How to grow mushrooms at home
The mushroom season is in full swing, and people rushed into the forests to fill baskets and buckets with butter, mushrooms and milk mushrooms. However, while some are looking for mushrooms, they roam the forest, while others calmly harvest on their hacienda. Do you want the same? How to grow mushrooms at home

Where to buy mushrooms for home growing

Many imagine: in order to grow a mushroom, you must first find it in the forest, dig it up, chop it, and sow it in the garden. Now it’s all much easier. In any garden store – whole showcases of packs of mushrooms with mycelium.

It is enough just to buy a pack, on the back of which there is a step-by-step instruction on how to properly breed and care for this particular type of mushroom.

Growing conditions

Some mushrooms, such as oyster mushrooms and champignons, can be grown at home – in the cellar or pantry. But it is much easier to breed them in the garden.

Growing mushrooms is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. First of all, you need to decide which ones you want – milk mushrooms, mushrooms, boletus, mushrooms or champignons. If your site has a piece of forest – that would be ideal. However, you need to understand which forest is deciduous or coniferous. It depends on which mycelium can take root there and form a fruiting body. But even if there is no forest nearby, it does not matter, each site has a garden.

You can use stumps for growing mushrooms. For example, there was a stump left from some tree, do not uproot – here you can breed a whole family of mushrooms. Buy mycelium – and go! There are even winter mushrooms with which the stump must be “infected” in the fall. Don’t worry, they won’t die. On the contrary, in the spring, as soon as the sun warms the shadow, they will begin to grow. You can also choose a summer variety – you can’t go wrong either.

planting mushrooms

Planting mushrooms depends on the type of mycelium.

On the stumps. Tree mushrooms such as oyster mushrooms, autumn mushrooms, shiitake, nameko and tremella ice mushrooms are sold in the form of sticks infected with mycelium. They are grown on logs of certain tree species (indicated in the instructions) with a diameter of 10 – 20 cm and a length of about 1 m, in which holes must be made at a distance of 20 cm from each other and deeper than the length of the stick. The sticks are driven in to the stop, and the hole itself is sealed with wooden plugs, wax or clay – so that bacteria and mold spores do not get inside.

The logs are removed in a dark, damp room, which should be well ventilated, and left to grow mycelium. After 2 – 4 months you will see a white “mold” – this is the mycelium. But until it appears, the logs need to be watered 2-3 times a week for 10-15 minutes.

After the mycelium has appeared, the logs are dug in the garden or in the greenhouse at an angle. And after about 1 – 2 weeks, the rudiments of fruiting bodies will appear on them.

There are other options for growing tree mushrooms. For example, oyster mushroom mycelium is on sale on a grain substrate (1), which is usually used for growing mushrooms in bags – they are filled with any plant material: leaves, sawdust, straw, buckwheat husks and even cardboard. And shiitake mushroom can be grown in pine sawdust (2).

In the soil. Ground mushrooms, for example, porcini, boletus, boletus, boletus, milk mushrooms are planted in the soil. And their mycelium is sold in the form of grains of cereals infected with mycelium. Each type of mushroom requires its own tree if they grow in symbiosis. What trees are needed – indicated in the instructions on the package.

To breed such mushrooms, 3 holes are made around the tree with a diameter of 10 – 15 cm and a depth of 20 cm. They are half covered with compost, pieces of mycelium are laid on it, and they are also covered with compost on top and lightly tamped. The holes are covered with moss, dry leaves and branches, after which the plantings are watered – in 1 bucket of water for each hole. In order for such a mycelium to take root well, it is useful to water it from time to time with a solution of sugar – 2 teaspoons per 10 liters of water.

“Be prepared for the fact that, having fulfilled all the requirements, you will not receive a harvest in the first year,” warns gardening expert Tatyana Kudryashova. – It will happen either next year or two years later. Such a capricious mushroom! It is better to sow mushrooms in early spring, as soon as the snow has melted and the earth has warmed up. Until it gets hot, it’s bad for survival. In the spring, there is a lot of moisture, it rains in sufficient quantities, and the sun is not so hot. It is also important that you need to water the mycelium not once a week, as many are used to, but as often as possible.

And the growth of mushrooms depends on temperature. The lower, the longer the formation of mycelium.

White mushrooms

White mushrooms, or mushrooms, are more difficult to breed. The first step is to dig a groove deep and wide on the spade bayonet.

“Then dig a strip on the right and left, divide it into even squares and turn the turf over,” shares his advice Tatiana Kudryashova. – A humus bedding for a boletus is required, otherwise it will not survive. Pieces of mycelium are laid on it and sprinkled with humus, covered with removed turf and carefully spilled with water.

When the mycelium takes root and fruiting bodies of mushrooms appear, watering and care can be completely stopped.

Thus, it is possible to breed porcini mushrooms, boletus, boletus, boletus on the site.

Champignon

To grow champignons, you need good compost or semi-decomposed straw horse manure (3).

These mushrooms are quite whimsical: they do not grow on the ground or in the open sun, they need shading, certain moisture and temperature conditions, so a place for them must be found somewhere in a shady corner of the garden.

Shoots of champignons look like white mold, which gradually folds into small knots – these are the future mushrooms. Then a tiny stem and a hat the size of a pinhead appear, and then a mushroom.

How to increase the yield of mushrooms in the garden

The yield of mushrooms grown from purchased mycelium can be quite solid. For example, oil under one tree can be collected 6 – 17 pieces, boletus and boletus – 5 – 15 pieces, porcini mushrooms – 2 – 5 kg, shiitake – up to 4 kg per log, oyster mushrooms – 20 – 50% of the weight of the log.

But if you want to increase the yield of mushrooms, bring land from the forest. You just need to find a place with the mycelium of interest to us, for example, white or oily, carefully remove the soil 15 cm thick and bring it to your site. And on the site, remove the sod of exactly the same size and put forest soil on this place. And already on it sow the purchased mycelium.

By the way, you can not buy mycelium. Bring an old or wormy mushroom from the forest, chop its hat, mix it with wood dust and scatter it under the trees. And after a while, mushrooms will appear in this place.

Popular questions and answers

We talked about growing mushrooms with agronomist-breeder Svetlana Mikhailova – she shared details about growing different types of mushrooms.

Under what trees can porcini mushrooms be grown?

In garden centers, you can buy mycelium of 2 types of porcini mushrooms. White mushroom oak will grow under oak, linden and beech or hornbeam in the southern regions. White fungus pine – under the pines. Moreover, the trees must be young – no older than 10 years.

Under what trees can oak trees be grown?

Oaks and birches are suitable for dubovik, and beeches in the south. The optimal age of trees for breeding this fungus is 6 years.

Under what trees can chanterelles be grown?

Chanterelles grow best under pine trees – there they give the greatest yields.

Under what trees can truffles be grown?

Truffle is white, namely its mycelium is most often sold in garden centers, grows well under young oaks and hazel. And in the southern regions – under the beeches.

On what tree species can oyster mushrooms be grown?

On sale there is a mycelium of different types of oyster mushrooms, and everyone has their own preferences: 

– ordinary, Indian, pink – birch, poplar, willow, alder, aspen, oak, maple, chestnut, beech, hornbeam;

– lemon and Colombian – birch, willow, poplar, maple, mountain ash, fruit trees, beech.

On what tree species can mushrooms be grown?

Autumn and summer mushrooms can be successfully grown on logs of oak, birch, alder, poplar, ash, maple, beech, hornbeam and chestnut.

Sources of

  1. Alekseenko E.N., Polishko T.M., Vinnikov A.I. Features of growing the mycelium of fungi Plearotus ostreatus // Regulatory Mechanisms in Biosystems, 2010

    https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/osobennosti-vyraschivaniya-mitseliya-gribov-plearotus-ostreatus

  2. Komin P.A. Artificial cultivation of shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes (Berk.) Pegler) on coniferous sawdust // Bulletin of the Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University, 2016

    https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/iskusstvennoe-vyraschivanie-griba-shiitake-lentinula-edodes-berk-pegler-na-hvoynyh-opilkah

  3. Shuin K.A., Zakraevskaya N.K., Ippolitova N.Ya. Garden from spring to autumn // Minsk, Uradzhay, 1990 – 256 p.

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