Mycelium for professionals

M1205 Cordyceps militaris

orange/yellow fruiting body
medicinal uses
abundant fruiting bodies

All prices on this website are EX WORKS = VAT and transport cost are not included. More information see below.

Parasitic ascomycete fungus that in the wild infects insects. Cultivated for its medicinal properties. Excellent fruiter on substrate with fruiting bodies of 1-6 cm high.

Possibly considered a pest or contaminant by your administration – check this link for more information

Important information for customers: we only sell large quantities of inoculated spawn, on rice substrate. Organic certification is possible. We work on the basis of cultures provided by Kaizen Cordyceps.

EN: Caterpillar fungus I FR: Cordyceps militaire I DE: Puppen-Kernkeule NL: Rupsendoder I HU: Vörös rovarrontógomba

Note: due to the high degeneration rate of this species, we do not sell cultures on a regular basis. For customers in Europe, we refer to Kaizen Cordyceps for cultures: https://kaizencordyceps.co.uk. Strains of the Cordyceps militaris are constantly renewed and crossed in order to generate new individuals. It is not possible to cultivate Cordyceps militaris for longer than 4-6 months without the culture loosing its capacity to fruit. At this moment, it is not yet clear to science why this degeneration takes place.

Cordyceps militaris strain degeneration is associated with genes that are involved in toxin biosynthesis, energy metabolism, and DNA methylation and chromosome remodeling. Strains are known to become even haploïdic again after too many transfers (which is also a reason why it becomes unable to fruit).

Note on toxin biosynthesis: these toxins are natural killer cell-mediated cytotoxins. Literature supports this: A total of 9,684 protein-coding genes have been predicted, and 13.7% of these genes are species-specific, 16 % of the C. militaris genes (1,547) are related to pathogen–host interactions. No orthologs of known human mycotoxins have been detected (Zheng et al., 2011) which is consistent with its safe usage as a medicine.

Zheng, P., Xia, Y., Xiao, G., Xiong, C., Hu, X., Zhang, S., Zheng, H., Huang, Y., Zhou, Y., Wang, S., Zhao, G.-P., Liu, X., St Leger, R. J., & Wang, C. (2011). Genome sequence of the insect pathogenic fungus Cordyceps militaris, a valued traditional chinese medicine. Genome Biology, 12(11), R116. https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-2011-12-11-r116

A few relevant publications of the effect of degeneration:

Yin J, Xin X, Weng Y, Gui Z (2017) Transcriptome-wide analysis reveals the progress of Cordyceps militaris subculture degeneration. PLOS ONE 12(10): e0186279. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186279

Lou, H., Lin, J., Guo, L. et al. Advances in research on Cordyceps militaris degeneration. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 103, 7835–7841 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-10074-z

Stage 1 mother culture

PRODUCTS:
– tube
– petri dish
– cryovial

USE:
– Use this product to produce your STAGE 2

Stage 2 mother spawn

PRODUCTS:
– syringe (15 ml)
– syringe (500 ml)
– bag (1000 ml)

USE:
– Use this product to produce your STAGE 3

Stage 3 Inoculum

PRODUCTS:
– bag (5000 ml on grains)

USE:
– Use this product to produce your STAGE 4

Stage 4 spawn

PRODUCTS:
– 50GR, 1L, 5L and 10L bag
– wood dowels 50, 500 and 1000 pcs
– syringes

USE:
– Use this product to produce your STAGE 5
– Final product: biocontrol / biostimulants / Cordyceps substrate

Stage 5 substrate /Mycomaterials

We do not sell substrate or mycomaterials.

Stage 6 mushrooms

We do not sell mushrooms.