Cultivating Oyster Mushrooms??

      Purchase quality spawns from the market (Spawn is just like the seed to plants, mushrooms grow and develop from them in the substrate)

      Prepare the substrate (substrates are the wastes in which the mushroom grows)

      What to use as substrate?

      Agricultural residue high in lignocellulose content.

      For example: Paddy straw, wheat straw, Banana leaves, legume straw, sorghum waste etc

      Chop the substrate in pieces of 4-5 cm by sickle or chopper

      Soak the substrate for overnight before use

      Remember that you must Sterilize the substrate to avoid contamination

      You can steam or boil the substrate in a drum or autoclave them  for at least 15-20 minutes

      Then spread them over sterilized clean plastic sheet for air cooling below 25 degree celcious.

      After cooling, fill the polythene bags in clean and sterile condition.

      The moisture of the substrates while filling should be around 60%, estimated by squeezing with hands i.e. if the substrate is wet but doesn’t drop water while squeezing it is optimum.

      You can take the transparent polythene bags of required sizes for filling

      Plastics are available in the market

      The space between two layers of spawn is maintained equal.

      3-4 layer of spawning can be done starting from the bottom layer, topping at last

      The spawn is spread on the edges of the substrate, visible from outside

      Move the bags to a production room after spawning.

      The bags can be hanged or kept in the floor but avoid contamination of dust and water

      Do not use dirty hands, use sprit to clean hands and formalin to clean surfaces

      The room for keeping mushroom bags should be made completely dark using black plastic.

      The temperature 17-20 oC and relative humidity maintained around 90%.

      Make the small holes (pin size) on each bags 8-10 numbers for ventilation.

      For the first 15 days of no lighting

      At the end of the 15 days (spawn run) dim light introduced into the growing room for pin head formation.

      Sufficient fresh air is also introduced through ventilation and CO2 concentration is lowered.

      The floors of the growing room can be covered by jute sacks to maintain the relative humidity of the room and watering is done on the floors

      When the white mycelium covers the whole ball

      Cut the plastic and water the balls twice a day to keep it moist.

      Insecticide Nuvan can be used to avoid the appearance of several insects

      (Note: The application of Nuvan was done only before pin head appearance or after harvesting of crop)

      The harvesting of mushroom is done when the cap began to fold.

      The picking can be done by twisting the mushroom gently and pulling out, without leaving any stub or simply cutting off using knife

***