Oyster Mushrooms and growing them

Mt Toaker

Member

• Mar 20, 2012

• #41

Yeah we had a batch of spawn that wasn't too good. Our living spawn is on sawdust I think my buddy said, I haven't seen the stuff we use to inoculate the rye yet.

Ronbo, have you ever collected spores from your mushrooms to use for spawning? We just bought the Pink Oysters this week.

So far we only plan on dealing with Farmer's Markets for now, got a couple road side stands, people's co-op things like that where we are going now. I don't see us being able to supply the markets around here, there are a lot and they are big. Not many restaurants that we are going to go to just yet, maybe in the winter just to keep us pasteurizing.

 

R

ronbo51

Member

Veteran

• Mar 20, 2012

• #42

Using spores is pretty damn hard to do because of contaminants. If you are clean enough to do spores you would be better off trying to clone a fruit body. The way I did it was to grow out fruit inside a filter bag, then open the bag inside the hood and cut a small piece off, then into agar on dishes. I would do 20 or so at a time but even then it would often contaminate. But all you need is one to take and then you have it licked.
I bought stuff from Stamets early on but it was either a culture on a dish or all my original cultures came in a test tube. But Oyster spawn should not be on sawdust. It should be rye. The last few years I bought liquid spawn off a guy in Ohio.
Assuming you are already familiar with fans, ducting, making your own shit you could try to make a hood from store bought stuff. Hepa filters in the 2'x2' or better yet 2'x4' size get expensive and the fan to push against that resistance costs too. In the end it was better to just buy. You need a pressure cooker and a hood to make spawn, period.

 

H

Hydro-Soil

Active member

Veteran

• Mar 21, 2012

• #43

IME you can use a mild H202 solution (hydrogen peroxide) mixed with R/O or boiled water to rinse a piece of fruit body in for a few seconds... prior to dropping into a culture dish/jar/bag while inside a hood.

Stay Safe!

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• Mar 21, 2012

• #44

Great idea hydro. We are talking about super spawning this week where we break down a colonized bag and use that to plant into the new straw, that way we don't have to pyramid jars as much. Might try to use the hydrogen peroxide and water on those to try to cut down on contams. Haven't really had too many issues so far

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• Mar 21, 2012

• #45

Can't wait to get these columns going either. they are about 7 1/2" diameter and we are going to have them be about 6' tall. Should help save on space a LOT!

 

PoopyTeaBags

State Liscensed Care Giver/Patient, Assistant Trai

Veteran

• Mar 21, 2012

• #46

its funny that i seen this thread... I was talking with a buddy of mine and was about to do the exact same thing... was gonna try it small to see the market and how much work then thought about expanding to a real operation....


so how much work is it???

 

B

Bud+

Member

• Apr 4, 2012

• #47

The spawn you buy is from a selected isolate.
Spores are somewhat like seeds, but with much more variety. The spawn usually sold is the elite.
You'll need to work with tons of cultures to get to that caliber. (each culture is from a single spore)

You could pretty easily, in a glovebox \ in front of a flow hood get some agar cultures going in petri dishes (start with 10+ as some probably WILL get contaminated.
Once you got healthy growth on your agar freeze a few plates as a master culture.
To use them you need to prepare grain jars, or grain filter bags (i like the bags and they are pretty cheap) and sterilize them well.
Then in a glovebox \ flow hood you put a slice of agar (not a big one, around 1 square cm) in the jar\ bag, close it well (bags are better be closed with an impulse sealer) and get the agar to somewhere around the middle of the medium.

Once its fully colonized its ready to use just like the ones you buy.


However, fungi get weaker as they age (thats why you FREEZE your main cultures) so you can't "clone" cultures over and over.
The commercial isolates are kept really frozen (i don't remember how cold, but below the temp of liquid N) to keep them from aging.


I'm not as big as you dudes, but I do all my stuff alone. (I got cultures from friends mainly)
I got a nice bag of ~2lb Phoenix Oyster culture going, hopefully it'll be enough for a nice 3m high and 30cm diameter hung plastic sleeve.
It much hotter around (~30°C at noon lately) here and I hope they'll still grow well.
I got some reiishi agar cultures that look real good but its too far into summer to try and get them going.

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• Apr 26, 2012

• #48

Poopy it is a fair amount of work, we work solid 5-6 days a week here.

Bud Thank you for the information, I wasn't sure on how all of that worked. Where do the initial agar cultures come from? My dad works some where that is throwing away an entire clean-room and is getting it for me for free. He maid it sound real legit, flow hood and everything. I am hoping with some expansions coming up we might be to that stage in the next few months and would like to figure out hot to start from the beginning to where we didn't have to buy spawn and could just build our own. I realize the spawn get weaker with age, we don't plan on going past 3 generations of pyramiding the spawn in the grain.

Well, now I'm off to update. Have all of the photo's uploaded just have to sort things out and I'll be back.

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• Apr 26, 2012

• #49

Update!

Update!

Sorry its been a long time folks, been real busy here as my post to Poopy says 5-6 days a week and on the days I'm not working I'm running to the grow room to check on that.

Here is some progress in the grow room since I don't have a journal or anything going.

All are at 6 weeks of flower

KKSC x Swt4 #1

KKSC x Swt4 #6

KKSC x Swt4 #5

KKSC x Swt4 #4

There's that

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• Apr 26, 2012

• #50

Now that thats over

Now that thats over

Ok back to the business of mushrooms


Got this load a couple weeks ago, there are 12 bales missing out of there because they are pasteurized and planted.

Here is room A fruiting pretty well.

A nice big cluster, too bad she went a little bit too long and spored out. . . It happens.

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• Apr 26, 2012

• #51

Ready to go to the Co-op around here, just started making drops to them

Here is the new logs we have been packing!

Here is room B, just hung the lights this 2 days ago and it should start fruiting on some of the columns soon.

Here is room C, by the end of this week it will be full. Starting room D construction soon.

Those columns are 11.5" diameter and hold 2 bails between 3 at 7' tall. Not the easiest thing to pack in tight but we do. The bitch is tying off the top when its packed.

Questions, Comments?

 

B

Bud+

Member

• Apr 26, 2012

• #52

Looking amazing!

 

Agaricus

Active member

• Apr 26, 2012

• #53

Really, really impressive operation!

For tons of info on all phases of mushroom cultivation I'll put in a shameless plug for mycotopia.net. It's been my shroomy home for a lot of years. A great bunch of people with vast experience and a great willingness to help. The archives are a treasure trove.

You'll be able to save a lot of money by generating your own spawn, and it's relatively easy to do. You don't need a fancy flow hood. A glovebox works fine. Though for the size of your operation a hood might be the better option, they can be built for a fairly reasonable price. Spawn bags and an impulse sealer are, imo, a better option than jars. More will fit into a PC or autoclave, they're easier to handle and don't break. You can propagate your clones in liquid culture media for easy innoculation.

You can get started learning the techniques on a small scale for not much money. Get down your sterile techniques and you're good to go.

You can do your spawn on wild bird seed or popcorn, too. It's cheaper than rye and I've had fewer contam problems. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on so, it's one of my favorite subjects. Best of luck in the shroom business. It's a ton of work and not everyone can make it pay but it looks like you guys are on the right track.

 

Agaricus

Active member

• May 5, 2012

• #54

There's a mushroom farm not far from me with an interesting story behind it. Their site's oystercreekmushroom.com. Worth a peek.

 

Mt Toaker

Member

• May 22, 2012

• #55

Thanks for stopping in Agaricus.

Right now the farm is in limbo and we are being forced to move. I'll take a bunch of pictures of the new spot when we get goin there at the end of the week or into next week.

 

S

shagdawg420

Member

• May 22, 2012

• #56

damn and i thought my shit was cool good grow man why aint this on shroomery or is it