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Mushroom farming is a fairly new and, indeed, profitable business. Most mushroom suppliers are small entrepreneurs who grow mycelium 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 process of mycelium development from scratch, without experience and special knowledge - there will be an article about this.
Features of oyster mushrooms
Unlike champignons, which require complex care, constant temperature adjustment, and daily moistening of the substrate, oyster mushrooms are less demanding. This is probably why more and more people are growing these mushrooms in their households.
Oyster mushrooms grow quickly - in six months you can collect about four harvests of the mushroom. The planting material for this culture is mycelium - sprouted spores. To grow oyster mushrooms from mycelium, you need a special substrate; these mushrooms are often grown on tree stumps.
There are also extensive and intensive methods of growing mushrooms. In the first case, oyster mushrooms grow in natural conditions; no special temperature or humidity is created for them, no soil mixtures are prepared - they simply plant 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 activity - the harvest can only be obtained in the warm season. As a result, you can grow one or two batches of mushrooms per season using this method. But the big advantage is the cost-effectiveness of the extensive scheme - no resources are spent on growing oyster mushrooms (lighting, heating, humidification, etc.).
The intensive method involves creating artificial conditions for the growth of oyster mushrooms. In comfortable conditions, mushrooms grow many times faster, are practically not attacked by mold and insects, and yields do not depend on external factors (weather, time of year, precipitation).
It is in the intensive method that oyster mushrooms are most often grown by beginners and experienced mushroom pickers in their households. If you follow the technology, you will not only be able to feed your family with hearty mushrooms, but also turn it into a profitable business.
How to grow oyster mushrooms at home using substrate
Oyster mushrooms grow just as well at home as in industrial ones. You just need to provide the mushrooms with everything they need, find the right room and take care of your mycelium every day.
How to grow oyster mushrooms at home step by step will be described below in several paragraphs of the article.
Selecting and preparing a room for planting mushrooms
The most suitable place for growing oyster mushrooms at home is a basement or cellar. The temperature here is constantly above zero, the humidity is quite high, 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 flooded or wet during the off-season.
- There should always 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 - oyster mushrooms need this light for normal growth.
- High-quality ventilation is essential.
- The room must be protected from fungus flies and other insects, so all ventilation holes are covered with mosquito nets with a mesh size 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, and you can lose all the oyster mushrooms in a short time.
- Humidity should be maintained at 85-95%, and neither the floor, walls or ceiling should be very wet, so that fungus does not develop.
First of all, you need to prepare the room: remove old shelving, take out vegetables and canned food, disinfect and wash the basement. For disinfection, it is recommended to whitewash the walls with bleach or use smoke bombs. When mold is detected, it is better to paint the walls with 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 hardwood shavings.
To grow oyster mushrooms, you need fractions of about 4 cm in size, so the material for the substrate will need to be crushed. You should definitely check the substrate for traces of mold or mildew - such material is not suitable for mushrooms.
In order to prevent the mycelium or mature oyster mushrooms from becoming infected with infections or fungi, the substrate must be heat treated. Treatment may vary, but at home it is more convenient to use hot water to treat the substrate. To do 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; to do this, you can place it under pressure or simply allow the water to drain naturally.
Mycelium bookmark
Oyster mushroom mycelium must be stored in the correct conditions; if the temperature is disturbed, the mushroom spores will die. That's why You should only buy mycelium 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:
- Mycelium mixed with substrate
- Lay out the substrate and mycelium in layers.
Regardless of the option chosen, you must first prepare the mycelium. Immediately after 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 package, the mycelium is crushed by hand. Then open the bag and take out the mycelium with gloved hands and mix it with the oyster mushroom substrate.
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%.
Filling bags
Plastic bags are also disinfected with alcohol or chlorine. After this, you can lay out the substrate with oyster mushroom mycelium in them. Beginners are advised to take small bags or bags that 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 pressed down a little, and holes are made in the opposite part. The holes are cut with a sterile and sharp knife, each about 5 cm long, and they are made at an angle of 45 degrees.
The finished bags are transferred to the room for incubation of oyster mushroom mycelium.This room should have a temperature of 25 degrees. The bags cannot be placed close together; there must be a minimum gap of 5 cm between them.
Incubation and cultivation of oyster mushrooms
During the incubation process, the mycelium should grow through the substrate. This will become clear by the appearance of white threads penetrating 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 you cannot ventilate the basement. 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 need to 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 ventilation to prevent mold from growing.
Every day the mycelium is moistened by spraying the emerging oyster mushrooms with water. You can also increase the humidity by misting the walls and floor of the basement.
In a month and a half you can expect the first harvest of oyster mushrooms. Mushrooms need to be twisted with the stem, and not cut with a knife. After harvesting the first wave of the harvest, in a couple of weeks there will be a second one - the same in volume. There will be two more waves left, which will bring about 25% of the total harvest.
How to grow oyster mushrooms on stumps
The usual cultivation of oyster mushrooms at home for beginners in the mushroom business may seem quite labor-intensive and complicated. We can recommend the following to novice mushroom pickers: first, try growing mushrooms on stumps.This will allow you not to spend money on buying or preparing an expensive substrate, so in case of failure, the losses of a novice mushroom picker will be minimal.
Oyster mushrooms require stumps or hardwood logs. The optimal size of stumps is a diameter of 15 cm, a length of about 40 cm. It is better to take freshly cut logs, but in extreme cases, dry wood will do. Before use, dry wood should be soaked in water for a week.
The second necessary component is oyster mushroom mycelium. The most suitable for growing on stumps is grain mycelium - spores germinated on wheat grain.
There are several ways to grow oyster mushrooms on stumps or logs, one of the most common involves doing 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).
- Mycelium is poured onto the paper, and wooden logs are placed on top.
- The resulting cracks must be compacted tightly with sawdust or dry leaves.
- Everything is covered with soil. That part of the logs that is above the ground can be covered with agrofibre (if the air temperature is low), and the distances between adjacent logs can be covered with mulch.
- In order for the mycelium to germinate, sufficient moisture is necessary. Therefore, logs with oyster mushrooms need to 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, capturing whole bunches; it is not recommended to cut mushrooms one by one.
With this growing method, you do not have to regularly buy mycelium - the 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 will bear fruit for several seasons. In winter, wooden logs are put away in a basement or other cool room - 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 an excellent option for beginners or summer residents who rarely visit their plot. This technology will not produce a huge harvest, but it will be enough mushrooms for a family.
All this technology may seem complicated and will intimidate newcomers to the mushroom business. But a mushroom grown with your own hands is probably healthier than a purchased one, because the owner knows on what substrate it was grown, what means it was processed with, and other nuances. In addition, mushroom business can become a good business and bring profit to the family.
The video will tell you more about how to properly grow oyster mushrooms at home:
