Mushroom cultivation

[Aicchalmers]

Anybody else here into growing mushrooms as part of woodland management?

I'm currently producing some p. ostreatus and t. versicolor grain spawn with the view to making dowel spawn.. 25kg sack of dowels just arrived!

Peoples experience with log vs. woodchip culture?

I've started off a few logs in my garden and as soon as I get more wood and the dowel spawn is ready going to get about half a ton dowelled and stacked up.

I'd certainly be interested at some point though to start experimenting with woodchip beds.

In about 4-5 weeks I should have a good supply of them for sale if anybody here might be interested

[Goaty]

Its on the to do list, I have logs and chip available. Its another 5 year old, "Must do this year":001_rolleyes: Inspire us with pictures:thumbup1:

[woodyguy]

I wouldn't personally make dowel spawn from grain spawn. You need a pure growth such as on agar bottles as its not possible to get the grain fully sterile. If not very very careful you can get a mixed growth on the dowel which are then contaminated. I've had better luck/experience from growing on agar then adding the dowel. Not done 25kg at a time of dowel though to be fair.

[Aicchalmers]

You think streaking on agar, isolating away from contaminants and then transferring to grain that's been pressure cooked @15psi for 90 minutes isn't good enough? When going from agar->dowel what was your technique?

I'm experimenting with a few different methods, with the t. versicolor I'm just propagating it on cardboard and layering with dowels in non-sterile conditions a la paul stamets, it may not be the most reliable but will be interesting to give it a try with a small batch.

The oysters on the other hand I have clean grain spawn nearing completion so was just going to pasteurise 6-7x the quantity of dowels and mix in clean conditions.

I was under the impression that dowels are a lot less susceptible to contamination and once colonised should be fine, have you found otherwise?

I guess it's just trying things out, at first just going to be making some few hundred grams - 1 kilo batches with different techniques.

[woodyguy]

Basically some species contaminate more readily than others. Grain certainly isn't fully sterile after 90 mins at 15psi but it may well be good enough. Having grown from grain on wood chip I've occasionally run into problems with contamination so wary on using with dowels where any contamination will then be magnified many times over. So always made dowels by putting onto the active growth on agar.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with using grain for dowels. Not necessarily a problem but something I've avoided because of the potential for contamination.

Always good to experiment, so good luck.

[ArthurBottlesworth]

Read american book about this

-( another must do from 5 years ago )

Guy there waseperimentibg with spawn in chain oil

Idea being to put spawn into trees as you cut them down

 

American hippy ?

 

Might be interested in buying some dowels