Basic requirements for mushroom A Lecture By Mr Allah Dad Khan Former DG Agri Extension KPK , Visiting Professor the IUniversity of Agriculture Peshawar Pakistan

3. Basic Requirement:Substrate
 Substrate is any material used to support growth of crops
instead of soil. Mushroom can be classified as:
 Primary decomposers of organic matter (like wood,
leaves and straw in nature) e.g. shitake and oyster
mushroom,
 Secondary decomposers-matter degraded by bacteria
or other fungi e.g. button mushroom
 Examples of Agricultural waste substrate materials include:
 Wheat straw, banana leaves, banana pseudo stems, barley
straw, bean pods/straw, coconut fibre,coffee parchment,
coffee pulp, coffee sawdust, corn fibre, corn cobs, corn
stovers, cotton straw, cotton husks, grass, groundnuts
shells, legume straws, paper pulp, potato foliage, rice straw,
saw dust, sorghum stover, sugarcane bagasse, sunflower
stypes, tea leaves, water hyacinth, wood shavings.

4. Factors to consider in substrate selection
 High yielding substrate
 Ease of use
 Cost of substrate
 Availability
 Storage
 Cost of transport
 Clean (without moulds/coloration)
 If possible from the previous harvest

5. Mushroom Housing
Materials used include: -
1. Steel structure tubing covered with tarpaulin
2. Bamboo woven matting insulated inside with
polythene sheets.
3. Grass thatched houses or with shade cloth thatching
4. Green houses clad with insulation (glass wool) and
roof vents
5. Mud walled house

6.  Housing conditions: -
 i) Temperature
 Incubation 20 -27o C
 Fruiting/pin formation 10-18o C
 ii) Humidity
 Substrate moisture - 60-70%
 Fruiting body 80-95% humidity
 iii) Light- Mycelia growth (Incubation) can take place
without light
 - Fruiting body (mushroom growth process) requires light
 iv) Ventilation -Fungi are aerobic therefore need fresh air
especially during the reproduction stage.

7. The Process of Mushroom Growing:
1. Substrate preparation
2. Sterilization/pasteurization (decontamination) of
substrate
3. Inoculation (spawning)-This is introduction of seeds
to substrate
4. Fruiting (growth processes of mushroom)
5. Harvesting, post-harvest handling
6. Marketing

8.  Substrate preparation for oyster mushroom:
 The best substrates for oyster mushrooms include
wheat straw, banana leaves, cotton seeds hull, rice
straw. Unlike others, Banana leaves and cotton seed
hulls may not require supplementations.
 The main supplements used are wheat bran and rice
bran.
 Good substrate should have a C: N ratio of 2:5

9. The Process of Mushroom Growing
 Steps:
 i) Substrate mixing ratio:
 To make 10kg of substrate: use bulk substrate (wheat straw) 80%
= 8kg, supplement (wheat bran) 20% = 2kg and buffer lime 1% of
10kg) =100grams
 Note: Buffer is used to maintain pH at 6.5-7.0
 Lime (Ca (OH)2, Chalk (CaCo3) or Gypsum (CaSo4) can be used
 ii) Shredding - cut bulk substrate into 2-3cm (one inch)
 Soaking - put cut material in gunny bag and soak it in water for 2
hours to attain 70% moisture content.
 Remove it from gunny bag, spread it on a clean polythene sheet
and use Squeeze/fist method to verify 70% moisture content.
Pick a handful, when squeezed it gives 2-3 drops of water.
 Then sprinkle wheat bran, lime, and mixed thoroughly.
 Bagging - Put mixture in polythene bags - 9×15 inches neck with
a 3/4 inch piece of PVC pipe, plug with the mouth with a piece of
cotton wool, tie, and covered with 10 x15 inch polythene bags.

10. Decontamination of Substrate
 Sterilization- Put bags in an autoclave and heat to
121oC for 60-90 minutes to kill all micro-organisms,
leaving a biological vacuum
 Pasteurization- uses low heat

11. Pasteurization methods:
 - Immersion in hot water; Put substrate in gunny
bag and immerse it in hot water at 60Cofor 30 minutes
to kill competitors while leaving friendly micro-
organisms like thermopiles.
 - Oil drum steaming; place the two kg substrate -
filled bags- on the rack inside the oil drum, already
containing 40 litres of clean water then seal then
steam the content for 3-4 hours

12. Bulk steaming
 Cooling- Cool substrate to 25o C
 Spawning (Inoculation)
 Inoculate 30-50 (2 kg) bags with1 litre of spawn
 a) Conditions for spawning;
 i) Provide sterile conditions for spawning as shown below
 Size: - 90cmX60cmX45cm (one plywood is used) Open the
spawning box, thoroughly disinfect the inside using 70%
alcohol or propane, then put substrate bags and spawn
them.Put spawns in the bag and then close the bag ready
for incubation

13. b). Incubation
 Put the bags under room temperature (25oC ) for28-30
days until white mass (mycelia) until substrate is fully
covered. Remove and discard contaminated bags.
 Do the incubation in the growing house/room with no
mushroom growing

14. Fruiting
 Maintain the following Conditions:
 Light: one should be able to read a newspaper in the
growing room
 Temperature: 8-20 o C.
 Relative humidity: 85-95%
 Aeration: keep CO2 at 0.1%d or 1000ppm by partially
opening the windows.
 During fruiting remove the cotton wool, rubber band and
plastic neck to allow mushroom to grow from the top.
 Note: from inoculation to first harvest mushroom takes 2
months

15. Harvesting
 Harvest mushroom by twisting the stem (stype) and
uprooting and sell them while still fresh as they are
perishable.

16. Preservation
 Oyster mushroom can be preserved for several days.
 Short term storage- refrigeration at 1- 40 C keeps them good
for 6 days
 Long term storage:
 1) Dry at10% moisture content.
 a) Sun drying
 b) Thermal drying
 2) Canning
 3) Pickling - storing in brine (21% salt)
 iv) Blanching- shortly cooked and the transferred to salty
water.

17. Mushroom Monitoring and Evaluation:
 Monitor for:
 Rodents and pathogens like fungi, bacteria, virus and
ants
 Temperature-uniform/constant temperature
 Humidity- Maintain at 85-95% or even 100% by
avoiding opening of the windows wide open.
 Light- enough to enable reading a newspaper for
fruiting to occur.
 Aeration-by ventilation as they are sensitive to CO2.