How boring and draining is it to order spawn from as far as Harare or South Africa. You think of the cost of transporting the grain spawn and the hustles of receiving such a heavy shipment. Today, I would like to make you forget about all these challenges by introducing to something new and fun especially if you are a hobbyist or you are just growing mushrooms in small quantities for your family consumption.
Did you know that you have the power to propagate your own mushroom from fresh mushroom stems? I know you are just saying, “come on”.
“Yes ,I have just said from from the roots “.
ok!
“We do not want to waste our time, let’s get started!”
things needed.
- Fresh Oyster roots
- Unwritten or unpainted cardboard boxes.
- A pressure cooker
- A clean transparent plastic zipper bag.
Procédure.
- shred your cardboard boxes so that they fit well in your pressure cooker. The quantity you will shred depends on the mushroom roots available.
- Pour some water that covers your shredded material in your pressure cooker.
- Put your pressure cooker on, allow this to cook for more than 30minutes. We are doing this because we want to kill all the unwanted organism that may compete with our spawn. This called pasteurisation.
- When well done transfer from the pressure cooker to a mesh wire to allow water to drip naturally, watch this, up until no water droplets comes out when you squizze the cardboard boxes, then your grow media is damp and moist not soggy.
- Now take your zipper bag which is clean , start loading a layer of pasteurized cardboard boxes. Then put some mushroom roots. on top of the roots spread more cardboard boxes.
- Repeat this process up until all your materials are finished.
- Zip your bag
- Poke, some small holes around your bag for proper air circulation.
- You can now cover this with something dark or put in a cupboard to prevent direct sunshine from reaching our bag.
- Leave this for about 6- 10 days.
- Keep on checking if there is no contamination. A contaminated bag can be dark brown, black, grey but do not mistake this to the grow media you have used . If it is contaminated, please throw away.
- A safe bag will become white with mycelium which will be spreading in the bag
- When the whole bag has been fully colonised, transfer it to a place that receives indirect light and mist spray twice or thrice a day.
- After 3days you will start to notice some pin heads forming, then you can try to poke bigger holes so that fruiting can take place well.
- Continue misting and giving enough air to avoid drying out and small fruiting bodies. Within five days from the start of fruiting you will start enjoying your mushroom fruits.
Nothing can limit you, you can also be a mushroom farmer and you can feed your family with heathy nutritious meals everyday. Next time, I will teach you how to propagate large volumes of grain spawn from mushroom roots
So my parting words are:
Enjoy every meal by taking your food from your garden.
chao