Let me tell you how I grew Oyster Mushroom in our Research Station. I have been working on research on Oyster Mushroom for the last 5 years.
There should be a room with a door, window and a exhaust fan and shelves. The window should not be with glass because darkness is very important for the growth of oyster mushroom. Oyster Mushroom need at least 80 percent relative humidity in the unit and the temperature should be between 22C to 28C , exceeding or decreasing the temperature can severely affect the fruit size of oyster mushroom. Mostly in low temperature mycelium growth has been stopped while in high temperature fruit size of oyster mushroom becomes reduced.
Following are the main steps for the growth of Oyster Musharoom.
- Preparation of Media:
a) Take 40 kg of wheat straw and spread it on a plastic sheet. Soak it with water. Mix lime with wheat straw in a very small amount for catalyst purpose and covered it with plastic sheet for fermentation. Soak with water every day and the process continue up to 7 days.
- Sterilization of media:
There are two methods for sterilization: 1) Steam sterilization 2) Boiling
In steam sterilization take an iron drum and put it on fire. Fill it with some amount of water and put a gunny bag filled with wheat straw and covered the drum. Now the steam produced in drum will pass through wheat straw and will sterilize the media.
While in boiling method put the wheat straw in boiling water for sterilization.
- Filling of Plastic bags and mixing of spawn:
Now fill (approx 300) plastic bags with the sterilized wheat straw and put 2-3 tea spoon oyster Mushroom spawn in the center of the bag and tie the bags with rubber band.
- In Mushroom Unit:
Now put these bags on the shelves in the unit. After 20-23 days you will see that the media become white and pen heads will appear. Now cute the upper portion of the bags with blade and these pen heads will transform into Oyster Mushroom fruit. Cut it and enjoy it.
