Brought some sprawn couple of months ago but can't get well rotted manure, will the shop manure like from B&Q be ok. If not can I use compost but what sort? Garden centre not that helpful.
Has no one else on here grown mushrooms at all?
I have Rosyred, but I'm unable to answer your question. I used a mushroom kit last time and this time I'm using spores on wooden dowels which I have inserted into a fallen tree trunk. The person you want is truffle, he's the expert. Try sending him a PM, not everybody reads all the posts.
Hi Rosyred and MikeB,
My expertise is really with mycorrhizal-mushrooms, that is mushrooms that grow in association with a living tree host. However, I have grown 'button mushrooms' before and I'm also growing fungi on logs so hopefully I can be of some use.
Firstly, I'm assuming that your growing button or supermarket mushrooms? I do not know what quality the manure from b&q is but I cannot see any reason why it could not be used. When growing these types of mushrooms, they normally need:
1) Carbon- This comes from either the bedding straw in the manure or additives such as wheat straw or leaves.
2) Nitrogen- This comes form the actual horse manure, some people add extra nitrogen in the way of chicken manure, blood&bone or other additives.
3) Gypsum- Helps maintain a healthy airy structure to your growing medium. Gypsum is useful but not essential.
OK, I hope that helps you choose a medium out of whats available- please let me know how it goes.
MikeB- how are your fungi-logs developing?
Truffle
Quote from: Truffle on March 16, 2006, 09:54:56
MikeB- how are your fungi-logs developing?
Truffle
I've not look due to the cold weather, they are in black plastic sacks covered with fallen leaves. Is it safe to peek at these temperatures?
Regards
MikeB
I have grown mushrooms using horse manure and a box of spawn before, quite a while ago now,,,
I can't see how they would grow using general purpose compost..Perhaps the concentrated stuff like organure etc mixed with some straw may work but i have only done it using hoss Muck.. I can post how I did it if anyone's interested in having a go ..Cheers ..Jim
I guess so.
I impregnated my logs around a month ago and kept them wrapped in plastic in a cold room. I had a peek the other day and the mycelium is spreading rapidly, its come out of the holes the dowels were in and is covering the logs- they are spreading out from other holes in the logs. This is much faster development then I expected ;D
Maybe the rapid development is due to slightly higher temps?
I'd be interesting to see how yours in doing in the slightly colder temps....
Cheers,
Truff
Hi Jim,
Yeah, as I mentioned, the fungi needs a good mix of carbon and nitrogen- most compost is not really suitable. Can you post your method just out of interest?
Cheers,
Truffle
I tried unsuccessfully to grow from a kit but an organic Mushroom farmer has just started selling at our local producer's market and offered the following advice. He uses wheat straw mixed with chicken manure and gave me a bag of "spent" compost. I placed this in a polystyrene "fish box", added the spore and 5 days later, the box is full of the mushroom lacing. I will keep you posted on the harvest.
Hi Truffle here is how i did it
.As I said it was quite a while ago during the SVd breakout amongst pigs I kept a few pigs on the lotty so with the movement order etc i had a couple of pig sty's empty so I came up with the bright idea of growing mushrooms in one of these.
.
I obtained quite a few bags of fresh horse muck ..Also a bale of straw. I think it was wheat straw but think barley straw would do same job..
I erected a frame of 4 corrugated sheets about 12ft long onto a concrete base which was already there so no leching of nutrients.. I started with a layer of straw which I then wetted then a layer of horse muck then a layer of straw wetted then hossmuck etc till I had reached top of sheets this was then covered and left a while maybe a week or so ..When I took the cover off I could see it was working as the heap had heated up and whisps of steam were coming out of the heap..I then turned the heap with a fork .Adding some pigeon manure as I turned it... Damped it again ,Covered it and left it once more. I turned it a few more times every couple of days or so maybe for a fortnight ...
Using some old scaffold boards and 3x3 timber I built some benches inside the sty across the back and down both sides of the inside walls, they were about 3 foot off the floor and about 2ft6 wide with about 8 to 10 ins sides on front.
Every so often in the base instead of a board a piece of steel gauze was nailed over gap where board would have gone.
These were then filled from the heap I had mixed, The muck was stil working as it was still warm.
So in fact I had 3 raised beds one@10ft 2@6ft 3 ft off the floor filled with the hoss muck and straw mixture to about 8 to 10ins deep...
I used darlingtons spawn it came in little green boxes I dont know if this is still available ..
Depressions were made in the beds evenly spaced and a piece of spawn the size of a walnut was placed in these the whole bed was then covered with sheets of newspaper which were slightly damped using a fine spray ...I had to keep lifting a piece of the paper till I saw the white spores spreading out all over the bed ..Then I removed the paper and covered the bed with about 1 to 2 inch of soil which I had heated a few days prior in an oil drum over a good fire.In my wisdom then, Thinking this this would be a sterilisation method for the soil.. :)
The upshot of all this was I grew a goodly amount of mushrooms from these 3 beds I can't remember how long the cropping lasted ..... I know its a far cry from the scientific methods applied today and I think a bit more labour intensive ..But the only things bought were the few boxes of spawn and the bale of straw..
Cheers jim..
Checked my logs which have been out since last October, nothing. I'll move them in over the weekend and put them under the staging in the greenhouse, that should get them started.
Dingerbell - A fish box good idea I was going to use our recycling box as they say it should be 20" deep. I'll let you know how it goes. If I get the fish box at the weekend then I will start them.