Has anyone grown oyster mushrooms on logs?

[MObeek]

Just another update. The mycelia in the bag are still growing but it doesn't look as moist inside today. When I watched the video from India again, the commentator said they put 35-40 (pin)holes into the bag after inoculating. So I went and added more holes into my bag. The logs, on the other hand, still look the same. It will take about twelve or more months to get mushrooms out of them.

So it has been 12 days since I've inoculated the bag. Hopefully, in 2 more weeks, I'll be harvesting. I need to be patient.....


https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/45453 ... ?fv=y&ifr=

[applestar]

Did you see this accidental grow I posted about? -- well not really since I don't have any expectation that they'll survive ...
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... 031#288031

Looks good. I can't remember now how straw compared to coffee grounds and paper products without reading over my own thread I think typically, the entire bag becomes filled with white mycelia before fruiting bodies start to grow, then they take 3-5 days to mature.

[MObeek]

If you spray them daily, would they survive? Or can you scrape some and use them for starters?

I think oyster mushrooms in coffee ground and paper products grow faster. Oh well, I'll just have to keep waiting.

By the way, I am having some problems with fungus gnats flying around ever since I planted my indoor seed starter. But, thanks to the suggestions in another link in this forum, I've been keeping their numbers way down. Now if I can only eliminate them all together.

[MObeek]

Just an update: the substrate in my bag is not fully colonized yet so I'm still impatiently waiting. In the meantime, I have been reading some more and found the method below which I plan on applying:

Vietnam’s method of fruiting and harvesting:

After the bags have been cut with 4-6 slits on the sides of each bag, they are sprayed with water 2 or 3 times a day to keep the mushrooms moist, and the growers are careful not to give them too much water. No water should collect inside the bag. Growers take the cotton out of the mouth of the bag and suspend the bags on a wire or rope, with the mouth of the bag pointing downwards.
The mushrooms will begin to appear in the slits, looking like small round buttons. As soon as they begin to appear, growers should move the bags to the growing or harvesting area. The bags should be placed 7-10 cm apart. The first oyster mushrooms can be harvested 7-10 days after the bag is cut. After the mushrooms are harvested, growers stop spraying water for several days. When the young fruits begin to appear again, they begin to spray the bags with water again. This cycle can be repeated 3 to 4 times giving a total harvest of 50-80 kg of oyster mushrooms from 100 kg of straw.

https://fungiforum.com/documents/handboo ... er-7-1.pdf

[MObeek]

Another update:
I did a bad thing and opened the bag a couple of days ago to retrieve some plugs and add it to cardboard with hopes of starting more spawns. As a result, I may have contaminated the bag cause there are some green stuff growing in the bottom right of the bag. So if this gets worse, I may just have to dispose of the bag.
https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/45453 ... ?fv=y&ifr=

I hope the logs fair better.

I think I'll buy more spawn and try to keep that from getting contaminated.

[applestar]

Yep. Avoiding introducing contamination is the toughest, especially until the mycilia have grown sufficiently vigorously.

More elaborate operations involve "clean room"

For my spore and agar media cultures and grain substrate culturing, I used a translucent storage tote with a clamp on lid laid on on its side. And an air filter fan blowing away from the opening. I think I described the set up in my thread.

You need to be rigorous about washing hands, wearing clean clothes, and using sterile tools. I used rubbing alcohol and peroxide sprays. I found out the hard way that using peroxide to "sterilize" my own skin was a bad idea. Rubbing alcohol did not damage the skin.

How did you open the bag? Best way I found is to squeeze the contents away from a band where you intend to cut, create a double-fold airlock seal on the side you want to preserve, then wipe down both sides of the band with alcohol, slice open with a very sharp knife dipped in flame or alcohol and spray down the opening to kill any airborne organisms. Deposit the excised portion of the bag in a prepared sterile container with a lid, and immediately re-seal the bulk of the bag with sterile tape or another method.

If you have a guillotine heat sealer, you can make a double seal and cut in between, but I never got around to getting fancy equipment. So my methods were pretty low tech.

[MObeek]

Update: I decided to try killing the green bugs by pouring diluted hydrogen peroxide in the bag, swishing the fluid where the bugs are (mostly bottom of bag) and pouring it back out of the bag. Here is how my bag looks now.

https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/45453 ... -2013?ifr=

The mycelia in the cardboard seems to be growing also. So I still have a chance for harvesting mushrooms later on. I've got my fingers crossed.

[MObeek]

P.S. This will be my next project this Spring.
https://www.shroomery.org/10677/Monotub

[Ohio Tiller]

I got a log from my daughter last fall and it did ok but I don't think it was in ideal location.

[MObeek]

Nice pictures, Ohio Tiller. Will you be expecting more harvests in the near future? Why do you think it's not in an ideal location?

[MObeek]

Another update: I had to treat the bag with hydrogen peroxide again (2 parts water and 1 part H2O2) to really kill the green bugs. It seems to have worked. The mycelia at the top of the bag is still growing. And I am now on day 33. There is still hope.

https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/45453 ... ?fv=y&ifr=

[applestar]

Good luck.

[alloyjane]

So glad to see mushroom talk here. Been dying to do this for ages and would prefer to do the log thing rather than the substrate bag thing. Good to see someone cataloguing their first-time process. Thanks for taking the time to do it!

[MObeek]

alloyjane: You're welcome. I'm hoping others would join me with the mushroom experiment so we could compare notes and learn from each other.

[alloyjane]

Now that I found a mushroom that will grow on pine, hopefully I can squeeze a kit into the budget. Would be excellent fun to see how it turns out!

[MObeek]

What kind of mushroom are you going to try to grow?

[MObeek]

Update: The mycelia in the bag is still growing. No stinky smell so far so I must have eliminated the green molds.

https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/45453 ... ?fv=y&ifr=

[valley]

my daughter grew oyster mushrooms last year, we did get some to ear but eventually that green mold took hold.
Yesterday she started some white buttons from mushrooms we purchased at the market.

Richard

[alloyjane]

What kind of mushroom are you going to try to grow?

I was hoping to grow Phoenix Oyster mushrooms since we have a few logs from my pine tree hanging out in the back yard. Plus I'm in Los Angeles, which seems perfect for them since we have a lot of warm days.

So is the green mold the mossy stuff that grows on wet dirt? Or is it something more sinister...

[MObeek]

To Alloyjane: Here's a link where you can find out about different contiminants that could ruin your mushrooms. The green mold is of the genus Trichoderma. It is another type of fungus. According to the link, it gives out toxin that causes the mushrooms to develop soft decay. I'm just glad I managed to stop its growth by dousing it with diluted hydrogen peroxide. Supposedly, the peroxide won't hurt the oyster mushroom. In fact, someone from fungi.com also recommended I spray my logs with diluted peroxide when I found green mold growing all over the logs. It worked on the logs also!

https://www.shroomery.org/5276/What-are- ... om-culture

Wikipedia said moss is a small plant.

Here's some good info on your Phoenix oyster mushroom.
https://www.shroomery.org/9411/Pleurotus-pulmonarius

My mushroom is called Pearl oyster mushroom = Pleurotus ostreatus

You may have to register with shroomery.org to see the links I gave you. But registering is free so that's not a problem.

[valley]

Do update this thread with what you do and the results. Thanks

richard

[MObeek]

Oh joy! Something is peeking on top of the bag!

I hope the fungus gnats don't discover it.

https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/45453 ... ?fv=y&ifr=

[alloyjane]

Thanks for those links, that first article is fascinating. A lot of "ew" and "woah" going on in there. Cheers to your first crop!

[MObeek]

Update: I didn't get much out of the first flush of mushrooms. But the bag is producing a second flush now. I'm hoping I can get the two fruit bodies to produce big caps by watering both the caps and the bases of the fruit bodies.

Also, I transfered my logs outdoors. No shrooms peeking out of the plugs still.

Last, I'm still battling green molds in my monotub experiment with dilluted hydrogen peroxide. I'm still hopeful though.

https://www.keepandshare.com/photo/46194 ... ?fv=y&ifr=

FYI: I'm still battling with fungus gnats, too, and one or two has discovered my bag of shrooms.