I want to cultivate mushrooms at home. can anyone please tell me how can i do this?

Question

I want to know the requirements like seeds, fertilizers, space. What are the suitable conditions? which variety of mushroom is eaten widely?
Please help me.
thank you
Ashutosh

Answer 1

There are quite a few websites that sell kits to grow mushrooms. I've posted a few. Read the FAQ's to find out what type of environment you'll need to provide your mushroom patch.

I've grown them in the past and had reasonably good success with them. It's kind of fun because you can get a lot of varieties of mushrooms like Shiitake, Morel, etc.

If you follow the instructions on the kits, you should have pretty good success.

Answer 2

INDOOR SAWDUST/WOOD CHIP BLOCKS CULTIVATION

Most of the primary wood decomposers can be grown indoors on a block made up of sawdust, wood chips and bran. The ingredients are mixed together and placed in autoclavable polypropylene bags that have a breathable patch ( a filter that allows the exchange of gases). The bags are then sterilised to kill all bacteria and competitor fungi. After sterilisation and cool down grain spawn is mixed into the sawdust in a sterile environment and the bags sealed. The mycelium will run through this mixture in 3-4 weeks at 75 F (25C). After full colonisation the "blocks" are removed to a growing room where the bag is removed. The growing room is kept at a constant temperature and high humidity thereby promoting the fruiting of the mushrooms. After the mushrooms are picked the blocks are rested for 2 weeks and the cycle is begun again by soaking them in water. See The Mushroom Cultivator, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets and The Shiitake Growers Handbook by Paul Przybylowicz and John Donoghue for excellent instruction on growing by this method.

INDOOR STRAW BLOCK CULTIVATION

Oyster mushrooms are very aggressive colonisers and can compete successfully with some bacteria. They grow very well on pasteurised straw (any cereal straw is usually suitable as well as many other substrates). Pasteurisation only requires the substrate to be heated to 160F for about an hour, which can be accomplished by boiling in water. Grain spawn is then mixed into the cooled down straw in a clean area and the mixture is bagged. The mycelium will run through the straw in a couple of weeks and then the bags can be placed in a growing room and fruited. The Mushroom Cultivator, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets is a good reference.

Many species of mushrooms require stimuli which are only available outdoors to produce fruiting bodies. It may be the bacteria in the soil, the pH of the soil, the varying temperatures, whatever it is they will not do as well indoors in a controlled environment. Shaggy manes, Stropharia rugoso-annulata and Morels are some of these. One outdoor growing technique involves digging a trench or making a raised bed in a suitable spot, which may be under your bushes, in your garden between the rows of vegetables or in your bush. This trench is then filled with wood chips or straw or both. It is then inoculated with grain spawn or sawdust spawn, covered with topsoil and watered. If kept moist the mycelium will take over the substrate and a couple of months later will produce mushrooms. A good reference is Mushrooms in The Garden by Hellmut Steinbeck.

HOME CULTIVATION

Any of the methods described above are suitable for home cultivation. Sawdust or straw based kits are easily available and can be grown successfully in a small area of your kitchen using a plastic tent to provide the necessary micro climate suitable to mushrooms. Logs can be placed under your flowering bushes in the back yard and will provide you with crops for a few years with little work. Bed cultivation is an easy step for the person with a "green thumb"

Mushrooms are a tasty addition to your diet and are a good source of protein, minerals and some vitamins. They are good for your garden as well because they break down organic matter and make the nutrients available to your plants. As well as many edible species, medicinal mushrooms such as Reishi or Ling Zhi can easily be grown in kits. The usefulness of mushrooms in the fight against cancer and AIDS is just becoming known as more research is being done, especially in Japan. Medicinal Mushrooms by Christopher Hobbs details the medicinal properties of many wild and cultivated species.

Answer 3

I started growing as a hobby twelve years ago, it started with the "funny ones" and I was fascinated. Now I use that knowledge to grow 20 varieties of gourmet and medicinals both indoors and out, Most people that say they don't like mushrooms have only tried the rubbery things in cans that go on pizza. Mushrooms are as varied in taste and texture as the many fruits and vegetables we like. When doing your research, don't be put off by the cultivators of the "funny ones", they have developed many techniques that will work on many gourmet mushrooms, without the expense of sterile laboratories. The following book and web sites should get you started. "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms" by Paul Stamets, www.EROWID.com and www.fungiperfecti.com, RScott

Answer 4

You can get a kit to grow mushrooms with all the directions from several seeds companies. Two are Gurney's and Henry Fields.
www.gurneys.com
www.henryfields.com
On search just type in mushrooms and it will come up for you. Henry Fields offered two types. Not sure if Gurney's does.

Answer 5

if u keep looking in news papers u will find consultants offering knowledge for growing mushroom on commercial scale. i have seen advertisements in news papers, for one day seminars. i have gone through all the above sites and feel that it is fun to grow for home consumption, and takes lot of pains to grow for business.....if u have determination, time, money and space in proper climate u can do it, and if u have patience to face teething troubles, it is real good business under the above conditions..best of luck. now check the marketing conditions... grow quality and get entry into 5 star hotels... be ready for competition also... do some research

Answer 6

You have to attend 2-3 hrs training, mushrooms are cultivated frm spores not seeds

Oysters are easily grown with straw

Answer 7

spores not seeds
button most popular but not best cash crop (pfeferling)
dark damp but not wet loose loom type of soil not too cold or hort

Answer 8

get some magic mushrooms am eating them right now

Answer 9

contact nearest agricultural department

Answer 10

HOW DO YOU START GROWING MUSHROOMS?

The simplest way is to buy a kit or a inoculated log from a reputable supplier, follow the instructions and enjoy a few crops of mushrooms. Typical kits available are Shiitake, and various Oyster species. The selection of species in kit form is limited so if you are interested in some of the more exotic mushrooms the only solution is to make your own.

The procedures for cultivating mushrooms are as follows (The examples used will be the more common mushroom species, which have a high, proven success rate. The techniques however apply to all SAPROPHYTIC mushrooms, variations for success of different types are developed from experimentation.). The basic concept in cultivation is to start with a bit of mycelium and to expand that mycelial mass to the point that it has enough volume and stored up energy to support the final phase of the mushroom reproductive cycle, which is the formation of fruiting bodies or mushrooms. To do this you need either spores from a spore print, a fresh mushroom, or a culture bought from a culture bank or other source. Growing out the spores is the sexual reproductive cycle and requires the combination of two spores to produce a new individual fungus. Reproduction from a culture or a fresh mushroom involves asexual reproduction, you basically clone the original organism . The spores or a small piece of the mushroom or culture are placed on agar medium in petri dishes and the mycelium is grown out. After the mycelium has colonized the petri dishes, usually about 2 weeks, it is transferred onto sterilized grain (rye, wheat, millet). It will then completely colonize the grain ( about 2-4 weeks). This grain spawn, as it is now called, can then be used to inoculate more grain, for a larger quantity of grain spawn, or can be used to make sawdust spawn, kits, or to inoculate outdoor beds in orchards, gardens or bush. Sawdust spawn, which is used to make wooden dowel plug spawn or to inoculate logs directly, and to inoculate outdoor beds, is made by transferring grain spawn to previously sterilized hardwood sawdust. The mycelium will run through the sawdust in about 3-4 weeks, at which point it will be ready to use. Plug spawn is made by transferring some sawdust spawn onto sterilized wood dowels and letting the mycelium permeate the dowels. The above procedures should be carried out in a sterile environment otherwise there will be a large percentage of contamination due to molds and bacteria. Also the substrates used ie agar, grain, sawdust must be sterilized beforehand to give a competition free environment for the mycelium to grow. Therefore if you want to do it all from scratch, you must invest in some basic equipment. A clean room such as a closet, or small washroom are suitable. A sterilizer is a must, a High Efficiency Particulate Filter (HEPA) to work in front of is almost essential also, home made glove boxes can be used but will be awkward when handling jars of spawn. A detailed description of sterile laboratory techniques are found in two excellent books: The Mushroom Cultivator, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets.

The investment to set up a simple "laboratory", can run into a couple of thousand dollars. If this is beyond the scope of your interest in cultivation, the next best alternative is to purchase spawn from a supplier and inoculate your own logs, make your own kits, or set up growing beds outdoors. Spawn is usually available in grain, dowel, and sawdust form from the same people who make kits. Again the variety will be limited to a few species, so if you want to grow your favourite wild species you will usually have to do it from scratch unless you can find someone that has a "laboratory" set-up to custom make spawn for you. If you can custom make your spawn, then a much larger selection of mushrooms is available for you to experiment with. Most wild Agaricus sp. can be cultivated, Blueits are actually cultivated commercially in Europe, Chicken of the woods, Shaggy manes are just some of the types that you can grow. Mushrooms in The Garden by Hellmut Steinbeck lists a few pages of mushroom species that can be cultivated. Whether you purchase spawn or make your own, the next step is to inoculate the final substrate that will eventually produce mushrooms. This substrate can be logs, stumps, sawdust/wood chip mixtures, straw, cardboard, compost etc. The main thing to remember is that you want to introduce your fungus into a medium that is relatively free of other fungi. The competition between fungi is fierce so you want to give yours a head start, once it has colonized the substrate it can fight off the competition. If you are growing on logs or stumps, these must be freshly cut, preferably winter cut so that the sugar content in the wood is high, giving an initial boost to the mycelium. If growing indoors on sawdust/wood chips or straw the type of mushroom will determine the amount of processing of the substrate. Shiitake, Maitake, Enoki (Flammulina velutipes), which are grown on sawdust, for example require sterilization of the medium, because at the beginning they do not compete well with molds or bacteria. Oyster sp. and Stropharia only require the medium to be pasteurized because they actually consume the other organisms in their life cycle. Simply sterilization, means steam sterilization in an autoclave at 15 psi for a few hours or at atmospheric pressure for at least 12 hrs. Pasteurization means boiling the medium in water.
INDOOR SAWDUST/WOOD CHIP BLOCKS CULTIVATION

Most of the primary wood decomposers can be grown indoors on a block made up of sawdust, wood chips and bran. The ingredients are mixed together and placed in autoclavable polypropylene bags that have a breathable patch ( a filter that allows the exchange of gases). The bags are then sterilised to kill all bacteria and competitor fungi. After sterilisation and cool down grain spawn is mixed into the sawdust in a sterile environment and the bags sealed. The mycelium will run through this mixture in 3-4 weeks at 75 F (25C). After full colonisation the "blocks" are removed to a growing room where the bag is removed. The growing room is kept at a constant temperature and high humidity thereby promoting the fruiting of the mushrooms. After the mushrooms are picked the blocks are rested for 2 weeks and the cycle is begun again by soaking them in water. See The Mushroom Cultivator, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets and The Shiitake Growers Handbook by Paul Przybylowicz and John Donoghue for excellent instruction on growing by this method.

INDOOR STRAW BLOCK CULTIVATION

Oyster mushrooms are very aggressive colonisers and can compete successfully with some bacteria. They grow very well on pasteurised straw (any cereal straw is usually suitable as well as many other substrates). Pasteurisation only requires the substrate to be heated to 160F for about an hour, which can be accomplished by boiling in water. Grain spawn is then mixed into the cooled down straw in a clean area and the mixture is bagged. The mycelium will run through the straw in a couple of weeks and then the bags can be placed in a growing room and fruited. The Mushroom Cultivator, and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets is a good reference.

Many species of mushrooms require stimuli which are only available outdoors to produce fruiting bodies. It may be the bacteria in the soil, the pH of the soil, the varying temperatures, whatever it is they will not do as well indoors in a controlled environment. Shaggy manes, Stropharia rugoso-annulata and Morels are some of these. One outdoor growing technique involves digging a trench or making a raised bed in a suitable spot, which may be under your bushes, in your garden between the rows of vegetables or in your bush. This trench is then filled with wood chips or straw or both. It is then inoculated with grain spawn or sawdust spawn, covered with topsoil and watered. If kept moist the mycelium will take over the substrate and a couple of months later will produce mushrooms. A good reference is Mushrooms in The Garden by Hellmut Steinbeck.

HOME CULTIVATION

Any of the methods described above are suitable for home cultivation. Sawdust or straw based kits are easily available and can be grown successfully in a small area of your kitchen using a plastic tent to provide the necessary micro climate suitable to mushrooms. Logs can be placed under your flowering bushes in the back yard and will provide you with crops for a few years with little work. Bed cultivation is an easy step for the person with a "green thumb"

Mushrooms are a tasty addition to your diet and are a good source of protein, minerals and some vitamins. They are good for your garden as well because they break down organic matter and make the nutrients available to your plants. As well as many edible species, medicinal mushrooms such as Reishi or Ling Zhi can easily be grown in kits. The usefulness of mushrooms in the fight against cancer and AIDS is just becoming known as more research is being done, especially in Japan. Medicinal Mushrooms by Christopher Hobbs details the medicinal properties of many wild and cultivated species.