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ragadinks
MrBeatle
Registered: 10/20/03
Posts: 1,298
Last seen: 5 months, 9 days
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Oysters on Cardboard/Paper 4
#3200510 - 09/30/04 03:23 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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In Stamets GGMM and on his website I have read that you can grow oysters on a paper/cardboard substrate. Since this is a very cheap raw material that is easy to obtain I thought that I could experiment with it a bit. I have tried several methods that uses paper as a substrate but this was the cheapest, fastest and easiest I came across:
The substrate:
Since wet paper is a very dense substrate I use straw in order to aerate and loosen it:
Before I used the newspaper I made sure that there are no harmful substances in it by simply calling the guys who produce it and asking them. The ink usually is made out of soy oil and carbon - nothing poisonous ! -
The growing container:
When making a growing container it is very important that the excess water can drain, CO2 can escape at the bottom and O2 can reach the substrate. Therefore I used a big laundry basket in which I drilled some holes at the bottom:
_
The spawn:
For the beginning I used a strain of P.ostreatus and P.pulmonarius. The spawn I used was either coffee ground or corn that is used to feed animals: _
Preparing the substrate:
Preparing the substrate is very simple. First you take a big enough rubbermaid container or something similar and fill about half of it with straw:
Then you add newspaper and cardboard till it is full:
After that you cover everything with very hot water (~60 degrees Celsius/~140 degrees Fahrenheit):
At the end I put a brick on top of it all, so that the straw does not start to float on top of the hot water:
This is a very simple method of substrate pasteurization but it works quite well. Just make sure that all the ingredients are covered with hot water for at least 4 hours. The water must be so hot that you cannot leave your fingers inside more that one or two seconds at the beginning. The straw always tends to float on the surface and that is why I pack the paper cardboard very tight on top of it and weight it down with the brick.
Inoculation:
When the water has reached room temperature and you can start with inoculation. After washing my hands I place the spawn (coffee grounds), the fruiting container and the prepared substrate in my bathing tube :
First I take some newspaper and add a layer of it to the bottom of the laundry basket: _
Then comes a layer of straw covered by a bit of spawn: _
Repeat to add layers (~1 inch) of paper/cardboard, straw and spawn till the fruiting container is full or you have run out of the substrate/spawn:
Paper usually keeps water very well and it is hard work to get rid of it by squeezing the substrate. The big advantages of this method is you can simply add the wet paper without caring about the water contents of the substrate. Just pack the whole block tightly at the end and let it rest for half an our - the excess water will drain out at the bottom ...
Incubation:
When most of the excess water has drained I carry the container to the incubation room and place it on a lid of a rubbermaid container. Since water will drain out of the substrate during the coming few days it is important that you put something underneath ! The laundry basket is covered with a big black garbage bag then: _
As you can see on the picture I put the bag over the top of the container leaving the opening at the bottom. This way the water can drain through the holes at the bottom and CO2 can escape easily. If you enclose the substrate in a bag the water will stay in the bottom part of the substrate and the mycelium cannot colonize it there which often results in contamination. Another thing I have noticed is that the substrate get's colonized very fast by the mycelium. The reason for this might be the fact that the draining water also transports part of the mycelium to unspawned areas (kind of liquid inoculation ?).
The left container on the following picture shows mycelium of P.ostreatus and the right one P.pulmonarius. It took both strains about 20 days till they had fully colonized the containers:
Pinning:
When the P. pulmonarius started to pin I put both container into an old glass house where the get better air exchange and more light: _
P. ostreatus did not pin till the temperatures decreased (~10-20 degrees Celsius):
Fruiting:
P. pulmonarius grew very fast since the temperatues(20-30 degrees Celsius) were optimal for it at that time:
Here are two pics of it just before harvesting: _
Now, since the temperatures have decreased Pleurotus ostreatus also does very well on that substrate as you can see here: _
Harvest:
Here is a picture of the first havest of Pleurotus pulmonarius:
Conclusion:
The duration between spawning and first harvest of Pleurotus pulmonarius was less then 30 days. To me this seems quite fast. It would be interesting to test out different strains and determine the productivity of each strain on this substrate (yield/substrate ratio). Till now I have only tried out P. pulmonarius and P. ostreatus with this method on this substrate but I am quite sure that also Hypsizygus ulmarius, Hypsizygus tesselatus and Pleurotus dmajor will do very well, since I have tried to grow them on paper using a more sterile method.
Think that this method has quite some advantages for the low-tech cultivator. Some of these are: - paper, cardboard and straw are easily obtainable
- paper and cardboard do not cost anything
- pasteurization is very simple and does not need extra equipment
- sterility is not so important
- some strains grow fast with this method
- easy to get rid of excess water and reaching the proper moisture content of substrate
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motaman
old hand
Registered: 12/18/02
Posts: 6,047
Last seen: 6 days, 14 hours
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3200721 - 09/30/04 04:21 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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nice work ...
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Psilygirl
cyan goddess
Registered: 08/28/03
Posts: 4,418
Loc: PNW
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3201582 - 09/30/04 08:40 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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cool tek! gave me some ideas...
-------------------- "Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows." Puget Sound Mycological Society
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Corporal Kielbasa
Registered: 05/29/04
Posts: 17,235
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Psilygirl]
#3203383 - 10/01/04 09:07 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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I wonder what ideas that may be.
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Speeker
Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 881
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3203610 - 10/01/04 10:55 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Great info as always. How is taste? Does the paper affect the taste much?
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ragadinks
MrBeatle
Registered: 10/20/03
Posts: 1,298
Last seen: 5 months, 9 days
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Speeker]
#3204439 - 10/01/04 04:03 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Have realized no difference to the ones I have grown on coffee grounds
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Teragon
Noddy
Registered: 02/20/01
Posts: 36,253
Loc: Lost in the Patterns
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3208746 - 10/03/04 12:00 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Wow man! That is very inspiring! Great job. How much of a temp drop did it take to induce flushing for the ostreatus? Seems I will be trying this very soon, thanks to you! Thanks for posting man...looks like you got a nice healthy flush.
-------------------- need that cash to feed them jones.
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ragadinks
MrBeatle
Registered: 10/20/03
Posts: 1,298
Last seen: 5 months, 9 days
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Teragon]
#3209046 - 10/03/04 02:52 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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> How much of a temp drop did it take to induce flushing for the ostreatus? Think the temperatures dropped from 14-30 to 8-22 degrees Celsius (day-night). Autumn just started and the average temperatures during the day where below 20 degrees Celsius during the day going below 10 degrees Celsius during the night.
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Teragon
Noddy
Registered: 02/20/01
Posts: 36,253
Loc: Lost in the Patterns
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3213008 - 10/04/04 08:23 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Very cool, thanks for the numbers...So you found pulmonarius to be a bit more forgiving? Did you multi-spore or culture/culture the first spawn jars? Just curious, thanks again.
-------------------- need that cash to feed them jones.
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ragadinks
MrBeatle
Registered: 10/20/03
Posts: 1,298
Last seen: 5 months, 9 days
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Teragon]
#3213039 - 10/04/04 08:48 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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I started from clean mycelium and I have not very often started with multispore. But it would be interesting to make multispore syrings as they do with the active mushrooms and start from there - the genetic pool would be greater and you can select the ones that fit to your environment later ...
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Rat
Stranger
Registered: 04/20/04
Posts: 103
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3215633 - 10/04/04 07:50 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Makes me want to grow oysters. If you need someone to test multispore, send a print this way.
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ragadinks
MrBeatle
Registered: 10/20/03
Posts: 1,298
Last seen: 5 months, 9 days
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Rat]
#3216918 - 10/05/04 12:51 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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I still have some prints - if you PM me your addy I can send you one.
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Teragon
Noddy
Registered: 02/20/01
Posts: 36,253
Loc: Lost in the Patterns
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#3217384 - 10/05/04 08:02 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
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Very cool, thanks again man. I can't wait to start.
-------------------- need that cash to feed them jones.
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Food
---Beast---
Registered: 12/10/01
Posts: 390
Loc: Siberia
Last seen: 17 years, 11 months
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Teragon]
#3455653 - 12/06/04 04:23 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Woah - Brilliant post man !!!
Thanks .
Yes very inspiring .
-------------------- --------mushworld.com-----More info than you can throw a stick at-
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felixhigh
Scientist
Registered: 06/24/01
Posts: 7,565
Loc: Ly
Last seen: 19 days, 5 hours
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: Food]
#3458200 - 12/07/04 12:49 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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piece of art!
FH
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Super_Blunt
Candyman
Registered: 10/25/04
Posts: 3,140
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: felixhigh]
#3458205 - 12/07/04 12:50 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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wow, shwicked grow.
--------------------
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markinnewparis
Registered: 05/07/11
Posts: 132
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#14439111 - 05/12/11 08:28 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I know this is an old tek.. Just wondering if anyone has tried this more recently? And if they have, was it a good producer?
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger
Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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If you're using straw + cardboard then I bet you could get basically the same results if not better from straight straw. People have had success using cardboard with coffee grounds to add loft but I've never seen oysters do too well on substrates that are mostly paper. Reishi on the other hand...
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iloveshitaki
Apprentice
Registered: 02/08/11
Posts: 56
Last seen: 12 years, 4 months
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Re: Oysters on Cardboard/Paper [Re: ragadinks]
#14970849 - 08/24/11 12:42 PM (12 years, 6 months ago) |
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Great post, I'm going to use this method for my first bulk.
How was your yield with one of those baskets?
Also did you just use water from the shower or did you pour boiling water over it? I saw you wrote it needs to be very hot but I don't think my shower gets that hot.
Thanks
-------------------- Yes I spelled shiitake wrong yes I am to cheap to pay $10 to fix it
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MattyBear
sharing is caring
Registered: 07/04/13
Posts: 204
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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I am very interested in oyster growth on waste in order to recycle. I can get mass quantities of cardboard and shredded computer paper from restaurants in my area. I know not to use waxy cardboard and Chinese cardboard and I hear that computer paper gives less yields than newspaper. I am guessing bcs there is less nutrients.
Could I sub dried alfalfa or wood chips for hay? How much popcorn spawn / # of paper pulp?
-------------------- Here's what we can do to change the world right now, to a better ride. Take all the money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead, spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over , not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. ~Bill Hicks~ Looking to build up a print library
Edited by MattyBear (07/14/13 07:45 AM)
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