending on the scale and economic conditions, either a high-pressure sterilization pot or an automatic homemade steam pot can be used. A homemade steam pot can be built with a brick-and-wood structure, or with a brick structure alone.

4) Spore collector: A device used to collect fungal spores, mainly including culture dishes, a perforated bell jar, a tripod, and so on.

5) Spawn bottle: For the spawn bottle, it is best to use colored glass bottles, which can both block light and make it easy to check the growth of mycelium inside the bottle and whether there are unwanted microorganisms. A bottle capacity of about 750 milliliters is best, with a mouth diameter of about 3 cm. If too large, unwanted microorganisms can easily invade and it is difficult to maintain temperature; if too small, filling the material is difficult and taking out spawn is inconvenient.

6) Disinfectant chemicals: These include formaldehyde (formalin), carbolic acid, potassium permanganate, ethanol (alcohol), benzalkonium bromide (Lysol), mercuric chloride, and so on.

7) Culture medium supplies: These include potato, agar (also called Chinese agar), glucose, monopotassium phosphate, magnesium sulfate, and so on.

8) Other items: These include inoculation needles, tweezers, alcohol lamps, test tubes, Erlenmeyer flasks, ultraviolet lamp tubes, and so on. Inoculation needles and similar items can be made by oneself from stainless steel rods.