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Offlinemcchieftan
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Variety vs Simplicity - How many species?
    #21297776 - 02/19/15 09:26 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

This has been turning over in my head for a few days and I think I've come to a decision but I'd value your input nonetheless:

We have been in the process of starting up for a while now and, gradually, we seem to be approaching a workable level of output. The question is, do we aim to cultivate several varieties or do we stick to just one?

Right now we have commercial strains of grey, golden and king Oyster with Shiitake on its way soon. We are operating in France and where we are based the grey oyster or "pleurote" as its known here has a pretty poor reputation. Its relatively new, expensive relative to the "champignon de paris (button mushroom) and very rarely seen at its best. French supermarkets have a habit of refreshing their fresh produce sections by upending new produce from a tub on top of the old. As you can imagine this means that supermarket oysters pretty much already look disgusting.

On the other side of the coin, no-one has heard of and no-one is selling King Oysters (where I am). I'm feeling that rather than deal with trying to juggle several species whilst we start up it'd be easier to just go for the Kings. There is much less wastage, they keep much better, they are (perhaps to a traditional French perspective) more visually appealing and we don't have any competition. We are running everything on sterilised sawdust anyway so we wouldn't need to change much and we have the space to incubate and fruit enough to cover our operating and living costs if we can find the clients...

I can't think of anything else but if anyone else can see anything I've missed I'd appreciate an outside opinion

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InvisibleRogerSmith

Registered: 01/29/15
Posts: 365
Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: mcchieftan]
    #21301110 - 02/19/15 09:01 PM (9 years, 2 months ago)

I would grow different species if they could be in the same fruiting room. Like Kings and Enoki growing from jars.
Or Pink and Golden oyster could combine i think.
I would say every place is unique and you have to find out what kind of market and demands are there, therefor math is best answer.

How did you plan to grow kings?

I found some nice pictures.



The method with jars looks very nice but i wonder how do they clean the jars, some kind of drilling machine i would imagine. I read somewhere that you can use used substrate for spawn so i think you could also run a few trays together with jars.
Also, jars could be sterilized and inoculated with LC or you could mix pasteurized substrate with spawn and fill jars after.
What do you think would be best method for yields for kings?

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Invisibleazur
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: RogerSmith]
    #21301726 - 02/19/15 11:24 PM (9 years, 2 months ago)

:takingnotes:


--------------------


A cube is NOT a cube.

FALL IN LOVE WITH LC
FOTTSE!!!
ALL NOOBS READ THIS!!!


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Offlinemcchieftan
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: azur]
    #21301861 - 02/20/15 12:12 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Thanks for joining the discussion. We are growing Kings on sterilised sawdust supplemented at 40% bran in saco2 bags. After 6 weeks consolidation the blocks are birthed into large tubs and cased. We are currently trying out different size tubs. Working in this way allows us to re-use the bags at least once which we like re:price & recycling!

We are aiming primarily at the restaurant market but if we can achieve yields similar to chefin then we will expand into wholesale as well. We have chosen not to work farmers markets due to their nature over here. Certainly in the UK farmer's markets mostly died out and are now having a renaissance. In France they never went away but unfortunately this is disadvantageous for new producers like us. The best spots on the market are all take by regulars who, by attending for many years, have gained the right to reserve their position. Newbies have to arrive eariler than everyone else, wait for everyone else to arrive, wait for the 'placier' to arrive, follow her around like a trail of ducklings praying for a reasonable spot and then work the market itself.

I spent several years performing a music/theatre show on the markets here and knowing the energy that it takes I've decided I'd rather sell cheaper wholesale and spend more time on my operation... Also well after we were committed on this path it transpired that another lady was starting a similar project in our area. She already has a slot on the market and is selling straw grown shiitake and oysters; we'd rather avoid direct competition with her. She is buying pre-inoculated bales (!) and just fruiting them but we'd still rather just do something different...

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Invisiblesolarity
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: mcchieftan]
    #21302025 - 02/20/15 02:03 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

One word - Colour

I am going down the KO route but if you mix Yellow, Grey, KO or Shiitake and Pink (in the summer) in a resilient punnet or flow wrapped tray you will have a unique fresh product. Obviously the moment you put pink in there you lose shelf life so that is something to consider.

Having said that the Chefs and the wholesale people want to see that colour in fresh produce too.

I do 50/50 wholesale/farmers markets and the money is about the same after the cost of doing the markets is factored in. But for restaurants it is dead after xmas, drops off in wild mushroom season and slows when all the rest of the local produce is available so at the moment I need farmers markets (and my dryer!)

The big issue with Wholeasale of KO is the high quality of the Korean imports - because of the great shelf life!


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Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!

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Offlinemcchieftan
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: solarity]
    #21302084 - 02/20/15 03:02 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Thanks Solarity, always appreciate you input! I'm very happy to note that, for the moment at least, there is no sign of imported Korean mushrooms here. Compared to England there is much less obviously 'foreign' food in France.

I hear what you say for visual appeal, right now I'm trying to justify that against the increased air exchange (and so heating/cooling) required for my ghetto fruiting chamber!

It amazes me that visual appeal has such an impact, given that by the time it arrives on the client's plate its all the same colour anyway?

Good advice re: seasonality. The population on the coast 30 minutes from here grows by a factor of a hundred or something similar in summer. I'm wondering whether it might work to run a much intensive operation during the summer and scale back for winter, freeing us up to work on other profits. As state elsewhere, our goal is not a fortune but rather enough money to live off to our (humble) standard of living and then the time and freedom to explore other (permaculture type) projects...

I spend so much time complaining about living in France (as do the majority of all French people I know) so its nice to see that there are some positives like low market penetration of new mushrooms/foreign products!

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InvisibleRogerSmith

Registered: 01/29/15
Posts: 365
Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: mcchieftan]
    #21302366 - 02/20/15 06:35 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Well, i have seen many pictures of commercial growing of kings with the goal to achieve big and long fruits. It makes me wonder why this method of growing is so popular. Is this the best method for yields? I have a feeling that most of asia is growing kings by this method. I have never been there but it seems so by the number pictures on internet.



Sorry for big pictures, i just didnt bother uploading them on this site.

If i weere producing kings, id try to fruit bags on shelves like in those picture.
After that, i would mix spent substrate with pasteurized substrate and make trays, which could be cased. But the trays would produce totally different kings since trays or your tubes have big surface, while those long kings grow from small surface on the substrate.
Its just a question if the second part would work and thats up to some experimentation i think.

Mushroom markets in USA and in EU are very different IMO. I also live in EU and i have never seen anything else than p. ostreatus, shiitake and button mushroom here. But on the other side, laws and regulations are strict and you gotta go big if you wanna start here.

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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: RogerSmith]
    #21302382 - 02/20/15 06:43 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

goddamn that's a wall of dicks!

if you're getting into multiple species I would build a small room for each- say 8ftx8ft or 8ftx12ft.  that way you can have precise environmental controls to maximize yields.  if there was anything i could go back and do- it would be that.

have you thought about lion's mane?  it is pretty easy to grow...yields can be killer!

black poplar (piopinni)?

like solarity said- I would grow a mix of oysters if you can.  people eat with their eyes.


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Offlinemcchieftan
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: drake89]
    #21302463 - 02/20/15 07:12 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

I hear what you say Drake and that is a medium-term plan depending upon short-term results. We have use of a small barn, 3m x 10 or so in length with stone walls 40cm thick and stone flag floors. So far we've built a 2.5x2.5x2.5m cube with peaked roof, plastic sheet walls and 80mm rigid, water/rot proof insulation but no drainage. If we can show that the principle works (and make some money from it) then we will build one or two more fruiting rooms to a much higher standard and with drainage included.

We haven't tried lion's mane and, as its unheard of here, that might be another good idea if we're aiming for the restaurant market. Thanks! What kind of yields are you getting? My strain supplier suggests only 150g/kg sub...


As I say our needs a relatively simple. Due to certain fortuitous circumstances our sales requirements for breaking even (living and operating costs) are fairly low so we'd rather have 2 or 3 top-notch fruiting rooms and produce fantastic mushrooms than try and produce tonnes and tonnes :smile:


Edited by mcchieftan (02/20/15 07:14 AM)

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Invisibleazur
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: mcchieftan]
    #21302484 - 02/20/15 07:19 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Good to see someone else caring about quality over quantity :cheers:


--------------------


A cube is NOT a cube.

FALL IN LOVE WITH LC
FOTTSE!!!
ALL NOOBS READ THIS!!!


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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: azur]
    #21302544 - 02/20/15 07:42 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

I got 100%BE last time.  That's a pound of shrooms per pound of dry substrate.


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Invisibleazur
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: drake89]
    #21302580 - 02/20/15 07:58 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

On what?


--------------------


A cube is NOT a cube.

FALL IN LOVE WITH LC
FOTTSE!!!
ALL NOOBS READ THIS!!!


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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: azur]
    #21302639 - 02/20/15 08:16 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

azur said:
On what?



Hericium


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Fiery Fungi (like us on faeboo)

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Offlinemcchieftan
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: drake89]
    #21302699 - 02/20/15 08:36 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Wow, interesting stuff Drake! We'll have to look into getting a culture. I don't suppose anyone is interested to exchange for a sporeless oyster?

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Invisibleazur
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: drake89]
    #21302708 - 02/20/15 08:37 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Oh nice. You have any good recipes for it?  Someone once mentioned a recipe for cookies using them.
Every time I've tried em they were bitter. Taste was good at first but bitter at end.


--------------------


A cube is NOT a cube.

FALL IN LOVE WITH LC
FOTTSE!!!
ALL NOOBS READ THIS!!!


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Invisibleazur
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Re: Variety vs Simplicity - How many species? [Re: mcchieftan]
    #21302710 - 02/20/15 08:38 AM (9 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

mcchieftan said:
Wow, interesting stuff Drake! We'll have to look into getting a culture. I don't suppose anyone is interested to exchange for a sporeless oyster?



I'm interested, but I'm in the states


--------------------


A cube is NOT a cube.

FALL IN LOVE WITH LC
FOTTSE!!!
ALL NOOBS READ THIS!!!


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