[k_vivek07]

Sir, I want to start to grow the mushrooms in my house. I want to know the details for the same.

[firmbeliever]

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Growing Mushrooms - Growing Tips - at Online Discount Mart

Growing Mushrooms
Slice them into a salad, garnish a soup with them, toss a few into your stew! Mushrooms are a versatile and delicious addition to many dishes, or just a tasty new selection on your party tray of veggies and dip. Imagine growing them at home, so your mushroom soup is as fresh as picking and cooking them!

Mushrooms are a deep, dark secret…because that's where many people think you have to grow them. That's true to some extent, that darkness and humidity are the catalysts to seeing those caps spring out of their bedding. But it doesn't require a great agricultural set-up. You can grow a small crop in your home or apartment, either with pre-made kits, or a little ingenuity.

Our perception of mushrooms is the cap and stem, but the greater part of it, is the mycelia that feathers out and spreads underneath the growing medium. This is the part of the plant that absorbs nutrients and gives birth to what we see above ground. Commercial kits come with mycelia already in a sterile growing medium, something that is absolutely essential for the mycelia to survive. Nematodes and organisms can easily destroy your burgeoning crop before it ever fruits.

All that is required, is to add moisture to the appropriate level, and to keep the kit at the right temperature for the variety of mushrooms you are growing. This can vary quite a bit, with the highly valued and tasty ake mushroom doing best at 55-75F, and the delicate Enoki mushroom only tolerating temperatures of 45-60F.

After the first watering, it normally takes up to ten days, for the mycelia to colonize the flat, or tray that the growing medium is in. They may then need to be “forced” to fruit, either by placing the tray in your fridge, or outside, depending on the current temperatures.

The tray should not be placed in total darkness, particularly after they start to fruit. Some light is needed to draw the fruit upwards. A garage or tool shed makes a good mushroom nursery. Total darkness in a warm, humid environment, will only produce fungus gnats that destroy your mushrooms before they have a chance to sprout.

Keeping the growing medium moist once fruiting has begun, is crucial. Most kits will come with either a tent or other covering, so that you can spritz water inside it, and the condensation will keep things going. It's important to use “natural” water from a spring, well or lake. If you live in the city, allow your water to sit overnight so that the chlorine will evaporate.

As a rule of thumb, kits grow two or three “flushes” or crops of mushrooms, before the nutrients in the soil give out. At that time, you can start a fresh tray, using the old one to spread on the compost heap, or if you want to have a crack at outdoor mushroom cultivation, using the old tray to colonize a rotted, moist log.

For diehard, back-to-the-earth enthusiasts, it is possible to grow mushrooms from the ground up, so to speak. But the required sterilized growing medium is difficult to achieve. Cultivating mushrooms on any large scale, takes a special growing area where temperature and humidity can be strictly controlled. The good news though, is that once started, you'll have continuous crops that your friends will be more than glad to help you pick!
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Indoor Mushroom Growing » Veggie Gardening Tips
Growing a Mushroom Kit is a simple indoor gardening project that you can enjoy at any time of the year.

Edible mushroom kits are growing more and more popular and can be obtained through various Internet or mail order sources.
Using Gourmet Mushroom Kits

Gourmet mushroom growing kits usually consist of a 12 by 12 inch square block of compressed sawdust that's been enriched and inoculated with spawn (mushroom seeds) of the particular mushroom variety being cultivated.

Indoor mushroom kits include everything that you need to grow loads of delicious mushrooms just by following the simple directions. You normally soak the kit in cold, unchlorinated water for a few hours and then place it in a dark area with temperatures ranging between 60 - 75 F.

This cold water treatment will stimulate the mushroom spawn to become active and start producing edible mushrooms within a matter of days. Before the mushrooms have finished growing the entire growing medium will be completely covered with mushrooms.

Harvesting Your Shrooms

Once you've harvested the first crop of gourmet mushrooms that isn't the end of your indoor mushroom garden. Allow the spawn to rest for a couple of weeks and then you can repeat the entire process to produce additional harvests of delicious mushrooms.

The subsequent crops of mushrooms will grow smaller and produce fewer mushrooms until the nutrients contained in the growing medium have been depleted. Then the remnants of the kit can be used to inoculate an outdoor garden compost pile or hardwood logs.

Mushroom Varieties for Indoor Cultivation
Popular indoor mushroom kit varieties include: Shiitake, Oyster, Lion's Mane, Nameko, Maitake, Enokitake, and Cinnamon Cap mushrooms. The mushroom kits can also serve as an interesting project to introduce children to the fascinating world of edible fungi.

If you're intrigued by the idea of growing your own edible gourmet mushrooms, an alternative to growing them indoors using the mushroom kits is to grow mushrooms outdoors with hardwood logs. Tomorrow I'll look at the benefits of growing mushrooms outdoors directly on hardwood logs.
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Also refer the following link-
Fungi Perfecti®: ready to grow Mushroom Patches™

[Clough]

Excellent answer above!

Here is another resource for you from the following site: Organic Gardening Tips and Plants - How to

Low Cost Mushroom Production at Home
By Arzeena Hamir

Gourmet mushrooms like Shiitake, Oyster & Enoki mushrooms are growing in popularity but the retail price for many of these delicacies can often be out of range for most people. Mushroom lovers on a budget have another option - growing mushrooms at home.

Mushroom production might seem complicated but there are many kits on the market that make growing mushrooms easy. These kits provide the substrate, pre-inoculated with mushroom mycelia and simple instructions.

Mushrooms

When we think of mushrooms, we often think of the soft caps & stems that we see in the grocery store. Hidden underground, however, is the vast majority of the mushroom mass itself- the network of feathery mycelia. These mycelia, often seen when turning over compost, are what the mushroom uses to absorb food & moisture. The cap & stem that we commonly eat is just the fruiting body.

To grow, mycelia require an uncontaminated food source, free from other microorganisms, moisture, and temperatures between 60-80F. The food source can vary, depending on the species of mushroom, from sawdust & shavings to manure or compost. Once mycelia have colonized a food source, they begin to produce fruiting bodies, commonly referred to as pins. As the pins mature, they develop into recognizable mushrooms.

Kits

Most commercially available kits range in price from $20-$30. The most common species available in kit form are regular button mushrooms and portabellos (Agaricus species), shiitake, and oyster. Most kits will start fruiting within a week and you can expect a harvest of 1-2 pounds of mushrooms per flush. Commonly, each kit will provide 2-3 flushes of mushrooms before the food supply is spent. Finished kits can then be placed on the compost pile where you can sometimes get a bonus flush of edibles.

Types of mushrooms

Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes), have a rich, meaty texture. The brown caps often grow up to 3-4 inches in diameter. They have been highly prized in the Orient for centuries and scientists are researching its medicinal, anti-viral properties. Indoors, the kits can be stored from 55 to 75F and will produce 2-3 pounds within 3 months.

Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus spp) are named for the fact that their flavour & texture resembles oysters. The mushroom itself comes in different colours, depending on species, from pink, cream, white & gray. The white mushroom is the easiest to grow and will fruit over a wide temperature range from 55-75 F. These mushrooms are particularly sensitive to humidity and need to be misted 2-3 times per day.

Few people realize that the common white cap, crimini & Portobello mushroom are all related (Agaricus spp.). Crimini are smaller, brown mushrooms while portobellos are quite large (up to 6" in diameter). Growing these types of mushrooms takes a little longer but they don't require sunlight to grow and will yield more than other kits, 3-6 pounds over 3 months.

Procedure

Once a kit arrives, it should be free of any different coloured molds. If you do see anything strange, get a replacement. An incubation period is required for the mycelia to colonize the whole substrate. The kit should be kept at the proper temperature and should be kept moist at all times. Colonization usually requires 7-10 days.

After this period, the mycelia need to be forced into fruiting, usually by placing the kit in the refrigerator. Afterward, the kit will have to be opened and exposed to some light (excluding Agaricus species). A good place to keep the kits is in a garage or a sheltered place outdoors. Keeping the kits under your sink usually results in fungus gnats. If outdoor temperatures dip, a Styrofoam cooler makes an excellent humidity chamber, insulating the kit against cold temperatures.

As the fruiting bodies appear, the humidity needs to be kept high. Most kits come equipped with a plastic tent so a regular spray of water is enough to achieve the right conditions. Using the right water, however, is critical. Spring, well or rainwater is best, as it doesn't contain any chlorine. If none of these are available, leave a bucket of water to stand overnight to allow the chlorine to evaporate.

Outdoor production

If you become hooked on mushroom production, you can move on to the next step- growing mushrooms on logs. While logs take much more time to develop edible mushrooms, they produce for up to 4 years and are even more economical than the kits.

Resource Books

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, by Paul Stamets

The Mushroom Cultivator, A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home, by Paul Stamets and J.S. Chilton

Websites

The Mushroom Council- Fresh Mushrooms Natures Hidden Tresure -
Mushroom Harvest http://www.seedman.com/rachel/harvest.htm
Puget Sound Mycological Society - Puget Sound Mycological Society: Homepage

This article was originally published on Suite101.com.

[magprob]

Start with The Mushroom Cultivator by Paul Stamets. That will give you the basics of sterile lab procedures, agar in petri dishes and raising mushrooms from spores or by cloning. I have been growing mushrooms for approx. 10 years and I'll tell you, Paul Stamets books are the bible for mushroom growing. He describes all the farm waste you can use to grow oysters, paddy straw and a few others. If you live where hard woods are plentiful, then chitaki (won't let me spell it correctly :))and other wood lovers may be grown also. You need a lot of room to grow mushrooms on logs. Using autoclavable bags and wood chips is the best way. Go to:
Fungi Perfecti®: gourmet and medicinal mushrooms

[magprob]

YouTube - Oyster mushrooms growing off Bag
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