Oyster mushrooms are some of the easiest to grow; however, there’s several things to know for their successful growing. This article discusses oyster mushroom training opportunities, the yield performance of oyster mushrooms on different substrates and their power to recycle agricultural waste.
Growing oyster mushrooms on agro-waste
Pleurotus mushrooms are commercially important to the world market. They are widely cultivated and appreciated for their specific taste and nutritional values all over the world. They are rich in proteins, amino acids, and essential fatty acids.
Pleurotus citrinpileatus forms large clusters that bear a spicy-bitter-nutty flavor but unfortunately its fragility makes it difficult for post-harvest distribution to far away markets. This kind grows rapidly through pasteurized straw and sterilized sawdust. It develops well at higher temperatures than the common oyster mushroom. Will grow on logs and stumps, particularly of Ulmus and Carpinus. In China, farmers grow them on cottonseed hulls, sugar cane bagasse, sawdust, and straw. In the U.S.A., the most frequently used substrate compositions imply wheat straw or hardwood sawdust.
For fruiting, substrates range from pasteurized wheat, chopped corn cobs to hardwood sawdust. Alternative substrates that are being developed commercially are represented by paper by-products, banana fronds and peanut hulls. Straw inoculated with grain spawn is considered to have considerably greater yields than straw inoculated with sawdust spawn.
Regarding to yield potentials it needs to be said that this species in not as prolific as the more popular Pleurotus ostreatus in the conversion of substrate. Studies have shown that using cottonseed amended substrates provided higher yield efficiencies. The biological efficiency ranges from 50-100% on wheat straw.
One study selected seven locally available substrates for figuring out the growth and yield performance: bean straw, sawdust of African mahogany, maize cobs, rice straw, wheat straw, sugarcane bagasse, and banana leaves.
The best performance was obtain on bean straw substrate. In this particular study all seven substrates were pasteurized at 70°C for 2h. After cooling, they were individually spawned at a rate of 5% under laminar air flow and then, labeled and incubated in the dark at 25±2°C for 8-21 days.
After completing this task, they were transferred into a humid growing room and kept at a 12 h light/ 12 h dark photoperiod at 23±2°C. After completing the experiment, data gathered concluded that all substrates recorded great fruiting and mycelia colonization.
Maximum yield and biological efficiency (148%) was found at a spawn rate of 5% using bean straw substrate. Closely following was rice straw, with an efficiency of 90%, sugarcane bagasse 78%, wheat straw 41%, banana leaves 16% and the lowest, maize cobs 5%.
Another recent study focused on growing this type of mushroom on pea pod shell, paddy straw, brassica straw, radish leaves and cauliflower leaves separately and on various combinations. Pleurotus citrinopileatus apparently failed to grow on pea pod shells, radish and cauliflower leaves but developed very well on paddy straw in combination with other kinds of substrates.
When harvested from paddy straw only, the total yield and biological efficiency was lower than on other wastes combined with paddy straw. The maximum biological efficiency was held by 70% paddy straw with 30% other wastes. Six essential amino acids were found in the mushrooms grown on the mixed substrate and also higher quantities of protein, sugar and non-reducing sugar.
It’s important to highlight the fact that using these agro-wastes gave high yields and definitely playing around with random substrate combinations or factors is key, but hey! once you got a great recipe a great strain and know what this particular strain likes and dislikes you’ll get happy results.
If you need instructions on how to grow this mushroom on straw please check: A step by step guide on how to grow oyster mushroom on straw
A report by Malina Puia
Veggie -oyster mushroom alliance
I personally believe that these two complete each other especially because the waste that remains from growing veggies may be used to grow mushrooms, and what remains from mushroom (the spent substrate) may be used as a soil fertilizer so you can grow veggies in a nutrient-rich soil. Besides these two may be grown together on the same piece of land.
On a veggie farm there are always plant leftovers like: corn, pea, bean, tomato or potato stalks, different kinds of leaves, etc. that could be turned into protein via mushrooms but unfortunately many farmers, toss these agricultural wastes.
If you think about it, there are some differences in regards to effort, time until harvest and market price for both, veggies and mushrooms and this depends very much on the type that you pick to grow. Veggies in general need more time to complete their grow cycle and their price at the farmer’s market is lower compared to mushrooms, and I also believe growing veggies comes with more labor and care compared to growing mushrooms. So, these are just few of the reasons why I encourage veggie farmers to venture into mushroom farming as well and consider this as a great addition to their farm.
DRY BEANS
- Effort: soil work, seeding, weed removal, watering, picking
- Time until first harvest: 10 weeks or more (depending on bean type)
- Market price: $2-3/lb
OYSTER MUSHROOMS
- Effort: substrate disinfection, inoculation, picking
- Time until first harvest: 2-3 weeks
- Bulk market price: $2.5-4/lb
- Retail market price: $10/lb
What you see above it’s a simple example outlining some of the differences between what means to grow dry beans and oyster mushrooms, but if you’re thinking about other kinds of veggies or mushrooms you’ll get slightly different results. However, this is not to convince you that mushrooms are better than beans, but to show you that growing both, mushrooms and veggies is more profitable compared to growing them separately.
If these two are grown at the same farm they form a strong bound because they complete each other in a sustainable way. This is very true for different kind of plants that you’re probably already growing at your farm (if you own one). If you’re interested, I encourage you to dive into it and find out more. Take my class on oyster mushroom growing and see what other types of agricultural waste usually found on a farm are suitable to design an oyster mush substrate recipe.
If you want to grow shiitake mushrooms instead of oyster mushrooms, the time wait for it would be of up to 8 weeks until it fruits (depending on the strain) but also the market price is of up to $10 or more per pound.
Unfortunately, there are very few strains that would fruit on bean plant waste and this requires fruiting trials. I’ve heard about some growers that grew shiitake on straw. Personally I never tried to grow this mushroom on straw but I had luck in growing it on paper. Shiitake is usually grown on hardwood sawdust and logs -poplar, alder, oak, cottonwood, beech, etc or aged conifer wood.
Some other species like lion’s mane, enoki, maitake, nameko and so forth also have an affinity for wood rather than straws or other agricultural wastes, therefore the best choice in this case remains oyster mushrooms.
You don’t need fancy growrooms and equipment to grow mushrooms, they will fruit if you provide them with the conditions they need – the ones they get in their natural habitat. They behave pretty much like plants, respect their needs and they will flood you with a tone of fruiting bodies.
Low-tech Oyster Mushroom Growing For Beginners
This class is a journey into the wonderful world of the oyster mushroom. It discusses different substrates, recipes and different substrate disinfection methods used such as pasteurization, sterilisation or hydrated lime disinfection. It will show you how to grow oyster mushrooms on wood shavings, paper and straw. Growing them on other substrates is similar with slight variations. The star of the video show is the golden oyster (P. cornnucopiae) and you’ll see how to get the first flush of this mushroom. You can grow other oyster mushrooms the same way except few like P. tuberregium (that develops from sclerotia).
The main challenge when growing mushrooms is to make sure that you do the best to offer the nutritious substrate to your desired fungus and not other competitor fungi or bacteria. This class will show you what you need to do to avoid any possible complications that usually result in material, effort and time loss.
Here are some of the most common issues that startups mushroom grower do:- the process results in anaerobic bacteria patches taking over the substrate case in which few or no mushroom fruitbodies form
- the substrate is packed with green grass (due to germinated grain seeds)
- other kind of mushrooms pop (instead of the desired fungus)
- the inoculated substrate stagnates
- the inoculated substrate gets colonised by mycelium but doesn't fruit
- the pinheds form but quickly drie up and results in no fruitbody formation
- the fruitbodies form but have small caps and elongated stalks
- several inoculated substrate bags are lost due to mold infection
As you may notice is easy to get discouraged when starting out with oyster mushroom growing. With proper guidance you’ll be able to avoid these complications. Scoring the internet for answers is another option; however, the information out there in most cases is erratic and requires you to spend time to figure it out by yourself.
DONATE & GET INSTANT ACCESS TO 4 TRAINING MODULES:
1. Introduction to low-tech mushroom growing;
2. Growing mushrooms on different types of substrate (substrate types, quality, selection, recipe formulation);
3. Mushroom growing techniques (substrate disinfection methods I, II, ways to grow mushrooms, the Lime bath method (cold pasteurization));
4. Sustainable mushroom growing (permaculture vs agriculture, mushrooms as integrative part in the permaculture design, the 0% waste model)
These training modules include: Quiz and Q&A
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On oyster mushroom yields
Mushrooms are a large group of fungi widely used for numerous benefits. They have anti-inflammatory benefits, rich nutritional values, anti-cancer properties, antioxidant qualities, etc. The oyster mushroom (Pleurotus sp.) is cultivated and consumed all over the world. People admire it for its unique taste, high nutritional value and health benefits.
The common oyster, Pleurotus ostreatus became popular in Germany around 1917 and later it was discovered that several species can grow on agricultural wastes, lignocelluloses and forest-by products. There are many organic matters that can be cleverly used as substrates such as wheat straw, rice stalk and coco pet.
The substrate porosity needs to be increased by adding gypsum. Usually, the substrate’s moisture should be kept around 60-75% and increased to 80-95% during fruiting.
STUDY # 1
One study used combinations of wheat straw and artichoke stalks for substrates.
Recipe: All mixtures were supplemented with 75g wheat bran and 30g of gypsum and afterwards moistened with 2,5 liters of water. The substrates used were three different mixtures of artichoke stalks and wheat straw, along with single wheat straw and single artichoke stalks.
Disinfection: The bags holding the different substrate mixtures were sterilized in an industrial autoclave for one and a half hour at 126 oC under 1.5 A pressure. Prior to inoculation, they were allowed to cool.
Climate: The growing room temperatures were between limits of 24-25 oC. The relative humidity was set at 85%.
Results: after performing different analyzes, the results indicated that the harvest time was highly different, shorter in artichoke stalks and artichoke stalks mixed with wheat straw than in wheat straw only (control lot). The highest yield was met when using 100% wheat straw. The best values for biological efficiency (66.41%) were also obtained with 100% wheat straw followed by a mix of 75% wheat stalks and 25% artichoke stalks with a value of 56.93%.
Conclusion: After gathering all the results, the conclusion was that regarding the biological efficiency, which is the most important parameter in mushroom growth, the highest and lowest values found in the experiment were 66.4% for 100% wheat stalk and 50.58% for 100% artichoke stalk. Therefore, artichoke stalk is a suitable candidate in the mushroom industry, but it is preferred to be used in mixtures for bringing its potential closer to the maximum.
STUDY #2
Another experiment focused on using organic wastes, more precisely sawdust, cotton seed, wheat straw and paper waste to assess the production potential.
Recipe: The moisture content of the substrate had to be around 65 to 70%. Disinfection: Autoclave sterilization followed by several hours of cooling was mandatory before inoculating the spawn.
Conditions: Moreover, proper ventilation in the growth room was kept by occasionally opening the door.
Results: After the trial was done, mycelia growth was reported to be faster on cotton seed and paper wasted when compared to the other substrates. Also, pin-head formation took place rapidly in cotton seed. The time required by fruiting bodies to be matured enough varied from 27 days for cotton seed to 40.67 days for wheat straw. Records showed that product from paper waste knows a better growth in terms of thickness of the pileus and diameter. Furthermore, the number of fruiting bodies was higher in cotton seed than in other used substrates. The largest yield was harvested from cotton seed. The biological efficiency varied significantly. The highest percentage was present in cotton seed and the lowest in sawdust substrate.
Conclusion: The conclusion from this study concerning oyster mushroom cultivation states that cotton seed and paper waste are suitable substrates.
STUDY #3
Researchers in Taiwan compared three different substrates and combinations to study the effects, productivity, yield and biological efficiency.
Recipe: They used sawdust, corncob and sugar bagasse.
Disinfection: All substrates were sterilized in an autoclave at 121oC for 5h. Conditions: The inoculated substrates were kept under dark conditions in an incubation room that provided a temperature of 28 oC and 60-70 % relative humidity. This procedure was followed by a transfer to the cropping room where the humidity was increased to 90% and temperature was lowered to 24 oC.
Results: After harvesting, the study showed a correlation between yield and biological efficiency. The substrate of 100% sawdust showed the lowest mushroom yield and the lowest biological efficiency. The highest values were recorded in 100% corncob (66.08%) and 100% sugar bagasse (65.65%).
Conclusion: The differences can be blamed on the physical and chemical compositions of the substrates, pH, C/N ratio.
Higher biological efficiencies may be achieved trying different substrata and strains but still we need to look at several factors which in combination with a good strain could provide a biological efficiency of up to 200% which in some cases is known to occur for this mushroom. However, farm location remains an important point in getting higher mushroom crops and this needs to be analyzed by anyone wanting to grow oyster mushrooms for profit.
A report by Malina Puia
Increasing the King Oyster mushroom yield
The King Oyster (Pleurotus eryngii) is a very popular edible mushroom in many countries due to its taste, nutritional richness and commercial potential. This mushroom just like many other mushrooms provides us with a great amount of vitamins and minerals among other nutrients.
Oyster mushrooms are grown on many different substrates including agricultural wastes and industrial by-products. Mushroom cultivation is believed to be one of the most efficient and economically viable bio-technology. Their ability to grow in a wide range of temperatures makes them successful candidates for cultivation.
Researchers from Iran tried cultivating these edible mushrooms on different agricultural and lignocellulosic wastes like wheat straw and wood chips in order to obtain maximum yield and nutritional values. The substrates used were wheat straw, sawdust, sugar beet pulp, barley straw, maize stem and wood chips. All these six substrates were pasteurized by being soaked overnight followed by tissue softening at 212 F (100 oC) for 1,5 h and finally drained. Substrates were supplemented with nitrogen sources.
In general, studies claim that substrates supplemented with organic/inorganic substances often boost the production. Wood chips substrate supplemented with wheat bran showed an increased production. On the other hand, the low mushroom production gap on wheat straw could be blamed on the inability of Pleurotus eryngii to produce hydrolyzing enzymes for conversion to amino acids, nitrogen, and carbon.
This particular type of mushroom is successfully cultivated on many agro-industrial wastes. If you want to learn how to grow it check the Low-tech Small-scale Mushroom Farm Setup Training. Some people use rice bran, wheat bran, poultry manure, brewers grain and cotton seed meal as organic supplements. In this case, the highest biological efficiency 73% was obtained with 20% dried brewers grain.
An experiment from 2000 claimed to have achieved high yield when increasing supplementation of substrate with rice bran. 2007 was the year that brought different values in terms of biological efficiency, more precisely 73% when using mixtures of wheat straw – cotton straw, wheat straw and millet straw supplemented with 15% rice bran. The highest yield 23,3g/100g and 77,2% biological efficiency was obtained by using a blending of wheat straw and cotton straw with 20% rice bran supplement.
In Egypt, scientists used four different substrate growing media: sawdust, soybean straw, sugarcane bagasse and rice straw. Each medium substrate was then mixed with 5% calcium carbonate and wheat bran. The moisture content was adjusted to 69-71%. The mixture packed in bags was autoclaved at 121 oC for 1h. The temperature of incubation was set at 25-27 oC. At the end of incubation, the temperature was switched to 20 oC.
Out of all substrates tested, sawdust differed and recorded the shortest incubation period. On the opposite side, sugarcane bagasse recorded the longest incubation period with the peak being of 41 days. The yield ranged from 139-196, 145-192, 150-201 g/kg depending on the media substrate. Sawdust had the highest yield, 201 g/kg and sugar cane bagasse and rice straw recorded the lowest values. In terms of biological efficiency, sawdust took the first place with 65.22%, while sugarcane bagasse had the lowest value, 45.71%.
Comparatively, in 2008 a report registered highest yield values of 28g/100g on wheat straw – soybean straw (1:1). A similar work found the highest yield to be 25.6 g/kg on wheat straw – millet straw (1:1) + 10% rice bran and a biological efficiency of 85.2%. News in 2008 reported 23.2 g/kg yield and 77.2% biological efficiency in a mixture of wheat straw – cotton straw supplemented with 20% rice bran.
Another project was conducted in Iran highlighting two different substrates, sawdust and rice straw. Different strain of king oyster (Pleurotus eryngii) respond differently depending on the substrate used for cultivation, supplements and environmental factors.
The temperature required for maximum prolificity and growth is between 12-17 oC. Sterilization is called for 1h at 121 oC under 1kg/cm2 pressure. Results concluded that on sawdust the highest yield was seen at strain Pe-1 (141 g), closely followed by strain Pe-2 (120.25 g).
By comparison, for every strain cultivated on rice straw the values were lower than those cultivated on sawdust. Highest biological efficiency was met in the Pe-1 strain (73.5%), followed by Pe-2 (62.6%) on sawdust. Just like in the case of yield performance, biological efficiency in rice straw was lower than in sawdust.
In the end, the conclusion could be that differences of growth, yield performance and biological efficiency are due to the unique biological structure of every substrate and the physiology of each strain of Pleurotus eryngii that’s matching the right strain with your local climate conditions, the formulation of a good substrate recipe and a healthy methodology remain some of the most important factors that influence overall yield for this highly prized oyster mushroom type.
A report by Malina Puia
References
M.P. Singh, V. K. Singh, “YIELD PERFORMANCE AND NUTRITIONAL ANALYSIS OF PLEUROTUS CITRINOPILEATUS ON DIFFERENT AGROWASTES AND EGETABLE WASTES”, 2011.
Musieba, et al., “Suitability of Locally Available Substrates for Cultivation of the Kenyan Indigenous Golden Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotuscitrinopileatus Singer)”, 2012.
Paul Stamets, “Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms”, book 1993.
R. H. Hassan, et al., “Cultvation of King Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotuseryngii) in Egypt”, 2010
K. Jeznabadi, et al., “King oyster mushroom production using various sources of agricultural wastes in Iran”, 2016
Moonmoon, et al., “Cultivation of different strains of king oyster mushroom(Pleurotuseryngii) on saw dust and rice straw in Bangladesh”, 2010