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

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