Monday, September 14, 2015

Oyster Mushrooms in Plastic Bags

Well, my earlier oyster mushrooms grows in jars and plastic bottles worked, but didn't produce large yields. So I figured out what could be the reason and came up with a few ideas:

  1.  I used clones from store bought mushrooms and these mushrooms came from a package of mixed mushrooms. From a mix of oyster mushrooms, golden oysters, shiitake and white button mushrooms. In order for the custommers to see all mushrooms in the mix the oyster mushrooms had to be quite small. First I assumed that they just used the smaller mushrooms of their oyster clusters, but I guess I was wrong and that they use a special culture producing only small mushrooms. So I bought a new package containing only large oyster mushrooms and cloned these.
  2. Jars and bottles aren't good fruiting containers. The substrate on the bottom of jars and bottles doesn't receive enough air and therefore the oyster clusters remain small. Therefore I decided to use plastic bags and cut a few x-shaped insertions on all sides of the bags.
  3. I used colonized coffee grounds as spawn while other people often use grain spawn. Grains are more nutrient dense than coffee grounds and therefore could produce larger yields. The problems of grains is that they don't fit into my philosophy of using waste products for oyster mushroom cultivation and growing them in the most simple and cheap way possible. So I skipped the idea of using grains and tried the new clones in plastic bags inoculated with colonized coffee grounds. And as you can see in the pictures below grains aren't necessary for higher yields.  
Day 3: The bag contains 3 Liters (3/4 gallon) of pasteurized wheat straw as fruiting substrate.

Day 4:






Day 5:




I harvested them at this stage. The yield was nearly 300 grams. I guess that's acceptable for 3 liters of wheat straw. The bag may even produce a second flush.

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