How to grow oyster mushrooms at home?

Growing mushrooms at home and in private plots has not yet become common. What for? After all, the forests are filled with white mushrooms, honey agarics, chanterelles and boletus mushrooms every autumn. But there are mushrooms that either do not grow in our forests at all, or do it with great reluctance. They can perfectly diversify the menu, and also make good money on them. For example, an oyster mushroom plantation in your own dacha is more than real! It is an ideal mushroom for household cultivation. Delicious, inexpensive (in terms of labor costs and the cost of the technological process). Oyster mushroom can be grown in different ways, but there is an option chosen by the time and experience of many amateur mushroom growers.

Growing oyster mushrooms at home

"Children of the Underground"

For the first phase of growing mushrooms, which is their reproduction with the help of mycelium (mycelium), you can do with any ground room - a shed, for example.

The second, main phase is better for mushrooms to "live" in a cellar or basement, that is, underground in the cool.

Growing oyster mushrooms - photo

Both premises for a mushroom plantation must be carefully prepared and equipped with ventilation, electricity and water supply. From the inventory, you will definitely need thermometers to control the degree of heating and cooling of air in the room. The equipment will need a water heater.

By the way! Temperature regulation in a room with growing oyster mushrooms is best controlled by conventional ventilation. To do this, you will have to provide for the possibility of wide opening of windows or doors.

There are several mandatory procedures that must be performed in a building or underground room where mushrooms will grow.

1. The premises are whitewashed with lime and then dried using active ventilation.

   The walls are whitewashed with lime - photo

2. Then the place of cultivation is sprayed with bleach (4% solution).
3. After processing, the doors / windows are closed and the inside is left to disinfect for two days.
4. Then the object is ventilated for the same amount of time.
5. A similar disinfection treatment for conveyor re-cultivation must be performed every cycle.

What mushrooms grow on

Oyster mushrooms differ from their forest counterparts in that they do not grow in soil. They need a substrate for successful growth. You can make a suitable mixture from many components:

• dried straw of field cereals;
• the shell of sunflower seeds is suitable;
• it is very good to use sawdust of trees, but not conifers, but deciduous ones;
• corn stalks, reeds are suitable.

Substrate preparation

All this will become an ideal "soil" for oyster mushroom plantations. The components can be used separately, and it is acceptable to mix them in arbitrary combinations and proportions. The ingredients must be dry. Before use, they need to be crushed (the optimal size of fractions is in the range of 0.5-3 cm). The resulting mixture should have a pleasant smell, not contain any traces of mold, fungal debris and foreign objects.

Prepare the substrate on the surface of the earth; this is not necessary in the cellar. For proper preparation and compliance with all regulations, certain procedures must be followed.

1. The crushed mass is poured with boiling water until it is completely covered, to destroy all kinds of competing organisms in the form of other varieties or harmful microflora.

   Moistening and stirring the substrate

2. The substrate thus poured, steamed to the state of "porridge", is rammed into large barrels or other containers suitable for the capacity and left to swell up to half a day.
3. Then the mass is taken out of the barrel and laid out for complete cooling and evaporation of some of the moisture on a wide film with a thin layer.

Stage one: mycelium - building up mass

Oyster mushroom mycelium

The preparation is over. Mycelium purchased. You can proceed to the first stage, the task of which is to build up its mass.

Advice! How to check the quality of the mycelium of the oyster mushroom progenitor? He must have some characteristics. Snow-white color, with a small proportion of substrate blotches with a darkish tint. The second parameter is smell. Despite the fact that this mushroom does not grow in the forest, the mycelium should smell like forest mushrooms.

1. In a dense transparent polyethylene bag, with a volume of 20 to 60 liters, a layer of wet cold substrate is laid. Layer height - 8 cm. Carefully leveled by hands.

   Laying the substrate

2. Lay on top, ramming tightly, mycelium, in a three-centimeter layer (you can simply break it into small pieces to tamp without voids).
3. Then the substrate is laid and compacted, but already with a layer of 15 cm.
4. Again a three-centimeter layer of mycelium.

   Mushroom substrate bags

5. The procedure should be repeated until all the acquired mycelium ends. In this case, there should be a substrate layer of 8 cm on top.
6. The resulting "puff cake" is compacted, the bag is tied tightly with twine and set in a vertical position.
7. The entire surface of the bag is pierced with a long disinfected (can be ignited on fire) nail, 120-150 mm in size. Not every 25 cm² has one hole.

   How to make a perforation of a mushroom block

Advice! There should be more holes at the bottom: this is necessary to drain the liquid constantly forming in the package.

Immediately after the procedure, a clear separation of the layers into dark and light (substrate and mycelium) will be visible through the film of the bag.

The temperature required to increase the mycelium mass should be kept at + 18 ... 26 ° С. Germination of mycelium spores will begin in three days, and ten days later you can observe a miracle. The whole mass will turn into mycelium and become completely white. After that, the bag is untied and multiplication is continued to the required amount.

Hanging substrate bags and growing oyster mushrooms

One full standard bag gives life to 8-10 other bags with an interlayer (substrate + mycelium). When, finally, the required amount of mycelium for your purposes is formed, then 2 bags from every ten are left for the subsequent increase in mass, and 8 are transferred to obtain the long-awaited harvest of oyster mushrooms.

Fruiting process

Growing oyster mushrooms

The whitened substrate must be kept in the "native" bag for another 5-6 days after ripening, if this bag is sent for fruiting. During this period, it will finally mature, become "monolithic", will be as dense as possible.

To activate the beginning of the crop formation, bags with completely processed substrate mycelium are kept at + 3 ... 5 ° С for another three days. To enable the mushroom fruiting body to grow, it will need room to grow. To create it, holes 3-5 cm in diameter are cut out in polyethylene (one per square meter). The packages are moved to an underground room in temperature conditions of + 10 ... 16 ° С. Here they are installed at a distance of at least 30-40 cm from each other, always vertically. To make it more convenient to water the mushroom "plantation", the bags are placed with ribbons in three rows with a 70 cm gap between them.

Advice! If you are the happy owner of a high basement, then you can also place bags with future mushrooms on additional shelves located along the walls. Such placement will increase the used area, and hence the mushroom yield.

Care for future mushrooms

Once a day, the bags should be slightly moistened, and the room itself should be thoroughly ventilated, since in the process of fruiting oyster mushrooms, a large amount of carbon dioxide is formed. As for the lighting in the dungeon, during the first week it will not be needed at all, and then it would be nice to illuminate the room. Mushrooms will grow in any case - with or without light - but backlighting can significantly increase the yield.

Watering oyster mushrooms

If all conditions are met, the first fruiting will begin in 10 days. When the mushroom heads begin to lighten (after the whitish, dark and greyish brown stages), you can harvest. After a while (about three weeks), the second fruiting will begin with a much lower productivity. Two series of fruiting, taking into account a well-chosen base and high-quality mycelium, yield up to 45 kg of oyster mushrooms from 100 kg of the substrate used. When the harvesting of mushrooms of the second second wave is completed, the packages are taken out of the basement, and, after sanitizing the underground room, a new batch is placed in it. This conveyor method makes it possible to carry out 6 double fruiting cycles per year.

Basic rules for growing oyster mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms grow in a bag of hay

Table. Growing conditions for cycles

1	Germination of mycelium bodies into the substrate	10-14	20-24	90	not required
2	Ripening and fruiting	4-5	22-28	95	not required
3	Growth of the fruiting body (1 wave)	7-10	15-19	85	100
4	Growth of the fruiting body (2nd wave)	7-10	13-17	85	100
5	Harvesting, unloading the substrate, disinfection of the chamber	2	does not matter	does not matter	not required

Value and use

Fresh Oyster mushrooms

Oyster mushroom is highly valued for its beneficial nutritional properties. In taste, it is not inferior to other cultivated mushrooms and even surpasses them, and in terms of the value of the composition, it has no competitors at all. Not hard, but dense texture, light bread flavor and subtle aniseed notes on the palate. For cooking - a godsend, since oyster mushroom is a versatile mushroom. It can be boiled, fried, canned (pickled and salted), stewed, dried. The only product that the popular mushroom doesn't go well with is fish. Otherwise, in salad, hot, soups, as a stand-alone culinary masterpiece - oyster mushrooms are wonderful.

Fresh oyster mushroom - photo

Important! A prerequisite for the preparation of any mushroom dishes is its heat treatment. In its raw form, it contains chitin, which is not absorbed and rejected by the human body.

Growing a mushroom, given the right premises and some free time, can become not only a useful and nutritious hobby, but also a way to make good money by supplying healthy and tasty oyster mushrooms to the retail network.

Video - Room for forcing mushrooms Oyster mushroom

Video - Harvesting Oyster mushrooms

How to grow oyster mushrooms at home? By a certain technology. Then you don't have to spend money on buying mushrooms. And it will certainly be possible to safely eat them without fear of poisoning.

Where to begin

You always need to start by getting to know the experience of other people, so to speak - studying the materiel. There are many articles and videos about growing oyster mushrooms at home. After acquaintance, you will need:

Two rooms. One directly for growing, the second for the incubation period. It is assumed that this will be one room. Then it is necessary to strictly observe the temperature regime and regulate the level of air humidity.

• Nutrient substrate. Sold ready-made, packaged.
• The mycelium itself. Pay special attention to the expiration date.
• Fan. The most common, household.
• Antiseptic. Rubbing alcohol or chlorine solution.
• Rubber gloves, a gauze bandage for the face, a sharp knife, thick plastic bags.

Naturally, you have to be patient (a process of more than one day) and the desire to taste your own grown oyster mushrooms.

how to grow garlic from bulbs

Requirements for the premises

For growing mushrooms at home, you need to allocate a separate room. It doesn't have to be a bedroom or living room. A basement, a cellar, a shed, a garage - they all fit perfectly. For the incubation period, the temperature should be maintained no higher than 24-26 ° С, the air humidity should be no more than 70%.

Separately, it must be said about cleanliness. Do not wash every centimeter with bleach. It is better to treat it with a sulfur-smoke bomb or simply whitewash the walls with lime with the addition of copper sulfate. Then no extraneous mold will infect the mycelium.

The main condition is that all ventilation openings must be closed with a fine mesh. Mushroom flies strive to fly into the aroma of mycelium and ruin the whole idea from the very beginning.

For the period of germination and harvesting, the humidity in the room should be at the level of 80-95%, the temperature should not be higher than 18 ° C.

Advice. A basement or cellar is the most optimal room. In such places, there is always high humidity, and the temperature can be increased with an ordinary heater.

Preparing the substrate for oyster mushrooms

As a nutrient medium for growing oyster mushrooms at home, you can use any substrate available, as long as it contains cellulose. It is she who feeds on the mycelium. Experienced mushroom growers use sawdust, small branches or shavings. For beginners, it is best to use:

• barley straw
• sunflower seed husks
• corn stalks, leaves
• wheat straw
• buckwheat husk
• corn cobs

First of all, you need to carefully sort out the prepared raw materials. The mass must be clean and dry. The presence of mold or the presence of only the smell of decay already indicates that the raw materials are not suitable for growing oyster mushrooms.

After taking the mass, it is necessary to thermally process it for reliability. This will get rid of harmful bacteria, insect larvae, and at the same time moisturize it. For this, raw materials are poured into metal dishes, poured with clean water. Heat to a boil, boil for about 40 minutes. Then leave for 3 hours.

Then the excess water is drained, and the raw materials are put under a press to remove the remaining liquid. Alternatively, the substrate is poured into a tissue bag and hung.

As soon as the temperature of the mass drops to 24-26 ° C, you can start planting.

Advice. For best results, a little fresh yeast is added to the raw material before planting. Approximately 50 g per 15 kg total weight.

how to grow a truffle at home

Planting material

It is very difficult to prepare a good quality mycelium on your own. Therefore, it is better to buy it from seed shops or from oyster mushroom growers. How many grams do you need? The calculation is very simple. For 10 kg of raw materials, you need about 400 g of mycelium.

First of all, before buying, you need to carefully examine the package with planting material. Gray or black spots, a distinct smell of ammonia are signs of incipient mold. This mycelium is not suitable for planting. The color of the vegetative body of the fungus should be from bright yellow to orange.

It is not recommended to order planting material through Internet resources. Indeed, the photograph may show something completely different from what will be in the package.

Advice. If the mycelium was purchased in advance, then it must be stored in the refrigerator before planting, no more than 9 days. Temperature 3-5 ° С is the most optimal.

how to grow an apricot tree from a stone

The most crucial moment

The substrate has been prepared, the planting material has been purchased and has already lain for a day at room temperature. We took a deep breath, we can start.

The most important thing is that there should be no slightest draft in the room. Fungal spores are very volatile.The slightest breath and then you can find oyster mushrooms in places that are completely unsuitable for them.

All instruments must be disinfected. Knife, tight bags, hands. You can wash it thoroughly with laundry soap or wipe it with aseptoline. Hands can be additionally protected with gloves. They also need to be treated with an antiseptic. Be sure to wear a gauze bandage. The ingestion of fungal spores into the lungs is not a very pleasant event.

The process itself:

• The mycelium is crumbled without opening the bag.
• Raw materials are poured into the bottom of the prepared plastic bag.
• Oyster mushroom vegetative body is laid out on top with a thin layer.
• Layers are repeated all the way to the top.
• The bag is tightly tied.

In order for the mushrooms to sprout faster, it is advisable to lay out the planting material closer to the walls of the bag than to the center.

You can do it even easier. Raw materials are poured into prepared bags, small cuts are made with a knife. Mycelium is laid in them, then sealed.

Advice. Don't take huge packages. Anyway, oyster mushrooms will only grow outside. The most optimal size holds about 5-8 kg of the finished mixture.

how to grow an oak from an acorn

Incubation period

So, the bags are full, tied, awaiting their fate. Which? Warmth, darkness, tranquility. The incubation room should have a temperature not higher than 18-20 ° C. The substrate gets very hot, the vegetative body may die. It is impossible to ventilate the room, the emitted carbon dioxide is very important for the germination of oyster mushrooms.

What to do? Fan! Saves the day, helps to cool the bags, does not make drafts.

One day after the laying, the previously made incisions are opened. If the mycelium was laid in layers, then it is imperative to make cuts with a sharp knife. Vertical 2-3 cm high, horizontal about 0.5 cm wide, the distance between them is 10-12 cm.

Packages should not fit tightly to each other. A free space of at least 7-9 cm is left between them.

The incubation time depends on the variety, ranging from 16 to 24 days. Detailed information can be obtained from the manufacturer, or read on the packaging.

It is important to periodically enter the room and inspect the bags. The appearance of black spots and an unpleasant odor indicates that the tools and materials were not sufficiently disinfected. The normal state is a light, almost white color of the contents, a characteristic pleasant aroma of mushrooms.

Advice. Inspection is carried out as quickly as possible. Any light is not desirable for mycelium right now.

First fruiting. Important aspects

It is important not to miss the moment when oyster mushroom rudiments appear. They can be seen with the naked eye. On a white background - gray tubercles. In the meantime, bags with mushrooms are transferred to another room, or the conditions are changed in the same:

• The temperature is reduced to 10-18 ° C.
• Increase air humidity up to 90-95%.
• They put artificial lighting with fluorescent lamps for a period of at least 8 hours per day.
• Be sure to ventilate the room. At least 4 times a day.

The main factor for the first fruiting period is moisture. At the same time, it is impossible to water the oyster mushrooms. They can rot before reaching their size. The ideal way out of the situation would be frequent spraying of walls, floors, spraying water in the air. Care should be taken not to get water on the mushroom caps and bags.

Advice. If light-colored oyster mushrooms are needed, then the temperature is kept at 12 ° C. To obtain a dark cap, the temperature is raised to 18 ° C.

how to properly grow watermelons in the open field

Second fruiting

After the first harvest is harvested, the mushroom blocks are not thrown away! Oyster mushroom gives up to 5 harvests from one planting. The mushroom holder rests for about 12 days, then pleases with a new portion of a healthy treat. It is very important not to change conditions during breaks between harvests. Then one block can bear fruit up to 4 months.

And if there is no separate room

How to grow oyster mushrooms at home if there is no separate room? It's also very simple! When did this stop a Russian person, if he needed to? There is no basement, which means growing on stumps is a completely alternative option.

This will require:

• Smooth stumps of non-resinous trees.
• Planting material.
• A secluded spot in the garden with good shade.
• Burlap, film.
• Enthusiasm is welcome.

The wood must be healthy, free from mold, rot or debris. It is advisable that before use it lay no longer than 10 months. Poles are soaked in clean water for 3 days, pressing with oppression so that they do not float.

Then holes are made in the tree, preferably with a drill. The diameter is about 1-1.5 cm, the depth is about 5-7 cm. Oyster mushroom planting material is poured inside, the holes are plugged with moss. If there is no drill at hand, then they simply cut off the upper end of a log 5 cm thick, apply a vegetative body. The resulting saw cut is placed on top. For reliability, you can strengthen the structure with nails.

The procedure is carried out in March. Before the logs are planted in the garden, they are folded into a pyramid, covered with burlap and foil. Periodic ventilation, regular inspection for mold growth is the key to success. After a while, the mycelium will completely braid the wood, the hemp will turn white.

With the onset of warm weather (mid or late May), the woods are planted in the garden. They choose shaded places: under trees, vines, on the north side of buildings. The stumps are installed vertically, burying 12-15 cm in the ground. Damp foliage or soaked old barley grains can be placed at the bottom of the holes.

Taking care of the logs consists only in carefully watering the soil around it, if the weather is dry and hot.

Subject to the technology, the first harvest appears from the end of August. Lasts until mid-November depending on climate and weather conditions. For the winter, the poles are covered with spruce branches or covered with leaves. Ideally birch. They disinfect well and do not allow the mycelium to rot.

Of course, this method is not suitable for industrial cultivation of oyster mushrooms, but for home use it is very good. Good yields can be obtained at low cost. The only negative is seasonality. Oyster mushrooms do not grow under the snow in winter.

Advice. Such poles with bunches of oyster mushrooms can become an original decoration of the site. They can be cooked as much as there is enough free land. There will be enough mushrooms for themselves and their relatives and for sale.

how to grow medlar

Several nuances

1. All work on the cultivation of oyster mushrooms is recommended to be carried out in a gauze bandage. Mushrooms secrete a large number of spores, which can lead to allergies.
2. When harvesting, oyster mushrooms are twisted by hand from the substrate. When cutting with a knife, you can infect the mycelium with putrefactive bacteria, then you will have to forget about the next crops. The remaining roots of the mushrooms also harm the mycelium. A large amount of moisture is lost through them.
3. If the slightest signs of mold appear in one of the bags, you must immediately remove it from the room so that the rest does not become infected.
4. The spent substrate is an excellent fertilizer, it will be a pity to throw it in the trash. Taking it out into the garden or pouring it out in the garden is the right decision. By the way, the remains of mycelium next year can give a small harvest of oyster mushrooms, if you pour the mixture somewhere near a reservoir or under trees.
5. When grown indoors, the first two waves of fruiting are the most productive. The second and third years of cultivation are the most prolific on the woodlands.

Growing oyster mushrooms on your own at home is a very real thing. Just follow the instructions and enjoy the result!

how to plant and care for barberry

Video: technology for growing oyster mushrooms