solumvita said:

Houdi

Have you ever come across any mention of being able to grow volvariella on spent oyster substrate?

---

wildrose said:

To start with, I'm wondering if having yeast in a culture medium (either liquid or agar) is a good idea for the first step.

---

houdinihar said:

Paddy Straw mushrooms grow relatively quickly in their native warm, humid environments, but this is the middle of winter in the U.S. so we have to make amends.

houdinihar

---

Jonat said:

Live yeast would be a problem, but adding yeast or yeast extract to the medium before sterilizing might add vitamins or growth factors.

---

Lennybernadino said:

I fInally managed to isolate the straw mushroom out of a wild patch and just inoculated grain spawn yesterday, I plan to grow it on sterilized substrate so that I can harvest clean spore prints and start anew because I think these musrooms probably senesc quickly .
    jEr

---

Lennybernadino said:

Also i often thought that young non senescent myceliuym can recharge senescing mycelium or that senescing mycelium can pass on its cantaminant resisting and substrate digesting experience on to new young mycelium, here is at least one species that does that!

---

BJML said:

hi all, this is my first post in this forum. I'm from Indonesia and farming paddy straw mushroom also.
This is my spawn and the fresh fruit picture..
I hope i can get some inputs from all of you guys..

---

houdinihar said:

BJML said:

hi all, this is my first post in this forum. I'm from Indonesia and farming paddy straw mushroom also.
This is my spawn and the fresh fruit picture..
I hope i can get some inputs from all of you guys..

---

BJML, what is your base material for the substrate? it looks like a compost of some sort.
i am still having the dickens of a time with my volvariella growing. so far, the only thing that is causing me grief in the mushroom world.
i would be glad to get more in depth explanation from someone who actually has successfully done this. please don't leave out any details--temps, humidity, substrate moisture, etc,

thank you for sharing these super nice pictures. i have several jars of grain spawn waiting to do something with.

houdinihar

---

lipa said:

I just wanted to point out that Paddy straw spawn can be any waste product due to the fact that it can utilize cellulose very very well. In case you were wondering why he is not using grain (Which help keep the rats and vermin away). The result of the harvest is very much dependent on the substrate makeup.

Lipa

---

lipa said:

By that I mean the type of substrate and the condition of it. I cannot elaborate on it. I am experimenting myself. All I have is information from experienced growers. So far important things are aeration during fruitbody induction, C/N ratio, flora, and temperature. They also like a PH of around 7- 8 as I am finding through papers and word of mouth and it is important that the temperature drops slightly for fruitbody formation and good development. When the temperature falls to early in the colonization phase fruitbody formation can occur causing smaller harvest due to lack of assimilation of nutrients.

Lipa

---

Have you practice the maintenance process? without practising, i guarantee everyone can't really understand about the growing techniques.
Here in Indonesia, each area has different technique. But some of them interested to try my technique. Like i said, they have to follow my class in order to get good harvest result and deep understanding by practice on field, not just theory or word of mouth.

BJML



Inspecting fruiting periode in my farmer's growing house.

houdinihar said:

BJML,

1. Do you always pasteurize after the composting period, or do you sometimes spawn straight away?

2. I noticed in the 3rd picture [above] inside the growing room with all the young eggs that fluid is dripping down some of the strands of straw. Do you use any fans to move the air to prevent mold development-the reason I ask that is because the substrate looks very moist and you mentioned 80-85% humidity for the grow room? I did notice in a picture on your website that the groing room has a vent hole up near the top of the room but I did not notice any means of moving the air around.

Thanks for these newer pictures you/ve posted

houdinihar.

---

1. i always pasteurize the media at 60-70 C for 6 hours then i spread the spawn. If today i do pasteurize, tomorrow i'll spread the spawn. you can see the timeline here,

2. the condition at the 3rd pict, temp 32 C, moist around 83 %, i use a door and windows for aeration. i open them if the temp reach 33 C above

lipa said:

Thanks for the good info. When do know when to harvest and how do you store them?

Lipa

---

BJML said:

---

houdinihar said:

BJML said:

---

BJML, looks like some coprinus in the extreme bottom left rack. i have read that some people merely cut them off the straw and leave the rest as is. how do you handle that?

You said the temp was 32 C = 89.6 F. One of my problems is my outdoors temps has been close to 100 F for more than a month-so the temps in my garage are almost as bad. My temps are still low 90-'s to 100 during the day and 70's at night outside during this month of September. This seems to be well outside the normal range of growth for the Vv. My Tricholoma crassum and Calocybe indica are tolerating these higher temps just fine.
I do have a small incubator that can be used for maybe 2-4 of my filter bags to control my temps in the 90 degree range once the ambient temps drop enough.


houdinihar

---

Lennybernadino said:

Hey BJML what pasteurization method are you using? Is it the hot water bathmethod or injected steam method, I am just begining again the experamints to try to figure out a highly productive way to grwow this mushroom with the materials available wich does not include rice straw at the moment ,    jEr

---

Lennybernadino said:

COuld you PLEASE give us a more detailed description of your steam system? that looks really simple and effective and perhjaps the perfect solution for farmers out in the jungle . And those cotton stoppers are those non absorbetn cotton wool wich I cannot get around here? Could I use normal cotton? Polyfill?
    jEr

---

wbastz said:

Hi Lipa

The appearance of the mycelium of Volvariella volvacea in the Petri dish seems strange.

What happens if you pull a piece of the mycelium  with a metal rod ?

Does the mycelium adheres and rolls up the metal rod like a spider web?

In all of the cultures of Volvariella volvacea that I have, the mycelium has the consistency of a spider web. The same applies to the Volvariella bombycina cultures.

Cheers,

Wilson

---

Like I said, Cultures from different regions seem to exhibit different growth characteristics. I have some cultures from Hawaii some from the Philippines, some from Thailand and North America. Those from North America and Hawaii seem to grow rather thick on dishes and those from the Philippines and Thailand seem to be more wispy. In substrate conditions the mycelium of both become very spider web-like and continue through the substrate as such.

Here it is at day 3

Lipa

BJML said:

Lennybernadino said:

COuld you PLEASE give us a more detailed description of your steam system? that looks really simple and effective and perhjaps the perfect solution for farmers out in the jungle . And those cotton stoppers are those non absorbetn cotton wool wich I cannot get around here? Could I use normal cotton? Polyfill?
    jEr

---

I Put water into drums which are connected with pipeline to the growing house, then heat it by firewood. Then the steam goes into the growing house.

BJML

---

Javadog said:

Thanks BJML.  You made an excellent contribution to this thread.

BTW, that dish does not look like the VV that I tried to work with, but
I understand your comments about its variation.

The Bombycina (sp?) dish seems to have "collapsed".  I wonder if I let
it get too cold?  I did make transfers though, and I hope to start some
grains this weekend.

Take care,

JD

---

Lennybernadino said:

I am just trying to start up a small commercial straw mushroom farm, I am hoping to get at least at least 5 kilos a day . I don´t have rice straw available in all locations so I am experimenting with other substrates such as Palm heart waste (where it grows naturally ) , sacha inchi hulls, and banana leaves . I have been cloning from the wild and making spawn from that, I also use transplanted stem buts from time to time and they work very well to quickly colonize a substrate but not clean.

---

if you want to get 5 kilos/day, i suggest you to build 2 growing houses 3m x 4m. at 1st harvest day, usually 2-3 kilos @growing house, a day after that 5-8 kilos @gh and so on.



BJML