Growing Mushrooms With Our Products

Well, if you are here that means you have some questions. I will try my best to summarize how to get started cultivating with our mushroom cultures.

Growing your own mushrooms at home can be a fun hobby, a new career, or a life changing experience. How mushroom cultivation can benefit you and your environment will be different for every person according to a lot of variables. 

Always try to keep in mind the ecological impact you are having on your environment. If possible please try to recycle and reuse. This is what mushrooms do best and we as humans should try to follow. Are you creating excessive waste with this hobby? What can I do to reduce my carbon footprint? You will find these answers as you progress in mycology and develop a work flow that makes sense to you and your goals.

First let’s pick a mushroom you are interested in cultivating. If you are a beginner, I would recommend starting with a nice oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus). Oyster mushrooms come in a variety or colors, taste good cooked and will generally grow with ease on almost any mushroom substrate making them ideal for beginners.

Once you have picked a mushroom culture you are interested in cultivating, I strongly recommend you doing some research into the cultivation specifications of that specific mushroom.  A little research can go a long way and help your chances at success.

Not all mushrooms grow on the same substrate or at the same temperatures. To help ensure your success please do research prior to your purchase. For an example, you may love the meaty texture of the Portobello mushroom, however it requires some advanced cultivation techniques, casing soil and pasteurized mushroom substrates to grow them. By no means is it impossible but you don’t want to start with an advanced grow if you are just beginning.

Now that you have your mushroom culture it will need to be transferred to a hydrated and sterilized grain to expand the mycelium and colonize the grains. The mycelium will expand,  turning the grains into mushroom spawn. This process of adding mycelium to sterilized grains is called inoculation. All inoculation procedures should always be practiced in a clean environment adhering strictly to sterile techniques. Not doing so can result in contamination and starting over.

Once you have successfully inoculated your sterile grains and your mushroom spawn has fully colonized you are ready for the next step, transferring the spawn to a bulk substrate.

A bulk substrate is a generic name for the secondary, more nutritious mushroom substrate you add your fully colonized mushroom spawn to. As I stated before, from your previous research you will know what secondary bulk substrate is best suited for the mushroom culture you have chosen. Different mushrooms prefer different substrates from wood to manure. Do research.
 

It will take some time for your mushroom substrate to colonize and fruit. Your previous research into your mushroom culture should inform you of the growing parameters for the cultivation of your specific mushroom chosen to cultivate. 

Please see below for some recommendations on how to properly use our products in mushroom cultivation. Everybody's experience will differ according to your project. Patient is a key factor.