Mushroom
cultivation has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years because of the
ease at which ordinary people can begin growing and harvesting fresh,
edible mushrooms. Growing mushrooms is practical for both cooking
enthusiasts and entrepreneurial spirits because it has a large market
and it can be used in almost any dish.
You
can grow mushrooms for your personal consumption or you can harvest
them to sell later to your local market. Either way, you are going to
benefit from cultivating them at home because edible mushrooms can
either be consumed or sold for a nice profit.
The
first thing that you need to know about growing mushrooms is that
these fruiting bodies are extremely sensitive to two environmental
factors: temperature and humidity.
This
is the reason why it is recommended that you start growing mushrooms
during the spring/fall seasons. This way, you won't have to exert
extra effort just to stabilize the ambient temperature of your
growing area. Your growing area can be an outdoor or indoor space
dedicated to your mushrooms.
Many
mushroom farmers opt for indoor growing spaces because it is easier
to control the humidity and temperature of a given space if it is
protected by four walls and a roof.
If
you are feeling adventurous, we recommend that you try culturing your
own mycelium. This doesn't require a lot of technical know-how but it
will take some time before you are able to master the process and
produce mycelium that you would be proud to store for later use.
Let's
talk about the substrate. If you are planning to grow oyster
mushrooms or button mushrooms, you have probably been told to use cut
wheat straw or even cottonseed hulls. You can choose either one of
these two or you can just combine them.
Either
way, the mushrooms will grow. However, if you are planning to produce
mushrooms for your local market, you might want to combine the two
types of substrate to increase the overall capacity of the substrate
to retain water.
Moisture
is quite important to growing mushrooms. In fact, many beginning
mushroom farmers report sudden wilting because their substrates
became too dry. In the wild, mushrooms grow because a number of ideal
factors came together.
But
this doesn't always happen (which would explain why some tasty edible
mushrooms are rare in the wild). As a mushroom farmer, you should be
aware of the different factors that trigger the continuous formation
of fruiting bodies or mushrooms.
For
example, if you are going to grow shiitake mushrooms, you would have
to prepare a growing yard for the logs after the incubation period to
trigger the formation of mushrooms.
The
growing yard is cooler and at this point in time, the logs have to be
monitored regularly for moisture content to ensure that the logs will
produce the maximum amount of mushrooms during the harvesting season.
Whatever
substrate you are using, always remember that your substrate must be
of the right temperature, consistency (loose substrate will benefit
from a little gypsum) and moisture content. Dry supplementation
should also be considered to boost the seasonal yield of the
substrate which would probably provide you with new mushrooms every
few months, depending on the species of fungi that you have chosen.