Main ingredients of the mushroom cultivation compost
Oyster mushrooms generally grow on a wide range of agricultural waste materials of which they decompose. Such waste materials may be easily found in our house backyard, in our own kitchen or in the paper and wood industry. It can be used any material that is consisting of cellulose and lignin, two basic constituents of wood and plant organisms.
Many woody materials consist also of resins and polyphenolic compounds (such as found in the conifer wood) that inhibit mycelium growth in some mush-rooms.
Therefore for oyster mushroom cultivation is not recommended to use as main grow substrate coniferous wood. By contrast, Pleurotus species grow on de-ciduous wood such as: beech, poplar, oak, birch, maple, and other such wood types. Other largely used substrates include: straw (wheat, barley, rice, etc), cotton hulls, corn stalks, leaves, paper or other agricultural wastes.
For those living in the city oyster mushrooms can be grown on cardboard, nut shells, (e.g., peanut, sunflower), coffee grounds, hay, or dry leaves. All of these substrates are rich sources of nutrients for mushrooms and are readily available as wastes in our own yard or kitchen. Why throw them out? We have the chance to turn them into food.
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| Fig. 13. Shell types available in the kitchen of the city mushroom cultivator |
Things to consider when choosing substrate material:
• I recommend you to use fresh materials (not older than 1 year);
• the material shouldn't be moldy or wet because of improper storage;
• the material should not have any color other than its native color;
• the material should be clean without any alien particles such as rocks or glass pieces;
• the substrate dimension is an important feature and is strongly connected with the spawn (mycelium) run through compost. For example the straw should be chopped into small pieces (1-1.5 cm/0.4-06 US in) or wood should be used as wood chips. Keep in mind: the bigger the substrate particle is, the slower the decomposition rate by mushrooms gets and this results in a longer time until mushroom fruitbody formation.
Note: If you don't have any chopping machine around, no problem use the material as it is (for example use straw as it is). Wood may be also used as whole logs; however, in order to proceed with mushroom cultivation on wood piles check my future posts for instructions
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| Fig. 14. Straw ready for pasteurization (Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com) |
Adding Nutritional Supplements to the Substrate
The intake of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and mineral supplements in-creases the rate of substrate colonization by the mushroom mycelium and has a direct effect on the final mushroom production from a quantitative and a qualitative point of view. Among the best sources of protein I will list here: soy (added to substrate as grain or flour), wheat germ, or yeast. Sources rich in carbohydrates are the following: seeds of wheat, barley, oats, corn and rice.
Supplements are usually added to the main substrate at a rate of 3-25% and are not a mandatory component in preparing the compost that will be used as food for mushroom fruitbody formation. One aspect worth considering here is that using supplements improves productivity but encourages fungal contamination of the substrate by other competing species such as molds or bacteria.
Note: I recommend to the beginner mushroom cultivator to not use nutri-tional supplements in his first mushroom cultivation trials. Such productivity en-hancing nutrients should be added to the substrate when the beginner mushroom cultivator is already familiarized with the cultivation process.
Caution: If you still want to use nutritional supplements than better would be to ground them and administrate them as flour, this may avoid seed sprouting in the substrate during incubation. However, when seed sprouting occurs, this results in rising the substrate temperature above 26 ºC / 78.8 F and determinate the so called 'self-ignition' of the substrate, when the mycelium is destroyed and the future mushroom culture compromised. In order to avoid this is recommended to decrease room temperature by 2-3 ºC / 35.6-37.4 F during incubation when in the substrate there are nutritional supplements added.
Adding Other Supplements to the Substrate
The pasteurized and sterilized substrate and inoculated with mushroom my-celium, under incubation conditions after a certain period of time begins to ferment, at this point the substrate becomes acid (the pH within the substrate drops down). To prevent this phenomenon to the substrate is added gypsum, lime or calcium carbonate (chalk forage) at a rate of 5%. By using only one of these ingredients the substrate is maintained at neutral levels (between acid and alkaline).
Adding such supplements also improves the physical structure of the sub-strate by increasing porosity thereby facilitating gas exchange in the substrate.
Note: The addition of such supplements is not mandatory in the cultivation of oyster mushrooms, but their use is recommended because of the benefits men-tioned.
Substrate Recipes
I recommend to the beginner mushroom cultivator in his first trials of oyster mushroom cultivation to use a simple substrate recipe: composed of a single ingredient (e.g., wheat straw -the first recipe). Once familiar with the culture of mushrooms the beginner cultivator may play with a wide range of ingredients, including nutritional supplement additions. Finally through failure and success he will understand how the whole process works and he will develop a real experience in time.
I will expose here some substrate recipes for oyster mushrooms cultivation from which you may choose:
1. wheat straw 95% + gypsum 5%
2. sawdust (beech, poplar, oak, walnut, horn-beam, maple,..) 95% + gypsum 5%
3. straw 60% + corn-cobs 35% + lime 5%
4. corn-cobs 90% + barley grain 7% + gypsum 3%
5. soybean stalks 60% + corn-cobs 36% + gypsum 4%.
Preparing the Compost
The first step in compost making is to select a substrate or a compost formula. As a beginner for your first mushroom cultivation trial you should chose the following formula: wheat straw 95% + gypsum 5%.
Next the material has to be chopped into pieces (if possible). In principle for a 100kg/220 lbs of substrate you will need about 30-60 kg/66-132 lbs of dry material. The material is going to be soaked into water therefore its final weight will be around 100kg/220 lbs.
Note: Weighting the material is not mandatory only if you want to know ex-actly the substrate quantity that you are going to process. Usually this is a neces-sary step when you estimate the overall mushroom production.
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