Oyster mushroom
Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), also known as the oyster mushroom or the oyster mushroom, has fruiting bodies with a diameter 5-15 cm, and sometimes even more. They are in the form of clustered groups, usually consisting of a dozen or so larger and smaller specimens, growing from a common base or are arranged in a tiled shape on top of each other. The hat is shell-shaped, about width 5-20 cm, smooth surface, slightly convex. Initially, the color of the hat is dark, later it becomes brighter and may be gray, gray-brown, sometimes with a blue tinge. Fruiting gills, running down the shaft under the hat, in younger specimens they are white or lilac-white, grayish in older ones. The mushroom stem is eccentric or lateral, White, compact at the base and often covered with hyphae. In addition to fruiting bodies with a well-developed shaft, there are fruiting bodies with a barely noticeable lateral body or fruiting bodies without a stem. The flesh of the mushroom is white, soft, juicy, with a mild odor. The flesh of older fruiting bodies often becomes stringy and fibrous, corky in the shaft.
Oyster mushroom tolerates frosts well, and even in winter you can often find fresh fruiting bodies in hollows of old trees. Oyster mushroom can grow on trunks, branches, on weakened and dead standing trees, logs and on various materials of plant origin, how: cereal and corn straw, corn cob sludge, and on waste from the wood industry, like bark and sawdust.
The simplest substrate is straw. Fresh straw is used to grow the oyster mushroom, not moldy. The straw must be cut into chaffed lengths 2-4 cm. The cultivation is started in a perforated foil bag or boxes sent with such foil. The width of the bag sleeve should be approx 80 cm. What should be done in the foil 10 cm holes in diameter 3-4 mm. This ensures adequate air exchange.
The straw for the substrate should be pasteurized. This is done as follows. Put the cut straw in a burlap sack, which we then put in a barrel, bathtub or other container, to pour it with hot water at a temperature of 80-100 ° C. After the water has cooled down, the bag is removed and placed there, so that the water can drain away freely. For this purpose, it can be placed e.g.. on bricks. The procedure is repeated the next day, and when the water has cooled down to about 30 ° C, the bag is taken out again and left on the stand on 4-5 hours. The above measures are aimed at bringing the chaff to a moisture content of approx 70% and the destruction of weed seeds and undesirable microorganisms.
After filling the bag with the substrate, it should form a cylinder with a diameter of approx 50 cm. The length of the foil sleeve should be 100-120 cm, and the dimensions of the box accordingly – 50-60X30-40X20–30 cm. Maintaining these dimensions allows to maintain the temperature in the substrate, which is favorable for the growth of mycelium. Immediately after the water has drained off, the substrate fungus begins, thoroughly mixing the wet chaff with the oyster mushroom mycelium, which can be purchased at garden stores, in packages containing approx 500 g. On 7-8 kg of dry straw (25-30 kg pasteurized) one cylinder is enough (package) mycelium. Mix the mycelium, pouring the wet chaff from the bag onto the clean foil. We fill the boxes or perforated foil bags tightly with this mixture. The top of the box is covered with foil, and he is tying the sack. The substrate prepared in this way is left, that it overgrows the mycelium.
If the ambient temperature is 18-20 ° C, the outgrowth process will continue 2-3 weeks and will depend on the ambient temperature and the amount of mycelium used in relation to the mass of the substrate. This process is somewhat slower at lower temperatures, but just as well, however, it must not be allowed, that the temperature of the substrate exceeds 30 ° C, because under these conditions the mycelium can be destroyed. Room air humidity, where the mycelium overgrows, should come to 90%. Light is not needed during mycelial growth, but its presence does not adversely affect the course of this process. Only the substrate should be protected against sunlight, which can overheat them. The substrate, infested with mycelium, forms a hard one, overgrown inside with white mycelium hyphae, "block". Outside, the mycelium forms a white bloom, and the straw becomes a light tea color.