In article ,
"Pavel314" wrote:

"Katra" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Pavel314" wrote:

I've tried a couple times to use the basic kit to expand to boxes of
composted horse manure in the basement but they never grew there. Has
anyone
had experience in growing non-kit mushrooms?

Paul



That will only work if you sterilize that substrate first.
Pressure cooking it for 20 minutes will work.

Bag it first, sterlize it in the bag, then transplant some of the
mycelial clumps to the new substrate. If your mushrooms eat horse
manure, that should work.

I've only messed around with oyster mushrooms and they are wood
consumers.

One of the best places for edible mushroom kits is he

http://fungi.com/
--
K.

Sprout the MungBean to reply

"I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell see, I have friends
in both places." --Mark Twain

Katra,

We have one of those propane turkey cookers which my wife uses for dyeing
wool. I put some water in the bottom, put the composted manure in the
perforated container that sits within the main pot, covered it, and let it
cook and steam for a half hour, to kill any wild fungi that might have been
present.

However, I never thought that mushrooms limited themselves as to their food.
I should have know that, as we have a small stand of Dye Cort mushrooms out
back which only grow under pine trees. The fellow who delivers our hay says
that he takes any hay that gets rained on to the mushroom growers up in
Pennsylvania; guess I should have taken a clue from that.

When you grew oyster mushrooms, did you grow them on fresh sawdust or wood
chips? Do you know of any good websites with instructions for growing
mushroom?


Paul



I started mine on unbleached toilet paper rolls. :-) I got one flush
from them, then lost my culture to the heat! I am planning to try it
again now that one of the greenhouses is shaded (or try it indoors as
soon as I make some space) then try to allow them to grow into hardwood
shavings.

I'm going to bag them this time as I had a serious problem with fungal
flies. They lay eggs and the maggots destroy your culture. :-P

The BEST thing if you are serious about cultivation of mushrooms is to
get this book:

http://fungi.com/books/cultivation.html

The first book is the best, and might seem expensive until you start
reading it. ;-) It's $45.00 and worth every penny! Fascinating read too
and well written enough to be entertaining....

It's better than any website!

The kind of mushroom you are trying to grow will need specific types of
media with specific types of nutritional requirements. I've not gotten
serious about the oyster mushrooms yet, but I can start them from pureed
stems from the oriental market where I buy the fresh ones.

I want to try some Shitake's too, just have not gotten set up for them
yet. They needed hardwood, not pine, and I now have a couple of bags of
hardwood shavings to play with. I think tho' that I'll invest in some
fungal culture media plates and try to get a good bunch of mycelia
started on the media plates then try innocullating sterilized hardwood
shavings. I'll probably try bran fortification, or look up Stammet's
recommendations for those. Most Shitake's are grown in logs.
--
K.

Sprout the MungBean to reply

"I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell‹you
see, I have friends in both places." --Mark Twain