Oyster Mushroom Growing Journal

[RootLoops]

This journal details how i've come to grow oyster mushrooms. There are many, many ways to grow them, this is just the easiest ways i've arrived at with an eye toward making the whole process easier. There is some equipment you will need if you want to grow them yourself, you can buy ready to fruit kits online for reasonable prices but once you learn a few simple things you can make them for pennies on the dollar.

Mushroom growing is generally thought of as complicated, and the science behind it can be, but growing them is not. My opinion is that it is nothing more than following recipes and doing simple actions. Ok i'll start running on soon so here goes

These are petri dishes of nutrient agar inoculated with H.K. Hungarian mycelium, and a strain called Phoenix Wavy. The first step is to inoculate agar in some container. This allows you to spot any contamination before you inoculate a big project with it:



This will be the starter culture for the way i do my agar, which is in little mason jars instead of petri dishes. This is a picture of Azul Oyster already finished with one agar jar



And one that isn't as far along but still nice and healthy



This is the top of the jar.



The blue dot is called a self healing injection port, they are made for vacuum tubes like they draw blood in, but since we are dealing with needles they are perfect for this use. The other port is a syringe filter for providing the culture with sterile gas exchange, the filter keeps out any spores or bacteria.

The red stuff is RTV high temp silicone, you can find it at wal mart in the automotive section or autozone, etc. for about six bucks, one tube will make a lot of these. I won't go into how to make them here, but basically just drill or punch a hole to accomodate each snugly and apply the silicone before inserting the port. You can let them sit and cure or pressure cook them immediately, the silicone will cure while in the cooker.

Mix your nutrient agar according to directions and pour a little in each jar. Put the lid on, cover with heavy duty tin foil, and pressure cook them at 15 p.s.i. for 15-30 mins. Let the jars cool completely inside the p.c., i leave mine alone at least overnight, it will help keep condensation from becoming a headache.



^^^You'll need whats called a still air box, which is a fancy way of saying "clear plastic tote with arm holes cut in it".


I clean this one with 91% alcohol, 70% works just as well but i also use the 91% for extracting rosemary for fleas so i have it here already. I say i clean it but i really just saturate it with the alcohol and spray in Lysol Neutra Air. Ozium works well too but costs more. They kill a lot of whatever is in the air of your Still Air Box(SAB).



This is where you will transfer the mycelium from the plate to the jar using a 10-20 cc syringe with a 14 ga. 2" needle, i get mine at the vet, two dollars per set. You can also use an exacto knife or scalpel sterilized in the pressure cooker, but you have to open your agar jar to do it that way so i like using the 14 ga. needle and syringe. You can sterilize them over and over after the first use, i use a qt. mason jar for that



Important: Before working in your SAB turn off all fans in the room for a good half hour so there is no air movement. This will limit the possibility of contamination.

Everything that goes in my SAB gets doused with alcohol, including my hands and arms repeatedly, and shots of Neutra Air go into the box every time a hand comes out, and then i alcohol my hands and arms again before going back in. You want to have all your work pieces in the box before you begin, and it helps to loosen any lids you will be taking off before you get started.



The faster you can work the less chance you will get contamination. With my method i reduce the vectors for contams by using a sterile needle and inoculating through the ports as opposed to opening the lid of a petri dish and dropping a wedge of culture on it.

Now your hands and arms are clean and in the box, take your sterile syringe out of it's package and put the needle on. The tin foil lid should still be on your agar jar. Don't remove it at any time before it enters the SAB to be inoculated, this will keep the surface of your injection port clean. Push the needle into the blue injection port and draw up about 2 cc's of sterile air from inside the agar jar.

Take the syringe in your dominant hand and the petri dish in the other. Quickly raise the lid and push the needle down through the mycelium and into the agar below. Imagine taking a core sample from a tree, you want the same thing, a plug of agar with a piece of mycelium on it in the barrel of the needle. Now that you have your mycelium plug quickly insert the needle through the blue port again and push the plunger to apply the core to the surface of the agar in the jar. Label the jar and put it somewhere preferably cool and dark, a closet or a cabinet.

That is it for this stage of the journal, as it progresses i'll add the various next steps. Feel free to add questions or comments as it goes and thanks for taking a look! Here are the rest of the pics:

Newly inoculated jars



Azul Oyster trying to escape!

[peppero]

Thanks for the post. I don' know if I will ever get involved in this but it is very interesting.

jon

[Delerium]

This is great RL! Can't wait to see how your Oyster mushrooms turn out. So how long does it take to grow the mycelium in the petri dishes/mason jars. And where do you buy Agar?

[BucksCountyGirl]

This is fascinating! Please keep us posted

[RootLoops]

you can buy agar online or in asian food shops, but usually after all the hassle of mixing the ingredients it's best just to buy a bottle of premixed nutrient agar. some(most) agar for food purposes contain preservatives, anti bacterial and antifungals so if you buy your own powdered agar i would recommend Now Foods brand it has no additives. it takes a week to ten days for them to get across the agar usually if they aren't contaminated, the azul in the jar above was inoculated on 4/1 and had finished the jar about three days ago.

a liquid culture can be done in a few days if you use enough inoculant and shake it daily. agitation will make the mycelium break up and each new piece will grow more mycelium which you can then break up and grow more mycelium

thanks BCG i plan to keep it updated often!

[Randall]

This is great! Thanks for posting.

[RootLoops]

Originally Posted by Randall

This is great! Thanks for posting.

You're welcome! i'll add the grain spawn portion tonight or in the morning i have everything i need to do it just gotta get the time to wash the jars and make the lids

[Delerium]

Question? What would be the fertilizer equivalent for mushrooms. If you wanted to give your mushrooms a boost what would you have to do?

[RootLoops]

http://www.amycel.com/supplements/

adding grains to your substrate helps too but you have to sterilize the substrate if you are using grains, or sterilize the grains beforehand. i've also used miracle grow in the water i initially hydrated the substrate with before cooking and it worked well, but not amazing well

[RootLoops]

here are some pics of three grain jars of Azul oyster i started three days or so ago. growth is whispy at first but will thicken up. once i have a decent bit of growth in the grain i'll shake it up to distribute the mycelium around the jar and speed up finishing time a lot.

[Tracydr]

Is the grain in lieu of the agar or is it done after the agar?
The amount of work going into inoculation to keep things sterile is fascinating.
If you were to start with stems from store bought mushrooms, how do you do that?

[RootLoops]

the path is: spore(or tissue)>agar>grain>fruiting substrate. the grain allows you to spread the mycelium all around the substrate, and it also adds nutrients and gives the mycelium some food to start, like the yolk of an egg does for a baby chick while it's in the shell. colonized grain can also be used to store a good culture, whenever the culture eventually loses steam you can just pull out one single grain per petri dish and start fresh all over again.

i have a store bought baby bella in the fridge i'm gonna be putting on agar soon i'll post pics of how to do that but basically you just spray the mushroom with alcohol to clean the outside, then in the still air box you tear it open and take a piece of the inside out and drop it onto a petri dish or into one of the agar jars as above. the mycelium will start to grow from the tissue and you'll have a clone of the mushrooms they sell at the store. i'm glad you asked that i need to get that one done today before the button goes bad

[Paul R]

Thanks for the thread RootLoops, haven't grown any shrooms for a couple of years now, still have all the equipment needed, this thread might get me growing again.

Paul R

[RootLoops]

ok six days later this is what they look like. i shook all three of these about three days ago to speed up the colonization and check for contaminates.

note: when inoculating grain jars i find it best to put the inoculant in one spot so it runs down the glass and not shake them immediately after. if a contaminant arises you'll be able to see if it originated with the culture or under sterilized grain. if the growth is still clean after a few days to a week you can shake the jar up, break up the mycelium and spread it around the jar by shaking or tumbling end over end.





this is a filter made of polyfil, it costs about four dollars a pound and a pound will last the hobby grower two or more years. it's just inserted into a hole in the lid. you can use a needle to go right through the filter for inoculation. a filter is necessary for gas exchange so the colony can breathe.



here are the agar jars i inoculated earlier, all are still clean and get the green light to use. i used some of the HK to start 3 more quarts of grain and i'm thinking about sterilizing a bag of substrate to inoculate with the leftover juice, depends on how tired i am later tonight




this one isn't all that great, it was done with the maxi crop LC so that is likely not a good way to go



here's the other side of the HK jar from the first pic

[RootLoops]

here they are today, i could use them now but it will probably be a few days before i get around to cooking a bag of substrate, maybe today who knows!