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Mushroom farming is a fairly new and indeed lucrative business. Most of the mushroom suppliers are small entrepreneurs who grow myceliums in their basements, garages or premises specially built for this business. The most popular product is oyster mushroom. This mushroom grows quickly, does not require complex care, the technology for growing oyster mushrooms at home is very simple and will be understandable even to a novice mushroom picker.
How to grow oyster mushrooms at home, how to understand the development of mycelium from scratch, without experience and special knowledge - this will be an article about this.
Features of oyster mushrooms
Unlike champignons, which require complex care, constant temperature adjustment, and daily moisture of the substrate, oyster mushrooms are less demanding. This is probably why more and more people are engaged in the cultivation of these mushrooms in their households.
Oyster mushrooms grow quickly - about four harvests of the mushroom can be harvested in six months. The planting material for this culture is mycelium - germinated spores. To grow oyster mushrooms from mycelium, you need a special substrate; often these mushrooms are grown on tree stumps.
There is also a distinction between an extensive and an intensive way of growing mushrooms. In the first case, oyster mushrooms grow in natural conditions, they do not create a special temperature or humidity, they do not prepare soil mixtures - they simply lay the mycelium in the ground and wait for the harvest.
The disadvantages of extensive cultivation are the dependence on weather conditions and the seasonality of this event - you can get a crop only in the warm season. As a result, this method can be used to grow one or two batches of mushrooms per season. But the economy of the extensive scheme is considered a big plus - no resources are spent for growing oyster mushrooms (for lighting, heating, humidification, etc.).
The intensive method involves the creation of artificial conditions for the growth of oyster mushrooms. In comfortable conditions, mushrooms grow many times faster, are practically not attacked by mold and insects, yields do not depend on external factors (weather, season, precipitation).
It is in an intensive way that beginners and experienced mushroom pickers most often grow oyster mushrooms in their households. If you follow the technology, it will turn out not only to feed the family with hearty mushrooms, but also to make a profitable business out of it.
How to grow oyster mushrooms at home using a substrate
Oyster mushroom grows at home as well as in industrial conditions. You just need to provide the mushrooms with everything you need, find the right room and take care of your myceliums every day.
How to grow oyster mushrooms at home step by step will be described below, in several paragraphs of the article.
Selection and preparation of a room for planting mushrooms
The most suitable place for growing oyster mushrooms at home is a basement or cellar. The temperature is always above zero, the humidity is high enough, and there are no drafts.
However, not every basement is suitable for oyster mushrooms, the room must meet several conditions:
- the cellar should be dry, in the sense that the floor or walls of the basement should not be heated or wet during the off-season.
- Constantly there should be approximately the same temperature.To achieve this, it is enough to insulate the walls, floor and ceiling of the basement, and in winter use a small electric heater.
- Each square meter of the room should be illuminated by one 50-watt light bulb - this light is needed for oyster mushrooms for normal growth.
- Good ventilation is imperative.
- The room must be protected from mushroom flies and other insects, so all ventilation openings are covered with mosquito nets with a mesh of up to 1 mm.
- There should be no mold or mildew in the basement for oyster mushrooms - all this has a very detrimental effect on the harvest, you can lose all oyster mushrooms in a short time.
- Humidity should be maintained at 85-95%, while neither the floor, nor the walls or ceiling should be very wet so that fungus does not develop.
First of all, you need to prepare the room: remove the old shelves, take out the vegetables and preservation, disinfect and wash the basement. For disinfection, it is recommended to whitewash the walls with bleach or use smoke bombs. When mold is found, it is better to paint the walls with a special anti-fungal paint.
Substrate preparation
To grow mushrooms, you need a special substrate. Any organic material that retains moisture well and allows air to pass through is suitable as a substrate. Most often used for oyster mushrooms:
- wheat or barley straw;
- buckwheat husk;
- sunflower husk;
- stalks of corn or other plants;
- corn cobs;
- sawdust or shavings of hardwood.
To grow oyster mushrooms, fractions of about 4 cm are needed, so the material for the substrate will need to be crushed. It is definitely worth checking the substrate for traces of mold or mildew - such material is not suitable for mushrooms.
In order to prevent contamination of the mycelium or mature oyster mushrooms with infections or fungi, the substrate must be heat treated. The processing can be different, but at home it is more convenient to use the processing of the substrate with hot water. For this, the substrate is placed in a container with water and boiled for 1-2 hours (depending on the size of the fractions).
After boiling, the substrate should be squeezed out, for this you can place it under oppression or simply let the water drain naturally.
Mycelium bookmark
The oyster mushroom mycelium must be stored in the right conditions, if the temperature is disturbed, the spores of the mushrooms will die. therefore it is worth buying mycelium only from trusted manufacturers who comply with the rules for storing and transporting such a product.
In order to grow four kilograms of oyster mushrooms, you will need about a kilogram of mycelium. It is most convenient to grow mushrooms in plastic bags, which must first be treated with a disinfectant.
There are two options for preparing the substrate:
- The mycelium is mixed with the substrate
- Lay out the substrate and mycelium in layers.
Regardless of which option you choose, you must first prepare the mycelium. Immediately after the purchase, the mycelium in bags is folded at home so that there is free space between the briquettes. The next day, the mycelium is taken to the basement, where the substrate is already located - the temperature of these components should equalize.
Before opening the bag, grind the mycelium by hand. Then the bag is opened and the mycelium is taken out with gloved hands, mixed with the substrate for oyster mushrooms.
The amount of mycelium depends on the manufacturer: for domestic material, the proportion is 3% of the mass of the substrate, imported mycelium needs less - about 1.5-2%.
Bag filling
Plastic bags are also disinfected with alcohol or chlorine. After that, you can spread the substrate with oyster mushroom mycelium in them. Beginners are advised to take small bags or packages that can hold about five kilograms of substrate. In large volumes, it is more difficult to control the temperature, because it can differ significantly on the surface and inside the bag.
When the bags are filled with substrate, they are tied. On one side, each bag is slightly pressed down, and holes are made in the opposite part. The holes are cut with a sterile and sharp knife, each about 5 cm long, they are made at an angle of 45 degrees.
The finished bags are transferred to the incubation room for oyster mushroom mycelium. This room should have a temperature of 25 degrees. Bags should not be placed close to each other, there should be a minimum gap of 5 cm between them.
Oyster mushroom incubation and cultivation
During incubation, the mycelium must grow through the substrate. This will become clear by the appearance of white threads that permeate the entire mass inside the bag.
For the mycelium to develop, a constant temperature is needed, fluctuations are unacceptable, they harm oyster mushrooms. Also, during this period, the basement cannot be ventilated. But you need to clean and disinfect the premises every day using chlorine.
After 18-25 days, the mycelium will germinate, and the bags with growing mushrooms must be transferred to another room for the next stage - cultivation. Here the temperature is lower - 10-20 degrees, and the humidity is higher - up to 95%. At this stage of development, oyster mushrooms also need light (at least 8-10 hours a day) and regular airing so that mold does not start.
Every day, the mycelium is moistened by spraying the oyster mushrooms that have appeared with water. You can also increase the humidity by irrigating the walls and basement floor.
The first harvest of oyster mushrooms can be expected in a month and a half. Mushrooms need to be twisted with a stem, and not cut with a knife. After harvesting the first wave of harvest, in a couple of weeks there will be a second one - the same in volume. Two more waves will remain, which will bring about 25% of the total harvest.
How oyster mushrooms are bred on stumps
The usual cultivation of oyster mushrooms at home for newcomers to the mushroom business may seem quite laborious and difficult. You can recommend the following to novice mushroom pickers: first, try growing mushrooms on stumps. This will allow you not to spend money on the purchase or preparation of an expensive substrate, so in case of failure, the loss of a novice mushroom picker will be minimal.
For oyster mushrooms, stumps or logs of hardwood are needed. The optimal size of the stumps is 15 cm in diameter, about 40 cm in length. It is better to take freshly sawn logs, but in extreme cases dry wood is also suitable. Before use, dry wood should be soaked in water for a week.
The second necessary component is oyster mushroom mycelium. For growing on stumps, grain mycelium is most suitable - spores germinated on a wheat grain.
There are several ways to grow oyster mushrooms on stumps or logs, one of the most common involves the following:
- You need to dig holes in the ground, the width of which is equal to the diameter of the logs, and the depth is about 30 cm. The number of holes corresponds to the number of logs or stumps.
- The bottom of each hole is covered with thick paper (you can use parchment paper or cardboard).
- The mycelium is poured onto the paper, and wooden logs are placed on top.
- The resulting cracks must be tamped tightly with sawdust or dry foliage.
- Everyone is covered with soil. The part of the logs that turned out to be above the ground can be covered with agrofibre (if the air temperature is low), and the distances between adjacent logs are covered with mulch.
- Sufficient moisture is required for the mycelium to germinate. Therefore, logs with oyster mushrooms should be watered regularly. It is very convenient to use a drip irrigation system for these purposes.
- When the stumps turn white, it means that the mycelium has sprouted - the logs no longer need to be kept warm, the agrofibre can be removed.
- Ripe oyster mushrooms are cut with a knife, grabbing whole clusters; it is not recommended to cut the mushrooms one by one.
With this method of growing, you do not have to regularly buy mycelium - oyster mushrooms will grow until the logs are completely destroyed. Of course, for this you need to create all the conditions, then the mushrooms will not die, and they will bear fruit for several seasons. In winter, wooden logs are removed to a basement or other cool room - the mycelium sprouted in stumps can live at temperatures down to -10 degrees.
The taste of oyster mushrooms grown in this way is no different - the mushrooms are just as tasty as those that grew in the substrate. Mushrooms on stumps are a great option for beginners or summer residents who rarely visit their site. This technology will not give a huge harvest, but it will be enough for a family of mushrooms.
All this technology can seem complicated and will scare away newcomers to the mushroom business. But a self-grown mushroom is probably more useful than a purchased one, because the owner knows on what substrate it was grown, with what means it was processed, and other nuances. In addition, the mushroom business can be a good business and bring a profit to the family.
The video will tell you more about how to properly grow the oyster mushroom crop at home:
