How to start growing oyster mushrooms at home?

If you decide to grow mushrooms on your own, it is better to start with oyster mushrooms. Growing these mushrooms at home does not require the study of complex theoretical information or special skills. Oyster mushrooms are not as demanding as other types (for example, mushrooms). Another argument in their favor will be the high yield. You can cook many delicious dishes from them, the taste of which will not leave anyone indifferent. Let's figure out what are the ways to grow oyster mushrooms and how to cope with the difficulties arising for beginners.

Growing methods, their pros and cons

There are two ways to grow oyster mushrooms at home - extensive and intensive.

Positive aspects of the first method:

• it does not require the creation of special conditions, since a natural environment is needed for maturation;
• for the same reason, the extensive method does not have to spend a lot of money;
• in addition, the mushrooms do not need constant supervision in this case.

But there are also negative aspects:

• the appearance of the crop depends entirely on the season and suitable weather;
• ripening period is quite long;
• due to the impossibility of control, it will not be possible to turn this hobby into a business and grow mushrooms for sale at home.

With intensive technology, the growing conditions are created by the mushroom grower himself at home.

Pros of the intensive method:

• the ability to control the time of harvesting;
• You can also regulate the amount of harvest - when using this method, it will be more;
• thanks to this, there is the possibility of selling mushrooms and compensating for costs.

Some cons:

• you will have to make more effort and spend a lot of time doing landings;
• cash investments will also be required - to create the necessary conditions at home.

In the intensive method, the mushrooms are ripened in a basement or other suitable room.

Mycelium selection

First of all, you need to purchase "seeds" - in mushrooms they are called mycelium. Recently, it has become much easier to do this - there are many online stores with mail delivery throughout the country. But there are also local companies. For beginner mushroom growers who fear failure, it is enough to purchase one kilogram of mycelium. The result will be about three to four kilograms of mushrooms. You can purchase the material in advance. Mycelium can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two months, but you cannot put it in the freezer. It is not allowed to get mycelium on the skin, therefore, when opening the package, do not forget to wear gloves.

When buying, pay attention to the following recommendations.

• Check reviews for a store or individual seller.
• Even if you are an experienced mushroom grower, purchase a small amount of planting material from a new supplier for the first time.
• Learn all the information about the selected variety, the time of mycelium growth, mold resistance.
• Check the expiration date on the packaging.
• Check the temperature of the mycelium immediately after delivery - it should be about +20 degrees Celsius.
• The mycelium should be free of black and green spots.
• The color of the "seeds" is bright orange, interspersed with yellow.

Growing on stumps

If you are a beginner and are not yet ready to invest a lot of effort and money in growing mushrooms, try the extensive method.

To plant oyster mushrooms in this way, you do not need a lot of materials.

• Hemp that is on the site of your house.But they can be sown only in late April or early May, when a constant high temperature is established.
• Pruning from deciduous trees such as beech or aspen. They should be no more than half a meter in height and fifteen centimeters in diameter.

Check every stump carefully - they should be free of mold.

Advice

If the wood is dry, soak it in water for several days. Only in such conditions will mycelium be able to develop.

The technology is as follows:

• drill or cut out six centimeters in the stumps (they should be staggered);
• mycelium is placed in these holes;
• then they need to be covered with moss;

There is another way - you need to saw off a disk two centimeters thick from the top of the stump. Apply a layer of mycelium to the cut. Cover with a disc. For strength, nail it down.

After sowing, stack the logs on top of each other in a room where the temperature is maintained at +15. Leave them there for three months, covered with plastic wrap or thick cloth. By the end of the term, a white bloom will appear on the stumps. This means that it is time to "plant" them. To do this, they dig holes in the ground at a distance of half a meter and fill them with wet leaves. Hemp is placed in them - to a depth of fifteen centimeters. The soil around them must be constantly moist.

The harvest will appear at the end of summer. You can collect it throughout the fall. For the winter, the planting must be protected by sprinkling with straw.

Preparing for growing in the basement

To grow oyster mushrooms in an intensive way at home, you will need to prepare a basement that meets the following requirements:

• it must maintain a temperature of +15 degrees;
• a good ventilation system is needed in the basement;
• its depth can reach five meters;
• you need to create bright lighting;
• there must be a source of clean water in the basement.

Other types of premises are also suitable:

• cellar;
• poultry house;
• greenhouse;
• garage;
• cowshed.

The main condition is that this basement should not be adjacent to the living rooms of the house, since spores can cause allergies.

The next important condition for harvesting is a good substrate. This is a breeding ground, thanks to which mushrooms will grow. To prepare it, you can use:

• buckwheat husk;
• wheat straw;
• barley straw;
• cobs of corn.

Grind one of these materials or a mixture of them. Fill it with warm (up to twenty-five degrees) water for twenty minutes. Stir the workpiece periodically. Drain this water and fill a container with hot water (not boiling water). Cover with something heavy and let sit for five hours. Drain, squeeze out the substrate (liquid residues can cause mold) and add nutrients (urea and superphosphate) to it.

Basement landing

In this growing technology, it is not only the place and the basis for planting that are important. The vessels must also be prepared. Oyster mushrooms are usually grown in bags. At home, ordinary garbage bags as large as possible are also suitable.

Punch holes in them at intervals of twenty centimeters. Through these holes, the mushrooms will break out.

The bags need to be filled with substrate and mycelium. The bottom layer should be the substrate - pour fifteen centimeters of the mixture. Sprinkle it with a layer of mycelium. Alternate them, filling the volume of the vessel by 2/3. The bags should be moved to the basement and placed on top of each other or hung from the ceiling.

Planting care

In the early days of growing oyster mushrooms, it is most important to maintain suitable conditions.

• The temperature in the bags will rise, but it is important to ensure that it does not reach +30 degrees (when growing at home, in a small basement, it is enough to use a fan for this).
• Keep flies out of the basement.
• The lighting can be switched on after three days.
• The humidity in the basement should be about 95% (for this you need to spray the walls and floor with water, but not the oyster mushroom plantings themselves).

When collecting oyster mushrooms, you also need to follow some rules.

• They do not need to be cut off, but unscrewed from the substrate.
• After the first harvest, it is important to maintain the same conditions in the basement for two weeks, then another batch will appear soon.

Conclusion

Oyster mushrooms are the most suitable mushrooms for growing at home. They don't need any special care. The conditions for their development are easy to maintain even at home.

There are two ways to grow them. One of them requires less effort, but the result will be a long wait for the harvest. For another, you need to prepare the room, but thanks to this you will quickly get a large amount of mushrooms.

Choose the method that seems to you the most successful, and feel free to start planting. In this case, you will be satisfied with the result.

Growing mushrooms at home is quite a profitable and very exciting activity. If you have never encountered such a case, start by growing oyster mushrooms. These are unpretentious mushrooms with high yields. We will tell you how to organize the cultivation of oyster mushrooms at home for beginners in this article.

Technology

Let's consider step by step the traditional technology of growing oyster mushrooms at home:

• The mycelium is a seed. It is sold by enterprises, as well as individuals who grow mushrooms and oyster mushrooms at home. If you want mycelium delivered directly to your home, order it online. You should not immediately purchase large quantities of seed, as it can deteriorate. One kilogram of mycelium can grow 3-4 kg of mushrooms. The purchased seed must be stored in the refrigerator in the vegetable drawer;
• Substrate preparation. As a substrate for planting mushrooms, sunflower and buckwheat husks, barley or wheat straw, sawdust, etc. are used. Raw materials for growing oyster mushrooms at home must be clean, mold-free. To disinfect the substrate, it is immersed in water and boiled for 2 hours. After that, the water is drained and the material is cooled to +28 degrees;
• Mushroom blocks. The most common way is to grow oyster mushrooms at home in bags. These are the so-called mushroom blocks. Before placing the seed, polyethylene bags are disinfected in a 1% solution of bleach. Raw materials and mycelium are placed alternately - on 6 cm of the prepared substrate, 0.5 cm of mycelium. After that, the bag is tightly tied and cuts are made on it 2x2 cm every 15 cm in a checkerboard pattern. The mushroom blocks are transferred to a special room - a cellar or basement and left for two weeks. During incubation, you need to maintain a temperature of + 19-23 degrees and periodically ventilate the room;
• Care. For the first 3–4 days, the temperature of the raw material can rise sharply. At this stage, the most important thing is to prevent it from overheating. The maximum temperature should not exceed +30 degrees. To reduce the temperature, fans are placed opposite the mushroom blocks. After 10 days, the mycelium fully expands and fills the block. The raw material turns white and takes on a characteristic mushroom smell. After the incubation period, the temperature is reduced to + 12-15 degrees and the air humidity is increased to 90%.

This is the simplest technology for growing oyster mushrooms at home, which is successfully used by many entrepreneurs.

Growing oyster mushrooms on stumps

The longest, but financially low-cost way is to grow oyster mushrooms at home on stumps. In this case, the yield largely depends on the season and weather conditions.

Hemp for planting mycelium must be prepared even in winter - at the end of January. They should be mold-free with a healthy clean surface. Before making planting material, it is necessary to soak the stumps in water for three days. This allows you to create the right level of moisture, which is so important when laying the mycelium of mushrooms.Stumps with myceliums are taken out into the garden in May, after the threat of frost has passed. To get a good harvest, you need to place the stumps in a shaded place, under the crowns of trees. In the future, it is enough to periodically moisten the soil around the stumps. You can get your first harvest at the end of summer. Growing mushrooms on stumps is a great way to make money at home without investment. If the fall is warm, you can harvest by the end of November.

Arrangement of premises

The room for growing oyster mushrooms at home should be:

• Excellent thermal insulation;
• Powerful ventilation system;
• Ceiling height not less than 3 meters;
• Plumbing and sewerage.

If you decide to start growing oyster mushrooms at home, you can use for these purposes:

1. Basement;
2. Former poultry house or cowshed;
3. Cellar;
4. Garage;
5. Greenhouse;
6. Grain barn.

When mushrooms bear fruit, they secrete spores that cause allergies, so the room for growing them should be located as far as possible from the residential building.

Financial investments and profit

You won't get much profit from one or two bags. But if you prepare 400-500 blocks, you can earn a decent amount. Another option for additional income is growing oyster mushroom mycelium at home for sale. In this case, you can double your income.

Experienced mushroom growers shorten the growing period to 30 days. Thanks to this, they receive finished products, the cost of which is 20-25 rubles. On the market and in stores, such mushrooms are sold for 100 rubles per 1 kg. The used seed can be used as fertilizer or as animal feed. If you want to start professionally growing oyster mushrooms at home, your business can be expanded by processing finished products, that is, selling mushrooms in salted or canned form. Experienced entrepreneurs often open training courses for people who want to take up mushroom farming.

Before you open your farm from scratch, you need to watch a video on growing oyster mushrooms at home on the Internet in order to get the necessary information. After that, try to roughly calculate how much money it will take to start such a business.

Initial investment:

• Mycelium and substrate - 20 thousand rubles;
• Salary for assistants - 30 thousand rubles;
• Payment of utility bills (water, electricity) - 60 thousand rubles;
• Packaging for finished products and other additional costs - 10 thousand rubles.

If you strictly adhere to the technology of growing mushrooms, 3-4 kg of finished products can be collected from one bag. At an average market price of 100 rubles per 1 kg, you will receive a profit of 300-400 rubles. If we subtract all expenses, it turns out that one mushroom block brings 200-300 rubles of net income.

Indoors with an area of ​​100 sq. meters you can grow about 4 tons of mushrooms per year. If you perform simple calculations, you can understand that such a business in agriculture from scratch allows you to earn about 30 thousand rubles a month.

Sales of finished products

The main component of the success of any business is a well-organized sale of finished products. Today, the demand for mushrooms does not exceed the supply, therefore, there are usually no problems with the sale of finished products.

Mushrooms are purchased in large and small batches:

• Groceries;
• A cafe;
• Restaurants;
• Mediators.

Mushrooms can be transported over short distances in plastic vegetable crates. If you need to deliver goods to another city or region, it is better to pack the goods in small trays and tighten them with cling film.

Both fresh and pickled mushrooms can be sold. In winter, the demand for such products increases significantly. During this period, its cost reaches 100–150 rubles per 1 kg.If you don't know what you can do at home to make money from it, try growing mushrooms. Such a profitable business will allow you to receive stable additional income.

Mushrooms are a hot commodity that does not need expensive advertising. Buyers for finished goods can be found through advertisements in the local press and on the Internet. If you plan to manufacture such products on a large scale, visit several supermarkets and wholesale vegetable stores to conclude cooperation agreements with them.

A small home based business can be advertised through word of mouth. Share your activity with friends and colleagues about the work, who, in turn, will inform their acquaintances about it. Thanks to this, you will have regular customers to whom you will sell finished products.

Related Videos Related Videos Profitability and payback periods

Growing mushrooms is a fairly profitable business that can be easily organized at home. This is a great option for rural residents who are interested in what to do in the countryside to make money. The demand for mushrooms is always consistently high, and this is the main component of the profitability of any business. Caring for myceliums does not take much time and does not require large expenses. The finished product can be grown in 4-6 weeks, which means that all financial investments are paid off in the shortest possible time.

Such a business in a village from scratch does not require your constant presence, that is, you can go about your business and at the same time grow mushrooms for sale. Growing oyster mushrooms at home is the easiest way for those who are wondering how to become a farmer with minimal investment. The average business profitability is 50%. Some entrepreneurs raise this indicator to 90-100%.

Useful Tips

Growing mushrooms is a great idea,

what you can do at home to make money without the Internet

... If you follow simple rules, you can get a good harvest and, accordingly, a decent profit. Experienced entrepreneurs recommend for beginners:

• Use strong plastic bags 35x70 cm for sowing;
• Hands should be thoroughly washed before planting mycelium;
• No more than 300 g of mycelium can be used per bag;
• One bag must have at least 8 slots;
• Hang the seed bags from the ceiling.

At home, you can get four harvest waves from one bag. After that, you need to replace the mushroom blocks with new ones.

conclusions

We looked at different ways to grow oyster mushrooms at home. Mushroom growing is an interesting and profitable activity on which you can build a successful business. Patience and a responsible attitude to your work will provide you with excellent results.

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Gone are the days when mushrooms could only be found in the forest. Now any person, even who has never dealt with their cultivation, can get a rich harvest. You only need to buy the right materials, follow the instructions for growing oyster mushrooms at home and maintain optimal conditions.

Choosing a mushroom for home cultivation

There are artificial plantations with different types of mushrooms: porcini, shiitake, champignons and others. Oyster mushrooms are considered popular, which are unpretentious and give a rich harvest. With a skillful approach, 3-4 kilograms of mushrooms are obtained from one kilogram of mycelium.

The thin filaments of the mushroom body, from which oyster mushrooms grow, are called mycelium or mycelium. To start growing, you need to purchase a certain amount of mycelium - experienced mushroom growers advise starting with one kilogram.

Such activities are suitable for both children who want to spend time with interest and test themselves as gardeners, and adults who want to acquire a new hobby. It can also interest those who are thinking about their own business. With skillful cultivation, the profitability of oyster mushrooms is quite high. It remains to choose a method of growing the future plantation.

to the content ↑ Ways of growing oyster mushrooms

You can use one of two methods: extensive and intensive. Intensive is closer to natural conditions and depends on the season, as opposed to extensive, thanks to which oyster mushrooms can be grown all year round.

The differences between the methods are shown in the table.

The essence of the method	The cultivation takes place in conditions close to real ones.	Fully artificial conditions are being set up.
Required tools and materials	Mycelium, film, stumps, moss.	Mycelium, bags, humidifiers, fans, substrate.
The purpose of growing	Hobby, growing for yourself.	Business growing for profit.
Premises	Vegetable garden, garden.	Incubation room and cultivation room.

Disadvantages and advantages of both growing methods.

Extensive way	Advantages	disadvantages
1.	Natural environment, the ability to grow in your garden.	Seasonal and weather dependent.
2.	Less expensive way.	The maturation of oyster mushrooms takes longer.
3.	Mushrooms do not need to be constantly watched.	It is impossible to control the quantity and timing of implementation, which makes the method unsuitable for marketing oyster mushrooms.
Intensive way	Advantages	disadvantages
1.	Full control over the growth of the finished product.	Requires two separate rooms with suitable growing conditions.
2.	Regulation and control of the number of grown oyster mushrooms.	Cash investments not only in premises, but also in materials.
3.	Establishing a business for the sale of oyster mushrooms and compensation for the cost of purchasing materials.	It takes more time to observe and control the growth of mushrooms.

Preparation for growing

Having decided on the method, it is necessary to take preparatory steps. Study the instructions and understand the intricacies of the process.

Now you need to purchase mycelium:

• Find a seller and make a purchase yourself.
• Purchase mycelium from a specialized online store.

Before buying, decide on the type of mycelium. If there is any doubt about the quality of the product, first purchase a small amount for a sample.

If possible, study the packaging of the product before buying. Check the content data, look at the expiration date. Pay attention to the appearance of the mycelium: there should be no black and green spots, which indicate the presence of mold. Such myceliums will not bear fruit. Fresh mycelium is white with splashes of orange and yellow.

The mycelium quickly deteriorates, so limit the first time to a kilogram of the product so that there is enough time to properly distribute the mycelium for planting. After purchasing, check the temperature of the mycelium, it should be 20 degrees.

to the content ↑ Features of growing on stumps

The simple but long way is the extensive one. It consists in planting mycelium in hemp.

1. Choose the right hemp: mold-free and with damp wood (it is better to soak dry hemp in water for a couple of days).
2. Make holes in the stumps with a drill, five to seven centimeters deep, pour mycelium into them and cover with moss. There is another way: saw off the upper part of the stump, make a small indentation, pour the mycelium there, put the upper part of the log back in place and nail it back with nails.
3. Place the stumps in a designated area, stacked on top of each other. Cover with a thick plastic wrap and leave alone for three months. Keep the room temperature around 15 degrees.
4. When white spots appear on the stumps, it means that the oyster mushrooms are ready for planting. The optimal time for this is late spring (early May).
5. Dig holes in the ground, cover with wet leaves and place the hemp with mycelium on top, deepening 15 centimeters. The soil should always be moist, so water it every day.
6. The first harvest will be at the end of summer. Roll the mushrooms gently, do not cut them off with a knife. Pieces of mushrooms should not remain in the mycelium, so as not to provoke rotting. Optimal conditions will allow harvesting several more times in the fall.
7. The mycelium will bear fruit next year, but it must be protected from frost by thoroughly covering the hemp with straw.

Growing oyster mushrooms in natural conditions is a simple and inexpensive way that gives a good harvest (although not as large as when creating artificial conditions). Most of the time is spent preparing the plantation and watering the mail.

Video instruction

to the content ↑ Features of growing in bags

If you want to get serious about growing oyster mushrooms, find a suitable room (basement, greenhouse), install the necessary equipment - humidifiers and fans to provide the necessary conditions (temperature, severity, lighting), place racks or hangers for substrate bags.

1. If you have already acquired the required amount of mycelium, the next step is to prepare the substrate - a mixture of plant components: corn cobs, buckwheat, straw, sunflower, wheat and others. It is important that there are no putrefactive inclusions in the substrate.
2. To grow one batch of mushrooms, 10 kilograms of substrate is enough, which must be crushed to a size of several centimeters.
3. Heat the substrate and disinfect it. Simmer the mixture for about two hours over low heat. After the temperature drops to 26 degrees, drain the water. The substrate is now sufficiently moist and safe for fungi. Make a solution by adding a spoonful of yeast to 250 ml of water. Add the yeast solution along with a spoonful of slaked lime to the substrate to disinfect.
4. Prepare two plastic bags per kilogram of mycelium. Leave them in a bleach solution for two hours to disinfect.
5. Toss the substrate with mycelium or arrange in layers. Gradually, you will understand which method is more suitable.
6. Move the substrate bags to a dark place. Light is not required for mushroom growth at this stage. The room should be kept at a temperature no higher than twenty-two degrees.
7. After two weeks, the mycelium will entangle the substrate with threads and a homogeneous mass will begin to form. This is a sign of the end of the incubation period. Reduce the temperature to 12 degrees and increase the humidity to 95%.
8. After two weeks, you can harvest the first oyster mushroom harvest. Unscrew the mushrooms from the bag (do not cut). In total, oyster mushrooms will bear fruit four times. The main crop will appear in the first two months.

Growing oyster mushrooms in bags requires significant cash costs, but the profitability of the method is much higher. You yourself control the harvest and its volume.

Video plot

back to contents ↑ Growing oyster mushrooms as a business - is it worth starting?

Growing mushrooms at home is a popular and profitable business. With little investment, you can get good money.

Study the technological process to the smallest detail to exclude accidental losses. For sale, choose an intensive method of growing oyster mushrooms in order to completely control growth.

When manufacturing on a large scale, use the help of hired workers. It is difficult for one to follow the process. Get two rooms - one for incubation, the other for growing mushrooms. Equip the premises in accordance with the standards so that the product turns out to be of a really high quality.

A basement is fine if you're just starting out, but investment is still required. In general, this type of business has a high profitability, because with intensive cultivation, you do not depend on the season. After filling your hand, you can expand production by growing other types of mushrooms.

back to content ↑ Useful tips

1. At first, do not purchase a large volume of mycelium. It tends to deteriorate quickly. To gain experience, start with one kilogram of mycelium.
2. Buy mycelium only from trusted sellers. If you are purchasing from a new retailer or online store, order a small batch first.
3. Check the data and appearance of the mycelium before buying.
4. Monitor the temperature of the room and substrate. Install fans in the room.
5. Cold is contraindicated for oyster mushrooms. They just won't come up.
6. It is only necessary to work with mycelium with gloves. This is the most powerful allergen!
7. It is better to soak a dry tree in water for a couple of days. Oyster mushrooms need moisture to grow.
8. Unscrew the mushrooms from the substrate so as not to cause rotting of the raw material.
9. The raw material for the substrate must be fresh and free of mold.
10. Oyster mushrooms are one of the most unpretentious mushrooms. Only temperature and humidity need to be controlled.
11. Over time, you can learn how to grow mycelium on your own so as not to depend on external factors: sellers, prices, quality, etc.

If you are just starting to grow mushrooms at home, oyster mushrooms are a suitable option during the training phase. They do not require serious maintenance, so you can easily turn this activity into an interesting hobby or a successful business.

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It will be about tasty, healthy, unpretentious mushrooms, how to grow oyster mushrooms at home, about all stages of this process. After all, we all eat mushrooms with pleasure, we love to wander through the forest, collecting them, but if there are suitable conditions, interest, a great desire, then it is quite possible to grow mushrooms ourselves. It is worth noting the amazing adaptability of oyster mushrooms: they can grow on stumps, on tyrsa (sawdust), even on paper. They don't need soil. They are characterized by fast fruiting - 1-1.5 months.

Choosing a room and preparing a substrate

To grow oyster mushrooms, it is necessary to equip a non-residential place in advance. For these purposes, basements, garages (in which there are no cars), cellars, sheds or rooms specially equipped for these purposes are excellent. Before starting any preparatory work, it is necessary to decontaminate the place where we will grow oyster mushrooms.

A lime solution (4%) will do this well. Floor, walls, ceiling - all available surfaces must be thoroughly disinfected, and then the room must be closed for a couple of days. After the specified time has elapsed, you need to open the doors wide open and thoroughly ventilate this place until the smell of lime completely disappears.

The technology of growing oyster mushrooms at home implies the choice of the material most suitable for these purposes. The substrate creates optimal conditions for growth: it can be wood shavings, corn stalks, buckwheat or sunflower husks, and cereal stalks. Large fragments of the substrate on which we will grow oyster mushrooms should be finely chopped.

Any material you choose needs processing - pasteurization:

1. Fill the substrate with warm water, not hotter than +23 .. + 25 ° С, holding time - 20-30 minutes. At the same time, we stir the mixture in a container, as if washing it from dirt.
2. We drain the dirty water, squeeze out the material and re-fill it with hot water (+80 .. + 90 ° С) and press it down with a heavy object (under oppression). We leave the substrate like this for 6-7 hours, after which we drain the water and finally squeeze it out.
3. To increase the productivity of the material and subsequent fruiting, it is necessary to saturate the substrate with active elements. Superphosphate, gypsum, limestone and urea are taken in a proportion of 0.5%: 2%: 2%: 0.5%.
4. During the "fertilization" of the substrate with additives, its moisture content should be about 70% - this will allow the chemical elements to stay inside the mixture, not to leak out with water.

After the room is prepared and disinfected, and the substrate is pasteurized, it is the turn of laying the mycelium into the mixture. You can buy oyster mushroom mycelium in the mycological laboratory. You can choose the best quality product from the wide selection of commercial varieties of mushrooms. Specialized online stores are also at your service.

Pre-calculate the volumes - for sowing a 10-kilogram block, you will need 200-250 g of oyster mushroom mycelium (if it is of imported origin) or 100 g more if the raw material is domestic.

↑ to the table of contents ↑ How to grow oyster mushrooms at home step by step

The mycelium is added to the substrate at the rate of 300-500 g per 10 kg of the mixture. In this case, it is necessary to ensure that the temperature of the material at the time of adding the mycelium does not exceed + 30 ° C (so as not to ruin the raw material).

This is followed by the preparation of bags for laying the mixture and oyster mushroom mycelium. For these purposes, it is very convenient to use dense plastic bags and bags. Sizes 40 × 60 cm and 50 × 100 cm are the most optimal. We lay out the resulting composition in bags and carefully twist them, while there should be no air inside.

We make holes in the blocks with a knife. The incisions should be located arbitrarily - at a distance of 10-15 cm from one another. After the performed manipulations, the bags are stacked on top of each other (2-4 pieces each) or suspended on special hooks pre-installed in the ceiling or walls. There should be a distance between the bags to ensure comfortable air circulation.

Also, for growing oyster mushrooms, it is very convenient to use special wooden stakes on a stable basis - blocks with a substrate are simply strung on them in several pieces.

Growing oyster mushrooms at home in bags involves maintaining a certain temperature and light conditions. Thus, for full-fledged germination, mushrooms require a temperature level of about +18 .. + 24 ° С along with high humidity (90-95%).

Sometimes, for additional humidification, buckets of water are placed between the rows of bags, and the necessary air exchange is maintained with the help of fans. Ventilation is important in this case - the excessive release of carbon dioxide inhibits the growth of oyster mushrooms. No light is needed during the incubation period. Make sure that flies do not enter the room at all stages of growing and fruiting.

Growing oyster mushrooms at home includes an incubation period of approximately 14-17 days.

In the first days, the temperature inside the blocks rises, make sure that it does not exceed the level of + 30 ° С. If the temperature is about to reach a critical level, direct the running fan towards the bags. As mentioned above, such an indicator (elevated temperature) is detrimental to the mycelium. At the end of the incubation period, the blocks are covered with a white bloom - this is the beginning of germination of oyster mushrooms.

Growing at this stage involves maintaining certain conditions indoors:

• air humidity - not less than 80%, and preferably up to 90-95%;
• air temperature at the level of +12 .. + 17 ° С;
• the required 8-hour lighting is 100-170 lux (as on a cloudy day), ordinary day lamps will do;
• frequent ventilation.

It is possible to maintain humidity by sprinkling the walls and floor with a spray bottle, but the water should not get onto the blocks. This fruiting period lasts about 2 weeks; by the end of the term, the caps of the oyster mushrooms become quite large.

It's harvest time. In this case, you do not need to cut off the myceliums with a knife, but carefully twist them out of the bag with the substrate. After the first removal of the oyster mushroom, you should thoroughly ventilate the room and wait for the second round of fruiting.

The first harvest is the largest, the second is slightly smaller, the third is less than the second - that is, the yield waves follow each other in decreasing order.

The rest period between the "waves" is 8-10 days, and the "waves" themselves can be 4 or even 6.

The substrate, which has already served its term, becomes an excellent fertilizer for summer cottages.

↑ to the content ↑ How to grow oyster mushrooms at home on stumps

An excellent option for owners of summer cottages is the method of growing oyster mushrooms on stumps - this method does not require excessive efforts. For these purposes, it is better to choose freshly cut hemp, but you can also prepare it in advance. They should be placed in shaded areas where there is no access to sunlight, for example, under spreading tree crowns or under vineyards.

Stumps need to be soaked in water and kept for about 3-4 days, older specimens - a week. Then, using a drill (20-25 mm), you need to drill 8-10 holes 7-10 cm deep. These depressions are then filled with oyster mushroom mycelium, the top is covered with clay or clogged with moss.

The stumps must be constantly moist, for this they can be covered with cling film and placed in the basement for a month and a half. When the stumps become overgrown with mycelium (in appearance something like a white film), they can be taken out into the air, placed in shady places.

Studying the possibilities and options for ways to grow oyster mushroom at home, it should be recognized that this method does not require excessive efforts, it is ideal for the owners of summer cottages.

Important information - a prerequisite is the use of respirators and protective masks when working with mycelium, as well as during fruiting! If it enters the respiratory tract, fungal spores can seriously harm your health.

This will require commitment and patience from you. Mushroom growing is truly a fun and rewarding activity. The topic of how to grow oyster mushrooms at home finds more and more fans among summer residents and enthusiastic gardeners. In addition to the presence of this tasty and rich product on the dinner table, the cultivation of oyster mushrooms is an interesting and profitable business. Try and grow oyster mushroom at home - a rich harvest for six months will undoubtedly please you.