Newbie here. Got into growing a variety of edible and medicinal mushrooms a few months ago. Turkey Tail, Reishi, Oyster, Wine Cap mostly.
1. Zeolite. Heard some places its beneficial, some that it doesnt matter. It's very cheap and i keep plenty in stock anyway (pdz horse stall refresher) for gardening (in compost), odor absorbtion around the house and in my car, and for ashtrays.
Since it is a horse stall/chicken coop refresher, it's naturally found in large quantities in composted manure which you guys use alot of. I wonder if anyone has tried horse manure minus zeolite and compared it with zeolite, or likewise with other substrates. I also wonder if there is an ideal concentration, if it will hurt mushroom growth at higher concentrations.
2. biochar. Charcoal inoculated with bacteria, usually by co-composting or soaking in compost tea. I make my own as well, by tossing hot briquettes into a pail of water then dumping the slurry into my compost tumbler. Obviously, we don't want bacteria in mushroom cultivation. What if we inoculate charcoal with sterile nutrients and mycelium? I am thinking by adding charcoal to nutrified substrates, the surface area of the charcoal would provide the potential for greater nutrient density and mycelial density and resilience giving them a place to grow and hide in those tiny nutrient containing structures. I am thinking not just yeild maximization but also resilience for outdoor bed grows. The charcoal may provide a way for hyphae to survive harsh and fluctuating outdoor conditions to continually recolonize. I live in the southwest where temps easily reach 100+ for two or three months a year combined with regular drought conditions. so keeping mycelium (and compost, too) alive has been a challenge, anything sitting in the sun, top inch of soil and flower pots easily reaches pasturization time/temp on a daily basis.
I have clay soil and found that heavy addition of zeolite, vermiculite, gypsum, biochar, compost, sawdust, woodchips, and straw helps build the soil and alleviate those problems. I got into mushrooms primarily as a soil engineering excersize, trying to turn my quarter acre of scrub into a richly planted zen flower garden.
3. Which brings me to clay
Does the addition of clay, such as bentonite (kitty litter - which also has zeolite), diatomaceous earth, leca pellets or akadama have any effect, negative or positive on mushroom growth or suvivability?
4. Which leads to think...
My biggest problem with rye grain tek has been getting the cooked grain sufficiently dry. I leave it out for hours, put a fan on it, roll it around dry paper towels. Regardless, they come out pressure cooked with water droplets all over the jar. I have resorted to mixing my cooked grain with dry sawdust prior to pressure cooking but some mushrooms just don't eat sawdust, and it's not hydrophillic enough to soak up the ambient moisture.
What if i utilize the hydrophillic properties of one of the above clay ammendments to absorb the moisture off of grain? Better yet, skip the drying process alltogether and use it to soak up moisture until its all at the right field capacity?
That being said, I'm also wondering if any of the above can be used in place of or addition to vermiculite to structure otherwise difficult substrates, like flours, processed oats, grits, barley, coffee, buckwheat, etc.
Vermiculite is kinda a PIA. I have all the other ammendments regularly stocked in hundred pound quantities for a variety of uses. Vermiculite is the exception, as local retailers dont carry it in bulk quantities and it needs to be special ordered via amazon in my area, and is one of the more expenisve of the bunch. It's also potentially full of asbestos and generally not good for your lungs to be around it.
5. My last questions are about smoke, and 02 levels.
Does the presence of smoke or other air pollution affect mushroom growth? I know c02 is a big deal, but how about c01, voc's, even grease in the air from cooking?
People focus on removing c02 with fresh air or plants, but does increasing oxygen synthetically help at all? Using h202, oxygen generators or bottled oxygen to pump more oxygen into a space rather than removing the co2? i can get that all that pretty cheaply and easily too.
The reason I ask is because living in the southwest, opening a window for my indoor grows isn't an option for much of the year when it's so hot and i've been getting 800-1000ppm c02 readings in my grow room, 600 in the rest of the house since i started, with 430 being the clean baseline for my area.
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