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 CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
 
Registered: 02/21/09
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 Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw (pics) 
#14075772 - 03/06/11 01:01 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Hey everyone,
Just thought I'd share a grow I did last summer (having very little spare time to actually accomplish this, living on an organic veggie farm in Maine) using info from Stamets' Mycelium Running. Chapter 10 titled "Cultivating Mushrooms on Straw and Leached Cow Manure" has a section called "Peroxide Treatment." Because of the little time I had, and very few resources, I chose to go with this method, and I am pleased to say, it works.
Here's what I did:
Got a bale of oat straw; cut it up with a chainsaw (terrible method...but cut the straw up reasonably after getting straw jammed in the blade a million times...i don't recommend this); shoved a bunch of the straw into large contractor trash bags; filled the bags with water a bunch of times to rinse the straw; then with a ratio of 1 quart of 3% peroxide to 1 gallon of water, soaked the straw in this solution for 24 hours (i had several large crates to keep the bags in so that they could hold the water). After 24 hours, I emptied the water and rinsed with fresh water a few times, and then inoculated the bags at a rate of I think somewhere around 1 pound of grain spawn to about 10 pounds of wet straw (I'm pretty sure my bags were around 10 pounds each before inoculation). Next, I cinched the bags closed as tight as I could trying not to create any air spaces in the bag (though there inevitably were air spaces towards the tops of the bags) and tied them off with some rope. Lastly I punched holes all over the bags for drainage and air flow and hung them up in a shady spot in the woods near my cabin.
I must say that I was a bit worried as to whether this would work or not; not only because of the quick and easy peroxide method, using no sterile methods at all; but also because in Mycelium Running, in the section on Hypsizygus ulmarius (elm oyster), nowhere does it say elm oysters can be grown on straw, only wood substrates.
Nevertheless, here is the result:
    
(that last picture illustrates my excitement  )
I was lucky enough get a bunch of rain right before these fruited (I had about 12 bags or so) but afterwards we got a bit of a dry spell so I moved all the bags into a very small empty hoop house which I put a tarp over for shade, then set up a sprinkler in there that I turned on about three times a day for moisture. I got a good three fruitings off each of the bags, some of the clusters were monsters!
Edited by CuriousGeorge83 (03/06/11 02:54 PM)
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 eLShaMukO
from couch potato to sex tornado
Registered: 04/28/10
Posts: 1,394
Loc: far away
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 nice fruits
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
Registered: 02/21/09
Posts: 182
Last seen: 3 days, 21 hours
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 Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: eLShaMukO]
#14076536 - 03/06/11 03:58 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Thanks!
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RogerRabbit
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Registered: 03/26/03
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I've grown H ulmarius on straw many times. It performs better on straw than on sawdust.
How much peroxide did you use per pound of mushrooms harvested? If you had to use $3 worth of peroxide per gallon of water, you must have spent at least $30 on peroxide. I can't imagine there being a payoff, considering how cheaply you can heat the water.
RR
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semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
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Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14077705 - 03/06/11 07:23 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Unfortunately I definitely didn't keep track of how much poundage was harvested overall. We didn't sell any of it, it was all eaten amongst the farm workers who lived with us. I have definitely thought of the cost of peroxide and how reasonable it actually is. I was able to get quarts of the stuff at a dollar store for (surprisingly) right around a buck. Don't think I spent more than 10 dollars on peroxide, so thinking back on it now, it's possible I used proportions less than one quart per gallon. Can't really remember, vegetable farming takes quite the toll on the mind...wish I could focus solely on mushrooms...
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RogerRabbit
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Hopefully you put your spent substrates into the garden areas. H ulmarius will continue to fruit for years if you add compost, and mulch with shredded straw. It will also break down manure and compost, making them useful to the plants.
Lucky you have a dollar store. Peroxide is three times that price here. You can also pasteurize with lime and/or bleach. None work as well as steam sterilization(if you can keep it sterile until colonized) or pasteurization in hot water.
RR
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www.mushroomvideos.com
semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
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Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14077796 - 03/06/11 07:34 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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I should have, but I just through the spent substrate into the compost pile. At that point it was getting pretty cold and we were mowing most of our fields. Can elm oyster survive cold, harsh winters in the ground?
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RogerRabbit
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I don't remember. I'm horribly allergic to the spores from all the oyster complex of mushrooms, so swore them off a couple of years ago. I have a new full-face respirator so I just started my P ostreatus culture so I'll have extra products for the farmers market season this year.
RR
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www.mushroomvideos.com
semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
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Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14077936 - 03/06/11 07:58 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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I'm actually thinking of getting some kind of oyster operation going this year. I work for somewhat of a wealthy business that buys most of our produce for an upscale restaurant, and for the money, it seems oysters might be the most affordable way to go for startup. We'll see if I have any terrible reaction to the sporeload...
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RogerRabbit
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Wear a respirator from day one. It takes a year or two for the allergy to develop if you're exposed a lot. My mistake was using a mini-greenhouse in my bedroom, where I was exposed to the spores all night while sleeping.
A gourmet restaurant is more likely to want shiitake in my experience.
RR
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semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
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Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14078404 - 03/06/11 09:13 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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yikes! thanks again RR
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MonkeyKnifeFight
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Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14078548 - 03/06/11 09:36 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said:
Hopefully you put your spent substrates into the garden areas. H ulmarius will continue to fruit for years if you add compost, and mulch with shredded straw. It will also break down manure and compost, making them useful to the plants.
Lucky you have a dollar store. Peroxide is three times that price here. You can also pasteurize with lime and/or bleach. None work as well as steam sterilization(if you can keep it sterile until colonized) or pasteurization in hot water.
RR
Wow that's very cool. Is it the kind of thing where one could take some h ulmarius and till it in with some compost and fresh planted crops and get a flush in a single season? If so that sounds awesome for partner planting.
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
Registered: 02/21/09
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Partner planting is definitely possible. Particularly with the elm oyster and brassica crops (those being kale, cabbage, radish, turnip, etc.). I've never done it before mostly because of crop rotation on organic fields, but, if you have say like a raised garden bed in your backyard, throw some elm oyster spawn into the bed and plant some brassica crops into it, mulched with straw as RR said and feed it as needed year after year - should fruit successively for years (as well as give you fresh fruits the same year as long as you inoculate in the spring)...as well as help the brassicas you plan to grow in that bed...it should do very well..
see Mycelium Running by Stamets for more on mycorrhizal integration with vegetable crops.
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MonkeyKnifeFight
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Aren't all those brassicas annuals? Or are you saying you could re-plant in the same areas and get more flushes from the mushrooms? I am planning for a small farm setting but if we could find a way to have mushrooms growing in the same beds as annuals it would really increase the utilization of the land. I don't have mycelium running in front of my but most of what I remember concerned perennials.
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CuriousGeorge83
Super Conscious Monkey
Registered: 02/21/09
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Nope, brassicas are not annuals. You merely harvest them as annuals, though they are not actually annual plants.
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DRCola
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Registered: 05/04/11
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Loc: USA 
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Re: Elm Oyster on Peroxidated Oat Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14423660 - 05/09/11 08:01 AM (1 year, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said:
Wear a respirator from day one. It takes a year or two for the allergy to develop if you're exposed a lot. My mistake was using a mini-greenhouse in my bedroom, where I was exposed to the spores all night while sleeping.
A gourmet restaurant is more likely to want shiitake in my experience.
RR
Hello all, this is my very first post! I am attempting to grow oysters from a clone on WBS. So far it seems to be colonizing in the jar pretty well.
However this is a question for RogerRabbit about the use of a respirator from "day one". As a person with a serious mold spore allergy, I would like to know more about how you will manage your oysters/allergy.
Will you only grow oysters outside? Is the respirator used after you transfer oysters to straw?--or is "day one" very literal.
I am excited but nervous about my oysters at this point. Any insight would be wonderful. Thank you for all your posts too, I'm learning a lot!
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