How are mushrooms farmed? This thought crosses my mind on occasion in the shower or while washing the dishes, but I’ve never ventured to find out. Well in this video, a gardening YouTube channel by the name of GrowVeg meets with two mushroom farmers for a detailed explanation.
The method demonstrated in the video is fairly simple: mix an organic substrate, straw and old coffee grounds in this case, with mushroom spawn and place the whole thing in a “growing sack”. The sack is then placed in a dark, unheated room to incubate. The mycelium of the mushroom will spread throughout the substrate and, when ready, the sack will be moved to its final location: the fruiting room. In this last phase, the sack is sliced open and exposed to light for 12 hours a day.
What I find interesting is the adaptability of mushrooms. In the video they are shown to grow in a variety of substrates with the most outlandish being a book. Apparently, as long as it is organic it can potentially serve as a home for fungi. Many species also seem to grow quite quickly, which makes them a relatively quick source of food.
Another example given for substrate were recently cut logs. This technique requires hardwood logs that are free of disease, and wooden dowels that have mycelium already grown onto them. Holes are drilled into the log and the dowels are placed within. The holes are then sealed with wax. After which it sounds like the maintenance is quite low. Simply keep them from drying out and out of direct sunlight. While it was stated to be a much slower process, for a home gardener, this would be a good way to produce your own mushrooms.
Finally, while fungi being in their own kingdom of life is fairly common knowledge, I didn’t know that mushrooms digest food similar to animals. They produce enzymes along their surface which breaks down the substrate they are growing into. Mushrooms can also absorb sunlight and store vitamin D, making them one of the few edible sources of it. That's pretty neat!
Hi Ryan! This topic interests me as I've always been fascinated about mushrooms I even did my senior thesis in highschool on we can use mushrooms in the medical field. Even though I've done my fair bit of research on them I never considered on how to grow them and after reading this I never knew how easy it was to grow them.
ReplyDeleteDUDE, MAGIC MAN MUSHROOMS!!!!! The whole science behind a mushroom is crazy, they can practically almost grown anywhere considering its a fungi.
ReplyDelete