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mycomuseFACTORY
THE LAB · FOR SPECIALISTS AND PARTNERS

a lab that keeps what it measures

Cordyceps militaris grows here in a controlled tent and a camera films every box. Frames, sensor data and culture records are stored so they can be recomputed and checked later.

propose a collaboration
5cameras, a photo every 10 minutes while the lights are on
19,351frames of five boxes since 19 Aug 2026
117,370sensor records since 17 Aug 2026
4strains in the current run: KC022, KC023, KC024, KC025
489papers in the library, 12 topics

what the lab does

01cultures

A culture bank with strain, batch and passage codes. QR labels and the history of every culture on record.

02grow room

A tent with racks, white and red light (630 nm) on a schedule, temperature, humidity and CO₂ sensors with history.

03time-lapses

A Raspberry Pi HQ camera on every box, frame quality control and time-lapse videos.

04research

Image analysis: colour and height of fruiting bodies with confidence intervals, rule-based stages. A library of papers with extracts.

01cultures

Four strains from the culture bank in five boxes. Every box has a culture and a batch code.

A box is a clear container with brown rice and nutrient broth, closed with a lid. The mycelium grows through the rice, turns orange in the light and forms fruiting bodies.

With one or two boxes per strain, differences between strains are pilot observations, not proven differences.

fruiting from day = start of height growth estimated from the growth curve, 95% interval in brackets
boxculture rackinoculated day todayfruiting from day
1 CAM-1 KC025-S13316 Aug49 30.0 (27.4–31.4)
2 CAM-2 KC023-S15316 Aug49 31.6 (30.9–32.2)
3 CAM-3 KC024-S14318 Aug47 32.5 (31.7–32.9)
4 CAM-4 KC022-S13318 Aug47 35.6 (34.7–36.4)
5 CAM-5 KC023-S19319 Aug46 30.4 (29.6–31.1)

02grow room

A tent with racks, white and red light (630 nm) 14 hours a day, sensors for temperature, humidity and CO₂.

temperature19.0 °C
humidity77%
CO₂515 ppm
lights6–20 h

4 Oct, 21:00, hourly mean at rack 3. The sensors measure the tent air, not the boxes: inside, the air is saturated (droplets on the walls) and CO₂ is not measured yet.

CO₂ in the tent, 27 Sep–3 Oct ppm, hourly means lights on
450500550Sun 27Mon 28Tue 29Wed 30Thu 1Fri 2Sat 3 450500Sun 27Tue 29Thu 1Sat 3

CO₂ climbs to 537 ppm overnight and falls to 423 ppm during the day.

03growth stages

Eight stages from the lab’s vocabulary, with the day box 3 reached each one.

  1. P0 lag grains after inoculation, no visible growth yet before the camera
  2. P1 colonisation white mycelium spreads through the rice until day 2.1
  3. P2 colour in the light the mycelium turns yellow, then orange half on day 19.1
  4. P3 primordia the surface turns bumpy as fruiting bodies form day 31.1
  5. P4 · NOW elongation the fruiting bodies grow taller since day 32.5
  6. P5 maturation the tips thicken and growth stops next
  7. P6 harvest ripe fruiting bodies are picked and weighed when ripe
  8. P7 overmature the fruiting bodies fade and collapse should not happen

stages from the image analysis as of 26 Sep 2026 (MMF-PHASE-1.0 rules, height growth from the growth curve)

04research

library: 489 papers in 12 topics

what has emerged

run KC022–KC025, 5 boxes, analysis as of 26 Sep 2026
OBSERVATION · 26 Sep 2026

they grow faster at night

During elongation, height grew faster at night in 4 of 5 boxes; the 95% interval excludes zero in 2 of them (box 3: by 0.21 px/h, 0.12–0.33). Night also differs in temperature, humidity and morning condensation, so darkness cannot be separated yet. No such measurement turned up in the available literature.

own data · 5 boxes
OBSERVATION · 26 Sep 2026

colour doesn’t predict fruiting

Two KC023 boxes reached half orange cover on day 7.1 and 19.2, yet fruited at the same time (day 31.6 and 30.4) and grew equally fast. Colour shows the response to light, not fertility or cordycepin content.

own data · Wang 2018
COMPARISON · 26 Sep 2026

later than in the literature

Primordia formed on day 27–31 and fruiting bodies emerged on day 30.0–35.6. In studies, primordia usually form around day 14–20, at the latest 25.5. The best-supported suspects: 17–19 °C instead of the usual 20–22 °C, unmeasured air exchange under the lids and strain genetics (the supplier itself expects harvest on day 55–65).

Chao 2019 · Zhou 2026 · Shrikhandia 2026

With one or two boxes per strain, differences between strains are pilot observations, not proven differences. The experimental unit is the box, not the frame.

how the data are handled

  • Raw frames never change and carry their SHA-256 fingerprint.
  • The data foundation is append-only: a correction is a new row pointing to the original. Culture records keep their change history.
  • Every result knows the version of the code that computed it.
  • Frozen data releases with a manifest, Croissant 1.1 and RO-Crate 1.2.
  • The data are not public yet; sharing with partners is decided case by case.

where collaboration would help

  1. 1HPLC of cordycepin and adenosine in harvest samples. UV-Vis at 260 nm cannot tell them apart.
  2. 2PCR of mating types MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 in the master cultures, as a check on strain degeneration.
  3. 3Computer vision: segmenting individual fruiting bodies in the frames and checking it against manual measurement.

cultures from the USA for growers

fresh, by prior arrangement

ON REQUEST roughly every two months

fresh cultures from the USA

Roughly every two months, cultures travel from the USA to Europe. Get in touch in advance and a fresh culture can come for you too.

  1. 1pick a breeder and strain, or write what you are looking for
  2. 2the form of the culture, the price and the date are agreed
  3. 3you receive it in person in the Czech Republic after the trip

Cultures for growing and research only, not food. Only what EU import rules allow is brought in; what is possible is clarified when arranging.

price per culture, on request

US breeders and labs to choose from

Breeder prices are indicative as of 28 Sep 2026, excluding shipping and the work of carrying it. MycoMuse Factory does not represent them and follows their terms: where they do not allow resale, you order the culture yourself and MycoMuse Factory only carries it.

  • Appalachia Terrestrial Fungi Strains bred from single ascospores of wild Appalachian specimens, including albino and variegated ones. liquid culture, 1, 3 or 5 strains · from $38 research use only, no resale terrestrialfungi.com
  • Pennsylvania MycoSymbiotics Cultures paired from single-ascospore isolates of wild collections and bred commercial lines, tested for fruiting. liquid culture 10 ml · $30 mycosymbiotics.com
  • Illinois Myco Labs Strain HIGHMILE22A, a first-generation isolate. The lab says it colonises fast and pins reliably on rice. liquid culture 10 ml · $12.50 mycolabs.com
  • USA Liquid Fungi A standard culture without a named strain. Explicitly also for commercial growing. liquid culture 10 ml · $15 liquidfungi.com

contact

Write about what you measure or would like to measure.

e-mail
info@mycomusefactory.com
location
Czech Republic
Instagram
@mycomusefactory