Many people love mushrooms, but do not think about the fact that they can be grown at home instead of buying them in the store. To do this, you just need to master the simple technology of growing mushroom mycelium at home, and the resulting crop can be used by yourself and sold. A beginner mushroom grower can make a simple laboratory for growing oyster mushroom mycelium at home.
Prepare a place for the laboratory - it should be located in a clean room with a low humidity of no more than 70% and a temperature of 20 to 24 degrees. If the room temperature is unstable, use a heater.
Clean the room regularly to keep it free of dust and avoid drafts. One and a half square meters will be enough for you to work. Use shallow plastic containers to grow mycelium.
You will also need regular lighting above your desk. Prepare 15 tubes with cotton stoppers and storage rack, a 500 ml conical flask with stopper, and a 500 ml beaker for use. In addition, you will need a bacteriological needle, tweezers, scalpel, pipettes, plastic petri dishes, an electric stove, an alcohol burner, and disinfectants.
To form the mycelium, a piece of fresh oyster mushroom is placed in a nutritive base of potato-glucose agar. Make sure that the conditions in which the mycelium grows are sterile - regularly clean the room and disinfect the work surface. All equipment must be sterilized on a burner before handling the mushroom culture.
Dissolve the nutrient base in boiling water in a flask, and then pour it into sterile petri dishes, lifting the lids. Each cup contains 10 ml of nutrient solution, which must first be sterilized in tubes, sealed with corks and wrapped in foil.
Pour the composition into the cups with a 10 ml pipette, and then wait for it to cool and put the pieces of mushroom tissue into it. Before cutting the mushroom into pieces, rinse and disinfect it, and then cut it with a sterile scalpel. Remove pieces of tissue from the middle of the mushroom with a bacteriological needle.
Place three to four slices in each dish in the culture medium. Cover the cups and leave at room temperature for a few days. As a result, you should have a pure white fluff culture of mycelium. Throw away cups affected by red or green mold.
The next step is to get mycelium. To do this, take high quality cereal grains and mix them with two parts water. Boil the grains for 15 minutes, dry and mix with 1.3% gypsum and 0.3% calcium carbonate.
Fill the bottle with grains two thirds full and sterilize. Place three pieces of mycelium culture medium in each jar. After three weeks, the mycelium will grow.