How To Transform Paper Into Food

Would you throw to garbage food? especially when thinking about so many poor countries existing on the globe struggling to find food? I can tell that there are some people doing this out there and it's a really sad habit. OK, I understand, perhaps those people are not interested in food but surely they are interested in money. So let me ask you again: would you throw money on the window? Of course not. Unless we do not change our habit of wasting precious material that could be transformed into food we are actually loosing and not winning. 

The above picture is showing a sac of beautiful oyster mushrooms growing on cardboard paper, while below you'll see the entire cultivation process which is so simple that even a 5 year old boy could do it.
Paper is made out of cellulose material  such as trees. Perhaps you are familiar with the news on the Amazonian deforestation. Some companies are using the wood derived from the Amazonian forest to obtain paper while the majority of us are using this paper and then trow it to the garbage. At least we can do something about it: we can recycle it or I could say we can transform it into food and we can sell the food in order to get money.

What type of paper is it suitable for mushroom cultivation?
Generally all type of material that includes cellulose. I prefer to use cardboard paper because it is not treated with who knows what type of chemicals. However, in order to be sure of this first I used to wash the paper and then use it in the mushroom cultivation process. Although cultivation of oysters on cardboard paper is labor (as you can see below) it is recommended in those areas where sawdust or straw is not available.
I heard that is even better to cultivate mushrooms on paper than on one type of sawdust especially because paper could be derived from a mix of  several types of wood and therefore richer in nutrients.

Probably white or colored paper or even written paper (e.g., books) has some chemical additives used in making the paper colored. Ink used in the process of printing before 1980 contained lead; however, now lead is not part anymore of ink available in the markets. Anyway, I prefer to not use any printed or colored paper if possible, because I want to keep the final product free of any possible chemicals. Oyster mushrooms are able to accumulate heavy metals and any pollutants available in the air or in the substrate on which they grow therefore precaution it is important.

Steps to follow:

1. Place the cardboard in hot water (50-60 C /122-140 F) for two hours trying to maintain the temperature at the same level.
2. Let the material to cool down (25-30 C /77-86 F).
3. The heat treated and cooled material has to be squeezed so that no water drops remain after this process.
4. The material has to be 'opened up' until it gets back to its original shape.
5. The paper is then mixed with gypsum (~ 2%)
6. Add the oyster mushroom mycelium to the mix
7. The material than is placed into a plastic bag
8. Holes are made on its surface for gas exchange
9. Leave the sac for 2- to 3 weeks at 15-23 C /59-73 F (indoors or outside)
10. Once primordia start to mature spray the sac with water (2 times/day)
11. After 3-5 days you may collect your mushrooms.
12. Wait another 10-14 days for a second wave of mushrooms and collect them as well.

If you would like to get more details on the process presented above read Beginner's Guide to Oyster Mushroom Cultivation at Home

If you want to produce your own mushroom spawn check out the Consulting page.

In order to produce my own mushrooms I did not have any space but a balcony (because I was leaving in the city), and I successfully managed to cultivate oyster mushrooms. So, leaving in the city shouldn't be a problem for those wanting to cultivate mushrooms on a low scale, while cardboard material is also available.

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Beginner's Guide to Oyster Mushroom Cultivation at Home

Oyster mushroom cultivation it's easy and fun! 

1. Some of the Most Important Cultivated Oyster Mushroom Species
2. Preparing the Chamber and Tools Needed for Oyster Mushroom Cultivation

3. Compost Making for Oyster Mushrooms
4. Compost Heat Treatment and Inoculation
5. Incubation, Fruitbody Development and Harvest
6. Oyster Mushroom Culture Pests
7. How to Grow Oyster Mushrooms on Logs

How to make your own MUSHROOM SPAWN 
Mushroom spawn for sale

Species belonging to Pleurotus spp. (Basidiomycetes) resemble wood inhabiting mushrooms presenting wood-rotting abilities, degrading wood as saprophytes or facultative parasites growing on living or dead wood substrata on which produce a white rot. Pleurotus is more likely growing on deciduous trees and is rather rare on conifers.
Fruitbody morphological aspect: oyster shelf like cap 5-15(20) cm in diam of flesh like consistency with an eccentric-lateral stem of fibrous consistency. The cap color is variable, ranging from a species to another, and may be: white, cream, yellow, pink, reddish, grey, brown or dark grey.
Totally, there are known more than 20 worldwide well known oyster mush-room species.
Growing oyster mushrooms at home is very easy (known as the easiest to cultivate from all cultivated species). It grows on a wide range of substrates such as: paper, straw, leaves, and cotton residues, sawdust, etc which are rather present in rural areas. 
Oyster mushrooms are rich in proteins (about 10-30%, fat, vitamins, miner-als, etc), they have a therapeutic effect with a major impact on human health (0% cholesterol, polysaccharides with antitumoral, anti-inflamatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-oxidant and immunomodulating effects). In addition they are delicious and worldwide famous.

Fig. 1.  Pleurotus fruitbodies (Photo credits: www.google.com)

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6. Oyster Mushroom Culture Pests

Here I will briefly summarize some of the most important things to keep in mind when starting the oyster mushroom cultivation process:

• Excessive humidity damages and undermines the mushroom mycelium.
• Heat treatment failure leads to substrate infection with competing molds, bacteria or insects. 
• Low intensity light or the lack of light in the grow room during fruitbody formation results in inhibition of fungal growth and development
• Excessive temperature (grater than 35 °C / 95 F) inhibits and destroys mycelium
• Excessive concentration of carbon dioxide in the grow room inhibits the development of mycelium
• Substrate inoculation with a low quantity of mycelium increases the risk of infection by competing organisms for the same nutrients, increases the incubation time, and decreases the mushroom crop. 

Pests may be divided into two categories: pathogens and competitors. Pathogens are fewer than competitors and have a devastating effect on the mushroom culture. They are: molds, bacteria, viruses, or insects. Competitors refer to those pests that cause competition with the inoculated oyster mushrooms mycelium for the same type of nutrients found in the compost. However, not all contaminants are considered pests. There are certain bacteria or fungi that are rather important for oyster mushroom mycelium development and have a direct effect on the mushroom crop. Such organisms belong to the following genera: Humicola, Torula, Actinomyces, Streptomyces, and some species of Pseudomonas or Bacillus). For this reason it is recommended to pasteurized the substrate (80-85 °C / 176-185 F) and not to sterilize it. In addition, through sterilization the substrate is predisposed to infection at a higher rate through exposure to air. 

Here I will briefly present you some of the most common pests:

A. Trichoderma viridae (the green mold)
It is very common and appears as green masses of moldy areas infecting the substrate partly or integrally. It is characterized by a rapid growth and acts as a parasite on the oyster mushroom mycelium and may inhibit the occurence of mushoom pinheads or mushroom fruitbody development. It was shown that T. viridae prefers a more acidic substratum (4-6 pH) and this is also the reason why you should use gypsum in your substrate formula. Trichoderma spores stick to anything, therefore insects when occur may function as a contamination vector that can spread the local contamination to the whole mass of substratum.

Fig. 30. Trichoderma viride

(Photo credits: www. biogardenorganic.com) 

Note: Substratum contamination may occur also when using infected mushroom mycelium at inoculation. This is why, your mycelium should be bought from a clean source that you trust. 

Correct heat treatment of the substrate, clean grow room before incubation pahse, reduce moisture level in the grow room during incubation, reduce carbon dioxid level in the grow room by frequent ventilation (if possible), use clean tools, use gypsum at an optimal rate. 

Note: If Trichoderma occures in the substrate take the bag outside of the grow room and lower the substrate pH by adding baking soda or salt.

B. Contamination because of insects (nematods, flies, mites, etc)
Mainly the flies are insects able to invade the mushroom culture and infect it with various pathogens. They are attracted by the smell of the decomposing substrate. Flies are laying eggs near mycelium while hatched larvae consume it. 

What can you do against flies, nematods or mites?

• Add a mesh at each window, this will have good results in preventing flies entering the grow room;
• Use UV lights, the blue color will attract insects;
• Apply a proper heat treatment to the substrate (if not, possibly you will see mites walking in the substrate)
• Avoid excess moisture in the substrate (if not, you will see nematods developing in your substrate)
• Use clean tools during mushroom cultivation

Fig. 31. The common mushroom culture fly (Lycoriella spp.)
(Photo credits: www.google.com)

Fig. 32. Nematod
(Photo credits: www.google.com)

Fig. 33. Mites (Tyrophagus putrescentiae)
(Photo credits: www.google.com)  

C. Other mushroom species (e.g., Coprinus spp.)
This mushroom belongs to the family of Coprinaceae and is characterized by a characteristic outline with the cap when mature disolving and turning into a black ink. This mushroom may be quite often seen growing into the substrate destinated for oyster mushroom cultivation. The causes may be the lack of oxygen into the substratum due to the lack of porosity or lack of gypsum in the substrate. The latter situation rises the pH in the substratum offering ideal conditions for species of Coprinus to develop. 

Note: There are several species of Coprinus that may appear in the substratum: edible (C. comatus, C. atramentarius, etc) or non-edible (C. micaceus) or even toxic. If you encounter them in your substrate i highly recommend you the following: do not eat them!

Fig. 34. Coprinus spp. growing among Pleurotus fruitbodies(Photo credits: www.google.com)  

Few Words about Oyster Mushroom Production

On the market there are many excellent strains; however, is hard to know which one is the best as long as you do not make a mushroom strain evaluation. Productivity depends on a complex of factors (microclimate conditions, type of substrate used, mushroom species, strain, etc) some of them difficult to take into account. In a next course we intend to discuss in detail what factors influence productivity and how can they be controlled. 

Fig. 29.  Fruitbodies of Pleurotus eryngii (nameko)
(Photo credits: www.google.com)

What can you do with waste material used in mushroom production?
The remnants may be used for animal feed, as an organic fertilizer for soil or simply as fuel for fire. 

Find Out More!

1. Some of the Most Important Cultivated Oyster Mushroom Species
2. Preparing the Chamber and Tools Needed for Oyster Mushroom Cultivation

3. Compost Making for Oyster Mushrooms
4. Compost Heat Treatment and Inoculation
5. Incubation, Fruitbody Development and Harvest
6. Oyster Mushroom Culture Pests
7. How to Grow Oyster Mushrooms on Logs

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5. Incubation, Fruitbody Development, and Harvest

The Incubation of Inoculated Compost Bags

The term of 'compost incubation' is assigned to the period of time from inoculation until mushroom fruiting. At Pleurotus this usually lasts between 17 and 27 days. 
Incubation is usually done in the same room where mushroom fruiting occurs or may be done in a separate room especially designed for this purpose. The latter variant is even better since it reduces the contamination of your mushroom growing room with alien organisms.
To avoid the possible contamination of the bag and its extension to other bags as well and to facilitate gas exchange within the bags is important to:
• place the bags at 10-15 cm distance one from another;
• avoid overlapping the bags, this can increase the substrate temperature during spawn run; 
• do not wet the bags.

Fig. 22. Hanging column bags incubating in the grow room
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

To ensure the mycelium development during incubation it is necessary to create an environment similar to that found in nature which is specific for every mushroom species. 

Further you should focus on:
• Temperature: should be constant (if possible). You should also keep in mind that temperature requirements are variable for thermophilic and criophilic mushroom species (see table 1) 
• Humidity: It is recommended to keep humidity at optimum levels (75-80%) by watering the grow room floors and walls from time to time. 
• Ventilation: A continuous ventilation ensures air circulation and gas ex-change in the grow room. Without equipment this may be achieved by forming a passive air current throughout the grow room. 
• Light: At this stage is not mandatory.

		Pleurotus ostreatus	P. ostreatus f. florida	P. citrinopileatus	P. eryngii
Inoculation	Mycelium quantity/substrate:	2%	2%	2%	3%
Incubation	Temperature : °C Temperature: F	(10)20-24 (50)68-75.2	20-22 68-71.6	22-29 71.6-84.2	23-25 73.4-77
	Substrate temp.: °C Substrate temp.: F	25-30 77-86	25-30 77-86	27-32 80.6-89.6	25-28 77-82.4
	Time:	12-14(22) days	12-14 days	10-14 days	(12)14-18 days
Pinhead Formation	Temperature: °C Temperature: F	(8)10-15(20) (46.4)20-59(68)	15-20 59-68	15-25(30) 59-77(86)	10-18 50-64.4
	Relative Humidity:	90-95%	90-95%	90-95%	90-95%
Fruitbody Conditions	Temperature : °C Temperature: F	(10)13-20(25) (50)55.4-68(77)	(11)13-20(28) (51.8)55.4-68(82.4)	(13)17-22(28) (55.4)62.6-71.6(82.4)	14-18(21) 57.2-64.4(69.8)
	Relative Humidity:	85%	85%	85%	82-85%
	Concentration of CO2:	< 1000 ppm	< 1000 ppm	< 1000 ppm	< 1500 ppm
	Light:	800-1500 lux	800-1500 lux	800-1500 lux	800-1500 lux
Watering	No. times/day:	2-3	2-3	2-3	2
	Period:	7-10(14) days	7-10 days	7-10(14) days	7-14 days
	Relative Humidity:	90%	90-95%	90-95%	90%
Production Cycle	Period:	2-3 months	2-3 months	2-3 months	2-3 months

Note: The beginner mushroom cultivator may ignore some of the require-ments presented in table 1. Since we are discussing backyard mushroom farming, the notes above are rather concerning equipped grow rooms able to offer optimal environmental conditions for mushroom development. Oyster mushroom cultivation is very easy and do not requires much attention.

Observation: After 3-4 days from inoculation the mycelium growth may be seen. The mycelium hyphae are slowly expanding their surface covering up the substrate. The incubation phase ends with the induction of mushroom primordia formation (pinhead formation). In this moment the mycelium has already covered up the whole compost surface.

Fig. 23. Oyster mushroom primordia formation 
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

Fig. 24. Primordia of Pleurotus
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

Mushroom Fruitbody Formation & Development

The mushroom fruitbody formation occurs across the bag surface where we made holes  through the plastic film. At first, they appear as small dark colored pinheads that gradually develop and get lighter in color. If you placed the sack on the ground and the room temperature is rather optimal you may untie the bags at the end and leave them wide open. The fruitbody formation lasts between 4 to 10 days depending on the species, strain and microclimate conditions. However, at this stage you should consider the following aspects:

Humidity: Now is the moment when the growing mushrooms should be watered through the use of a pressure pump. They should be sprayed 2 to 3 times/day until harvest. If the mushrooms are stagnant in their growth or are getting dried the watering is insufficient. 
Temperature: Should be constant if possible.
Ventilation: To prevent fungus drying avoid strong and dry direct airflow in the grow room. 
Light: It is indispensable at this point for mushroom development, therefore this is very important. If the grow room is a basement and it doesn't have any natural light, then you should use artificial light: neon tubes preferably blue fluorescent of 40W power placed at 2-3 meters / 78.7-118.1 inches above or along the sides of the grow room. Leave them to light up the room from 8 to 12 hours per day.

Note: Light intensity is important and has direct effect on fruitbody develop-ment. A less intense light affects the mushroom stem making it longer while the cap is getting poorly developed.

Fig. 25. Mushroom pinhead formation of Pleurotus
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

Fig. 26. Fruitbody development by using artificial light 
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

Harvest

Mushrooms are harvested after 3-5 days once pinhead formation has occurred. Mature oyster mushrooms consist of well developed fruitbodies lighter in color and with the mushroom cap margin nearly flat. At this point harvest oyster mushrooms by hand twisting the whole mushroom bunch or by cutting the mushroom stem base with a knife. 

Note: Mushrooms not harvested in time lose their quality. 
After the first round of mushrooms has been harvested the plastic foil cover-ing the bag may be removed if environmental conditions (especially humidity and airflow) allow this. 
The harvest is followed by a time gap of 8 to 10 days until the next round of mushrooms; however, this is not a rule because sometimes they appear in a single round. 

Fig. 27. Oyster mushroom fruitbodies
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

Fig. 28. Harvested oyster mushrooms
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com) 

How many mushroom production rounds are there?
Well, there may be 3 to 5 rounds of mushrooms to be harvested (when you have equipment that provides proper environmental conditions for fruitbody devel-opment) or 2 to 3 rounds when you don't use such equipment. 
The life-cycle of the whole culture should last 1 to 2 months (the case of classical mushroom cultivation). 

Caution: To prevent respiratory system allergies caused by spore formation in the grow room it will be necessary to use a mask covering up your nose and mouth and a dressing suit only used for this purpose. Billions of spores are released when mushrooms reach the state of maturity. These spores spread all over the grow room and affect the lungs of the unprotected personnel when harvesting mushrooms. In order to avoid air load with spores in the grown room before each harvest you should spray all over with water.  

Find Out More!

1. Some of the Most Important Cultivated Oyster Mushroom Species
2. Preparing the Chamber and Tools Needed for Oyster Mushroom Cultivation

3. Compost Making for Oyster Mushrooms
4. Compost Heat Treatment and Inoculation
5. Incubation, Fruitbody Development and Harvest
6. Oyster Mushroom Culture Pests
7. How to Grow Oyster Mushrooms on Logs

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4. Compost Heat Treatment and Inoculation

Compost Heat Treatment

After weighting the material it can be soaked into water for several hours (recommended) or it can be directly sent to heat treatment. 
There are several methods of heat treatment but here I will show you only two of them because they are widely used in the household system:

1. Direct flame heating (as shown in fig. 15): The material is placed into a container (usually a metal barrel, or an improvised boiler) half filled with water and it is soaked by using a grill placed on the top of it which is designed to keep the material under water, then everything is covered up with a lid for an appropriate heat treatment. 
2. Scalding the material into hot water: the same procedure as described above should be used here too.

Fig. 15. Substrate pasteurization on direct flame 
(Photo credits: www. fungiforum.com)

Heat the content of the barrel until the temperature reaches 80-85 ºC / 176-185 F and try to maintain this temperature for about 2 to 4 hours. If the treatment temperature is lower, then allow more time for heat treatment process. This way occurs the so called 'substrate pasteurization' and this step is important because kills competing fungi and bacteria present into the substrate mass. However this temperature doesn't kill some bacteria species useful for the mushroom cultivation process. 

Note: Another heat treatment procedure is to sterilize the material by boiling it for several hours or rising the temperature to 121ºC / 249.8 F for about 30 minutes to 1 hour. However, this procedure is not suitable for backyard mushroom cultivation. 

Preparing the Compost for  Inoculation with Mushroom Mycelium

The house backyard mushroom cultivation is a concept based on ideas and lots of improvised tools in order to make the whole process easier. 
One of such improvised tools is the wire mesh container which is filled up with material and soaked under water during heat treatment. This has the ad-vantage that allows water flow immediately after heat treatment. Thus through a rope system it can be lifted up from the boiler and kept in the air while water is licking away (see Fig. 16). It also has the advantage of removing all material from the barrel after heat treatment.

Fig. 16. An improvised wire mesh container filled up with straw
(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

Caution: All operations that we undertake from now on (draining, inoculation, weighing, etc) should be performed in clean conditions in order to avoid substrate infection with molds, germs and bacteria; otherwise all of our work until now could be compromised. This is why containers and all tools that the pasteurized material enters in contact with should be clean enough to ensure mushroom cultivation suc-cess.
A first step is to clean up container surfaces with 90º alcohol or some other germ killing substances (however, these should be oyster fungus friendly substanc-es designated only against competing fungi or bacteria). 
Wash hands with soap and water then spray them with alcohol or use a pair of gloves.
After pasteurization, allow material to cool down preferably on a clean con-crete surface covered up with a clean plastic wrap, or a specially designed table for this purpose (see Fig.17). Disperse the material on the table in a layer of 20-30 cm / 7.9-11.8 US inch thick in order to cool quickly. 

Fig. 17. Material left to cool down on an improvised table designed solely for this purpose(Photo credits: www.fungiforum.com)

! Check the substrate before inoculation:
• The material when squeezed into our hands should not show any water drops;
• The smell should indicate a freshly humidified substrate and should not have any sour odor indication the start of decomposition process. 

Note: How will you know if you did the right thing so far?
Water should not accumulate at the bottom of the plastic bag that is going to be introduced in (waste bag, customized plastic bag, etc). 
When the substrate temperature drops down to ca. 20-25 ºC / 68-77 F the material is cool enough to be weighted and inoculated with mushroom mycelium (spawn). 
In order to know the exact quantity of compost, it is recommended to weight materials in a wet state separately and then to mix them up. 

Adding Supplements and Mycelium to the Substrate

1. Immediately after mixing up the substrate ingredients we will add to the substrate mixture gypsum at a rate according to the chosen formula (usually 4-5%) mix well and we are ready to go further with the inoculation step. 

2. Now take a pair of disposal gloves on your hands and carefully take the mycelium out of the jar or bag. Care should be taken not to damage the hypha of mycelium surrounding the grain kernels or other support on which it is growing. Mycelium is a living organism, therefore if damaged the mycelium won't be able to spread throughout the compost and this will result in low mushroom yield. 

3. Now weight the mycelium and use the desired quantity (usually 2-3% = 2-3 kg / 4.4.-6.6 lbs to 100kg /220 lbs of compost)

4. Next add the weighted mycelium quantity to the readily pasteurized and cooled substrate that has been mixed up with gypsum (see Fig.19). Mix everything together and disperse the mycelium in the whole substrate mass.

Fig. 18. Adding mycelium to the straw based substrate 
(Photo credits: www.wildbranchmushrooms.com)

! Remarks:
a) If you will increase the amount of mycelium added to the substrate from 1.25% to 5% automatically the mushroom production will increase by about 30-50%. In addition this will reduce the time necessary for spawn to colonize the substrate during incubation and will prevent contamination by competing molds, bacteria or insect occurrence in the substrate. 
b) If you won't take into consideration the first remark, the competing spe-cies might take control of part (10-20%) of your bags filled up with inoculated sub-strate. When this happens, the oyster mushroom mycelium stops or reduces its development. However, such situations occur, even if you did everything right, so there's no need to panic if you find 10-20% of your bags are infected with molds or such contaminants. Don't get discouraged, but try to think of what did you do wrong or how could you improve your mushrooming experience. From time to time even the experienced mushroomers are dealing with such situations. 

The Mushroom Mycelium: What is It? and Where Can It be Purchased?

Once you know exactly what species of mushroom you will cultivate, the next step is to procure mycelium (spawn or mushroom seeds). However, before purchasing mycelium you should know few things:
• Check the provenience of the mycelium. A pure mycelium is the result of its preparation in laboratory conditions; therefore you should purchase it from companies that you trust;
• Make sure that your mycelium is fresh (it has a warranty of about 2 months);
• Another important aspect refers to transportation: this should be made in proper temperature conditions (2-4 C / 35.6-39.2 F);
• Do not accept damaged bags of mycelium;
• Make sure that you've got the best strain, this will influence your mush-room production.

Where do we get the mycelium from?

You can get mycelium from various sources of producers or cultivators. 

Here are some mycelium producer addresses that might help you:

http://www.fungiperfecti.com/
http://www.italspawn.com/ita/  
http://www.sylvaninc.com/ 


If you are not pleased with buying spawn whenever you want to grow mushrooms you can build your own lab with less than $400, in order to find out how visit the Consulting page

How much mycelium should you purchase?
As a beginner cultivator you should purchase a small amount: 3-5 kilos /6.6-11 lbs are sufficient for the inoculation of 20 substrate bags each one of them weighting 5 kilograms /11 lbs.
Note: Once purchased mycelium should be kept in the fridge and taken out with up to 24 hours before usage. 

Preparing the Compost Bags for Incubation

Once prepared the compost mixture is inserted into trash bags or column type customized bags (about 4-10kg / 8.8-10 lbs of material in each bag). The bags are then bound to their end by using a rope.

Note: Preferably use transparent polyethylene bags for a good visibility. This is important because you can easily detect any infection in time. In case of contamination remove the bag out of the incubation room. Another advantage of the transparent plastic is that you can observe the spawn run through the compost mass. 

Fig. 19. Inserting the inoculated compost into polyethylene bags
(Photo credits:www.fungiforum.com)

Fig. 20. Inserting the inoculated compost into polyethylene bags
(Photo credits:www.fungiforum.com)

Next take the bags and make wholes on their surface with a diameter of 1-2 centimeters / 0.4-0.8 in and distribute them in zigzag at distances of 10-15 cm / 3.9-5.9 inches one from another. Make rounded wholes or cross shaped wholes. The latter variant is superior to the first one because it reduces the chances of compost to lose humidity especially in the warm season.
The mycelium hypha in order to grow requires nutrients, moisture, temperature, oxygen and pathways for elimination of metabolic substances resulted from their development process such as carbon dioxide and metabolic water. Therefore the role of the holes is to allow gas exchange in the substratum. 

Note: The size of the bag also has its significance. A good habit is to think about balance: a small and narrow bag will quickly dehydrate (especially in sum-mer), on the opposite, a big and thick bag prevents good ventilation. Having in mind this simple principle most mushroomers are using bags measuring 40-50 cm /15.7-19.7 inches in diameter and 70-80 cm 27.6-31.5 inches long. 

Fig. 21. Preparing the bags for incubation: a) bag dimensions; b) cross-shaped whole; c)  whole making device.

Find Out More!

1. Some of the Most Important Cultivated Oyster Mushroom Species
2. Preparing the Chamber and Tools Needed for Oyster Mushroom Cultivation

3. Compost Making for Oyster Mushrooms
4. Compost Heat Treatment and Inoculation
5. Incubation, Fruitbody Development and Harvest
6. Oyster Mushroom Culture Pests
7. How to Grow Oyster Mushrooms on Logs

MUSHROOMES CLUB UPDATES IN YOUR INBOX FOLLOW ME