How can you grow porcini mushrooms at home?

White mushroom is deservedly and rightfully considered the standard for other mushrooms. He also looks attractive - with a fleshy brown hat on a white pot-bellied leg, and his taste is excellent. When fried, porcini mushrooms emit a special, nutty aroma. The mushroom got its name - white - because its incision does not darken during drying and cooking, while maintaining a juicy, appetizing structure. And today we will consider the cultivation of porcini mushrooms at home and not only.

White mushroom: description

Almost everywhere white mushroom is also called boletus. And also he is called a bear, belovik, wood grouse. No matter how else this forest handsome man is called in numerous corners of Russia, he always looks distinctive:

1. The boletus cap is brown. It changes its bulge with the age of the fungus. From a semi-cylindrical shape in a small mushroom, it gradually makes a transition to an almost flat, about 20 cm in diameter, hat of an adult mushroom.
2. The stem is always whitish, with characteristic brownish vertical veins. Initially, it has the shape of a barrel, and as it grows, it stretches into a dense, powerful cylinder.

Now you can visually distinguish the porcini mushroom (you received the description) from other forest mushrooms.

Varieties of porcini mushrooms

The porcini mushroom has many forms, and their varieties depend on the trees under which the mushroom grows and in symbiosis with which it enters:

1. The pine shape is perhaps the most colorful of the porcini mushrooms. It has a beautiful brown hat and a slightly purple-tinged leg, slightly thickened at the bottom.
2. The spruce form is the most common in central Russia. The hat is brownish-reddish, with spots and a rim along the edge. The leg is barrel-shaped, covered to the middle with a fine mesh.
3. Oak form - strong porcini mushrooms with elastic brown caps with a grayish tint.
4. Dark bronze shape - the name speaks for itself. Hats are dark, wrinkled; legs are brownish.

Boletus growing in shaded areas has a lighter color of the cap. And their fellows, who grew up in the sun, have a rich brown top. The mushroom absolutely does not tolerate strongly shaded and mossy places. For example, it will not grow in a dense forest. And he will choose comfortable, slightly shaded or sunny places.

We grow mushrooms in the country

If a mushroom picker returns from the forest with a basket full of boletus, it means that he did not go mushrooming in vain. Many people wonder if it is possible to grow mushrooms in the country in order to admire the beautiful landscape, and, of course, it is guaranteed to have a rare product on the table. Yes, growing a king of mushrooms in a garden is quite possible, although not quite an easy task. You need to know the intricacies and peculiarities of breeding this fastidious forest sturdy fellow, but as a result of hard work, the first white mushrooms will grow near your country house.

So, growing mushrooms in the country.It will not be easy to achieve results because the porcini mushroom belongs to the mycorrhizal group, which indicates their duty and very difficult intergrowth and interlacing with the roots of the trees under which they live. This is a very complex and vital symbiosis for fungi. Without a tree, or rather its roots, the so-called fungus root cannot form and the fruit growing on the surface cannot develop. Therefore, alas, it will not work to grow porcini mushrooms in a bare area.

A long-standing and well-proven method of cultivation is in an area where trees between ten and thirty years old grow. White mushroom settles under pine, spruce, oak, birch, beech. Matching tree species when replanting mycelium is necessary. The more similar the conditions of a summer cottage plantation of boletus to their forest location, the more chances that they will successfully take root.

White mushrooms at home

If you wish, you can master the cultivation of mushrooms at home, having studied the accumulated experience of scientists from Holland. With the help of the technologies they recommend, you can start growing the product in greenhouses and dug cellars.

The cultivation of a plantation with an intensive method, namely, it is taken into service at home, has its own difficulties. One of them is a considerable investment, the purchase of equipment to ensure the required temperature and humidity in the room. But the advantages of this growing method are considerable - fertility throughout the season and a good ripening rate. For effective indoor breeding, it is recommended to use mycelium cultivation.

Requirements for planting material

It is advisable to purchase planting material from suppliers with recommendations, carefully study all the initial data of the mycelium indicated on the label. It is very important to pay attention to the smell and color of the mycelium. If there is a weak ammonia smell, immediately reject the batch of planting material - it was overheated and is now unviable. The color of a healthy exudate is orange with a slight yellowness.

Having brought home the packages with the purchased mycelium, you need to cool them, ventilate them and only then start preparing before laying. The contents of the bags are crushed without tearing the packaging. Thus, they maintain a gentle and adaptive temperature regime for the future mycelium. When laying, sterility is very important:

• it is necessary to work with gloves;
• premises for growing porcini mushrooms and laying mycelium should be separate;
• opening the package, it is necessary to process it with a disinfectant solution.

Mushroom growing technology

To complete the topic of the previous paragraph, let's start with the method of germinating a crop at home. So, growing mushrooms at home. Here are the main stages of indoor work:

1. Boiling in bags for 1-1.5 hours and subsequent cooling of the substrate. (Hole water drainage bags).
2. Mixing mycelium and substrate on disinfected tables. The availability of domestic material should be at the level of 5%, and imported - 2.5%.
3. Putting the mixture into bags. Tamp the grafted substrate tightly into bags, flatten one side and make several cuts for the mushrooms to germinate.
4. Place the bags vertically on the shelves. Watering is normal, without severe waterlogging. Ventilation of the room is required.
5. If the care was correct, the crop of mushrooms can be harvested for at least six months.

This is how porcini mushrooms are grown at home. Yes, quite difficult, but worth it.

Growing methods in the garden

Growing porcini mushrooms at home is strikingly different from growing in a personal plot. But first things first.

For cultivation of porcini mushrooms on the site, first prepare the place for laying the mycelium. On the top layer of soil previously removed with a shovel, compost or soil with peat is laid. Lay the planting material, cover it with a layer of turf removed earlier.

The most effective options for harvesting seed is to bring several pieces of mycelium the size of a chicken egg from the forest. Such blanks are planted in the soil without processing, it is only important to observe at least two conditions:

1. The trees under which the boletus grew in nature should be of the same species with the plants at the new planting site.
2. It is necessary to dig out the material very carefully - porcini mushrooms are hard to grow together with the roots and restore communication with the satellite tree.

Sowing forest mycelium

How to grow porcini mushrooms if there is no way to purchase high-quality planting material?

A very good effect is given by the method of sowing mycelium using the cap and the tubular part of the porcini mushroom. 5-6 mature caps are taken, it is possible even with wormholes, and soaked for a day in a bucket of water. Then the contents are kneaded with your hands. The thick is separated into another container. The thick mass is the body of the mushroom, and it comes in handy too. The bare roots of the tree are spilled with the remaining liquid with a large number of spores, then everything is covered with a layer of thick mushroom substance and sprinkled on top with the soil removed earlier. It is necessary to carefully water the planted mycelium and carry out subsequent watering once a week in the absence of rain.

Now you are familiar with the cultivation of porcini mushrooms at home, and in the garden, where, with the correct observance of all technologies, you can get a harvest of boletus the first time in a year or two. Good luck!

Thanks to its rich taste and delicate aroma, the porcini mushroom is considered the most valuable trophy from the "quiet hunt". However, not all gourmets like to wander through the forests in search of prey, but this delicacy is not cheap. However, there is a way out! Let's find out how to grow porcini mushrooms on your own plot.

How to prepare seed yourself

To grow mushrooms at home, you need to stock up on seed. To cook it yourself, you need to find overripe boletus in the forest (dried and wormy ones will do).

To obtain seed, you need about 10 caps. At home, separate them from the stalks and prepare a container of water. Alcohol (3 tablespoons per 10 liters), potassium permanganate (1 g per bucket) and granulated sugar (50 g) can be added to the water. Knead the caps in your hands and add them to the water to make a homogeneous mass. It should be infused for about 10 hours. Then strain it. Spores of fungi are contained in water, cake is not needed. Use the caps collected in the forest within a few hours, otherwise they will deteriorate. You cannot freeze them.

To grow boletus at home, you can use the mycelium brought from the forest: having found an adult mushroom in the forest, cut off a layer of earth around it about 25x25 cm. At home, you can completely lay the mycelium in the prepared soil, or divide it into 8–20 pieces.

Buying ready-made mycelium

Growing porcini mushrooms at home is possible with the help of a purchased mycelium. The mycelium of the porcini mushroom can be either dry or already germinated, placed in a substrate. If you intend to purchase it online, choose a trusted and reliable supplier. When buying directly, pay attention: the sprouted mycelium of porcini mushrooms should be red in color with small yellow blotches. The presence of black and green areas, as well as a strong smell of ammonia, indicate that the product is spoiled.

In open areas, planting the mycelium of porcini mushrooms should be carried out under a forest tree. The first harvest can be expected next year. Fruiting from the mycelium lasts on average 3-4 years, but if useful microorganisms (for example, "Baikal EM-1") are added to the water for irrigation, this period can be increased to seven years and, moreover, the yield can be increased.

Selection and preparation of the substrate

To grow mushrooms in the garden, you can use a purchased substrate or cook it yourself. To do this, you need to mix straw, sawdust of deciduous trees, sunflower husks.Other sources recommend alternating layers: one from a mixture of dead leaves with sawdust, the second from the same mixture with the addition of soil. It is important that none of the components contain rot and mold. Before planting mushrooms, the substrate must be properly moistened, and it is recommended to use boiling water or steam - this will kill harmful bacteria at the same time.

Growing features

First, decide where you will grow your crop: in a basement, a greenhouse or on a plot. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

First, consider how to grow a porcini mushroom on the site.

The cultivation of porcini mushrooms in a personal plot assumes the presence of coniferous or deciduous forest trees there. Fruit ones will not work - you need to grow porcini mushrooms in the country away from any cultivated plants, be it trees, shrubs or vegetables.

Remove the top layer of earth (about 15 cm) around the selected tree. It is desirable that the roots are exposed at the same time, but in no case should they be damaged. If using a spore infusion, pour it on the ground (approximately 350 ml per 25 cm2). Then cover again with earth and water abundantly - either along the trunk or with shallow irrigation. In this way, you can plant a porcini mushroom in the country in August-September.

To plant mycelium, make a 1.5 sq. m in diameter and 30 cm deep. Place the substrate in it, alternating it with the ground in 10 cm layers. The height of such a bed should be 20 cm above ground level. Plant the mycelium in the substrate in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of 30 cm between the bags. Carefully water the garden bed, cover it with a layer of fallen leaves.

Planting mycelium can be carried out from May to September.

Caring for planted mushrooms consists mainly of abundant watering. For the winter, it is recommended to cover them with a thick layer of foliage, spruce branches or straw.

When growing mushrooms indoors, it must first be sterilized with a 1% chlorine solution, otherwise pests may start, including various types of mold and parasitic insects.

Growing mushrooms in a greenhouse or in a basement implies creating a warm and humid microclimate, since it will not work to grow many porcini mushrooms in dry air. In order for the greenhouse atmosphere to meet these requirements, it is recommended to install several barrels of water or wet sawdust there.

The substrate for the premises is the same as for open areas. In the basement, bags with small incisions are filled with them. Sowing is recommended with mycelium. The bags should be placed no closer than 5 cm from each other.

During the incubation period (until the caps appear), the temperature should be maintained at + 23–25 ° C; a temperature of +30 ° C will destroy most of the myceliums of the grown crop.

Lighting is not required at this time. In the greenhouse, it is advisable to muffle it as much as possible, in the basement it is simply not to turn it on. Airing is not necessary, but the humidity should not be more than 90%, so that mold does not start. Also, for its prevention, disinfection is periodically done with a chlorine solution.

Growing mushrooms need different care: when the caps appear, the temperature is lowered to + 10 ° C. Now the greenhouse or cellar should be well ventilated - oxygen is necessary for the normal development of boletus. Lighting is required for 5-6 hours a day. To grow porcini mushrooms in a greenhouse, it must be muted, without direct sunlight. It is advisable to spray mushrooms from a spray bottle 2 times a day: this will make their structure denser. The first crop can usually be taken in 20-25 days.

Moldy bags must be removed from the premises immediately. Mushrooms cannot be grown on them, but they can become a good fertilizer.

Please note: boletus can hardly take root without trees, and the first attempts to grow in the basement may be unsuccessful.But if you intend to start breeding porcini mushrooms in this way, choose the Dutch mycelium: in Holland, a boletus variety was bred, which grows most easily "in captivity".

But having mastered all the subtleties, indoors you can get a harvest of mushrooms all year round or even start growing porcini mushrooms on an industrial scale: since growing boletus is more difficult than champignon or oyster mushroom, it is much more appreciated.

Mushroom picker tips

Finally - small secrets of mushroom growing.

When self-collecting the seed, the boletus that grew near the type of tree that is on your site will take root better. When physically transferring mycelium, their appearance must necessarily match.

It is recommended to disinfect the substrate or soil with a solution of tannins 2-3 hours before planting. It can be made from cheap black tea: 50-100 g is poured into 1 liter of boiling water and brewed until it cools completely. Another option is oak bark. It will need 30 g per 1 liter of water. The bark should be boiled for an hour, adding water to the original volume as it boils. Each "mushroom" tree needs 2-3 liters of one of these solutions.

Video "Self-cultivation of porcini mushrooms"

From this video you will learn how to grow porcini mushrooms on your site.

Self-cultivation of porcini mushrooms at home seems like a very attractive idea to many. After all, a white mushroom (or, as it is also called, boletus) is almost the most famous and widespread edible mushroom growing in the territory of the Russian Federation. It looks simple, but expressive - a thick white leg and a fleshy brown hat. Porcini mushrooms are used today to make sauces, soups and many other delicious dishes. One of the features of the porcini mushroom is that it does not change its color during heat treatment.

Under natural conditions, boletus grow in moderately humid places with different levels of illumination, under deciduous (oak, birch, beech) or coniferous (pine and spruce) trees.

Self-cultivation of porcini mushrooms requires the creation of conditions that will be as similar to natural as possible. It is not so easy, it takes some effort and some patience to achieve the result. For example, it is much easier to grow oyster mushrooms - many do it even on the balcony.

Boletus mushrooms can be grown in two main ways:

1. outdoors (for example, in your summer cottage or personal plot);
2. in the premises.

The second method, which involves the creation of a completely artificial environment, requires more significant investments. However, with the right approach, they can certainly pay off.

Seed preparation

Whichever method of these two is chosen, first you need to prepare a special seed. And here you need to know a lot of subtleties. Fruit bodies of ordinary boletus mushrooms are suitable as raw materials. Moreover, if you want to grow them on a personal plot under an oak tree, then you need to take those porcini mushrooms that grow just under an oak tree. The need for such accuracy is due to the fact that the boletus closely interact with the trees next to which they are.

In the harvested fruiting bodies, all the legs are detached from the caps. In the future, we only need hats, and even dried and wormy ones can be put into action. They need to be placed in a bowl of cold water (by the way, alcohol can be added to the water at the rate of 3 cups per 10 liters, this will further stimulate the germination of spores). In addition, you need to add 1 gram of potassium permanganate here and leave for a couple of hours.

Then sugar should be added to this bowl - 15-20 teaspoons per 10 liters of water. This is almost all - the mixture only needs to be infused in some heated room (if it's winter outside). The result is a liquid containing a large number of boletus spores.

Buying ready-made mycelium for growing

You can take an easier path and buy ready-made mycelium of porcini mushrooms in gardening stores. Foreign goods are considered the best in this market, but in any case, you should first buy a small trial batch.

When buying, be sure to specify:

• strain and variety;
• the rate of fouling;
• the resistance of this mycelium to mold;
• shelf life.

In addition, it does not hurt to talk to gardeners who have already grown boletus on their site - they will certainly give useful recommendations.

A good, high-quality mycelium should have a deep red color with small patches of yellow. If there are green and black spots on the mycelium, and a nasty ammonia smell emanates from the package, then the product is spoiled and cannot be used.

Advice

Purchased mycelium can be stored in the refrigerator at a temperature not exceeding +4 degrees Celsius. Here he can be kept for up to three months without any problems.

Correct preparation of substrates

Another important stage is the preparation of the substrate, that is, the mixture in which the porcini mushroom can grow. This substrate consists of sunflower husks, straw, deciduous sawdust, buckwheat, etc. But it should not contain mold and rotten pieces at all, otherwise it will not be possible to grow your own boletus crop on the site.

The substrate must be saturated with moisture before placing mycelium or spores into it. There are two methods for this - steaming and boiling. Regardless of the selected processing technology, the substrate must retain such a property as air permeability. During processing, the material can be left directly in plastic bags.

How to grow boletus in open spaces

Now let's figure out how porcini mushrooms are grown on a personal plot. Of course, there must be a suitable tree (or trees) in this area. And within a radius of one meter from this tree, the first thing to do is to remove a layer of earth about 15 centimeters thick. Pour the seed with spores onto the roots (which must never be damaged!). For every 25 square centimeters, about 350 milliliters of seed is needed. Then you need to fill everything back with earth and pour several buckets of water (it is better to pour along the trunk, carefully so as not to wash out the spores). The optimal sowing time when choosing this method is from mid-August to mid-September.

The mycelium (mycelium) must be planted differently on the site. For this, a pit 30 centimeters deep and 1.5 square meters wide is pulled out. A substrate is placed in it in layers of 10 centimeters - it is alternated with the ground in such a way that a 20 centimeters high bed is formed. It is worth, by the way, to provide it with sloping edges, this will allow moisture to drain off, and not stagnate.

In this case, it is necessary to plant myceliums in a checkerboard pattern, and the distance between them should be 30 centimeters or more. Then the garden should be watered and covered with foliage.

Advice

The optimal time for planting mycelium is late summer or early September, but it must be borne in mind that the harvest in this case will not be in the same, but only next year. And as soon as next summer comes, you need to remember about the mushroom garden and start watering it at least once every seven days.

Growing porcini mushrooms from mycelium on site is more difficult than growing from spores, but ultimately yields a higher yield per tree.

How to grow boletus indoors

The difficulty here lies in the fact that for planting it is necessary to prepare not only the substrate and seed, but also the room itself. This can be a basement of a house, a special greenhouse, or, for example, an ordinary barn.

The substrate material for planting mushrooms indoors must be boiled for 60-80 minutes without putting it out of standard plastic bags. Then you need to drain the water (for example, by making several holes in the bag) and put the substrate under something heavy.After cooling, it can already be taken to the room where the mycelium was prepared for planting (it is the purchased mycelium that is needed here, and not the self-prepared planting mixture) and where the mushrooms will subsequently grow. This room should be sterile, for which it should be treated with 1% chlorine solution.

When mixing mycelium and substrates, ventilation, if any, should be turned off so that the spores do not scatter. This procedure takes place as follows: the mycelium and the substrate are placed on a disinfected clean table and manually mixed. The weight of the planting material should be 3-5% of the weight of the substrate.

Then the already grafted substrate must be folded into whole bags - from 5 to 15 kilograms each. Moreover, the substrate should be tamped as tightly as possible. Then you need to make a few neat holes with a blade. Cuts are best done at a 45-degree angle, and each cut should be no more than 5 millimeters.

These bags must then be placed on the pre-prepared incubation shelves. There should be ventilation holes around the edges of each shelf. Air should circulate freely here, but only after the incubation period of the mycelium, which lasts three weeks.

In addition, there must be a distance of at least 5 centimeters between the bags. The comfortable temperature for growing boletus mushrooms is about +25 degrees. If the temperature exceeds +30, then the mushrooms can get heatstroke and not germinate.

Plus, the room should be humid (85 to 95 percent). And so that mold does not start in such conditions, every day you need to clean the room with a chlorine solution. Such difficulties, of course, scare off many potential breeders, and they prefer to either plant mushrooms on the site, or not plant at all. But in fact, the possible result may well more than recoup the effort expended, and quite a few people have already turned indoor mushroom cultivation into a good business.

Porcini mushrooms will begin to bear fruit for the first time about a month after planting.

Advice

To make the mushrooms dense and not watery, it is worth pouring water on the bags with a spray bottle once a day. And this water should have a temperature in the range from +10 to +25 degrees. To prevent moisture from stagnating, the room must be ventilated after watering.

The second fruiting time will come in a couple of weeks. In general, with proper care, porcini mushrooms grown in an enclosed space will yield a crop for six months continuously. Of course, some bags can get moldy, and they need to be taken out of the room on time, but throwing them out is not always important - they can be a good organic fertilizer.

So, the cultivation of porcini mushrooms can be carried out in several ways, each of which has its own difficulties and characteristics. You need to choose, of course, the one that will be easier to implement for you. Note that growing mushrooms in a personal plot or in a basement can be not only a pleasant hobby, but also a completely successful business. At least there is a demand for porcini mushrooms among the population.

It is not necessary to go to the forest for whites, they can be grown on your site. Consider two methods of reproduction: from caps and mycelium. Details on how to independently obtain planting material, planting, care and advice for beginners.

Growing from mycelium

This method is used in the absence of natural mushrooms. Having the Internet, finding mycelium is not difficult. You will also need compost and growing 8-10 year old trees. Planting events are best planned between May and September.

Near the selected tree (coniferous or deciduous), remove the top layer in a circle (10-20 cm). The diameter of the bare area should be 1-1.5 meters, the tree is in the middle. Put compost (1-2 cm) into the formed circle and put mycelium on it. It is advisable to observe the "checkerboard pattern" with an interval of 25-30 cm.Now we cover the planting with a layer of soil that was dug up and watered abundantly. Use a watering can so as not to wash out the soil. For one tree, 3-4 buckets of water will be enough.

The next step is a shelter that will keep moisture in the ground. You can use straw, old fallen leaves, or grass cuttings. The layer is made thick enough (20-30 cm). Care consists of regular watering and maintaining moisture, at the level of the planted mycelium, not lower than 50%. To improve germination, it is recommended to periodically use Baikal EM-1 for irrigation or any microbiological additives to improve fertility.

At the end of autumn, insulation will be required. The area with mycelium is covered with moss, straw, spruce branches. The radius should be larger than the landing area (2 m). In the spring, the "veil" is removed. The first mushrooms appear a year after the mycelium has been planted. In one place, fruiting lasts 3-4 years. This period can be extended to 7 years if you occasionally water the ground with a solution of mycelium. How to get it, read on.

Growing from fresh hats

A good seed will come from mature mushrooms. Therefore, go to the forest and look for white hats with large and open hats in diameter (10-20 cm). At the break, the tubular flesh should have a slightly greenish tint. In your case, insect larvae and wormy mushrooms are also suitable. On the site, as in the first method, you will plant near a deciduous or coniferous tree.

Seed preparation

Take 5-10 mushrooms intended for sowing, place in a bucket and cover with water. After a day they will become soaked, and you will just need to knead the mushrooms with your hands in the same bucket with your hands until smooth. After filtering through a sieve, you will get a solution with spores and separated mushroom tissue.

Sowing

Near the selected tree, the place is prepared in the same way as in the previous case. Planting will be carried out by watering. Only not over the entire prepared area, but directly on the open roots of the tree. The solution with spores should be enough for 1 sq. meter turned out to be 2 liters.

After such a "sowing", spread the mushroom tissue, which remained after filtering, on the roots and adjacent ground. Now it remains to cover the planting with soil, which was removed, and water. The earth needs to be well saturated with moisture, so at least 5 buckets of water will go to one tree. When watering, do not wash out the top layer, so use a watering can with a fine spray. Now cover with plant material to retain moisture. Care is the same as when planting mycelium with regular watering. For the winter, a shelter is created only in the first year after planting.

In a year, if the mycelium is born, you will harvest the first crop. The area of ​​one tree will give up to 5 kg of white ones. The interval from planting to harvest is exactly one year, so keep in mind that if the hats were planted in the fall, then the harvest should only be expected in the fall of next year. One mycelium will bear fruit for 3-4 years. To prolong growth, it will be necessary to plant in 2-3 years.

Tips for beginner mushroom growers

Planting activities in the southern regions are best carried out in May-early June, in the middle zone of the temperate climate, in August-early September. When collecting "planting" mushrooms, try to find them under the same trees near which you plan to plant. If you have a spruce or birch on your site, then you are looking in the forest under such species.

Soaking the caps should occur no later than 10 hours after cutting the mushroom. A little alcohol (10 l - 3 tbsp / l) or granulated sugar (10 l: 50 g) can be added to the water with caps. The mycelium takes root better if the soil is spilled with a tanning solution before planting: brew 80-100 g of black tea in a liter of boiling water. You can prepare a decoction of oak bark: for 3 liters - 100 g. 2-3 liters of tanning water are consumed per tree.

It is not recommended to lay the mycelium at the end of September, since the probability of mycelium survival is too low.Depending on your region, you need to calculate the interval from sowing to frost of 1.5 months. In hot weather, watering is required weekly, 3-4 buckets per area with mushrooms.