Growing Edible Mushrooms (Royal Trumpet and Shiitake)

[jdm]

*deleted*

[Syd]

Sounds like a great idea. I don't have much insight into growing but man, I can grow some great weeds.

[speciesofpureinformation]

Place to check is fungi perfecti, Paul Stamets' company.  You should probably pick up a few of his books, as well.   http://fungiperfecti.com/

Hoep this helps,
sopi

[neonfyr]

Yes a nice setup can be found second hand.

A pressure cooker is pretty standard equipment.

Do you have experience growing mushrooms?

There are many commercial grow techniques, but some of the equipment can be in the thousands of dollars and the yield is huge.

Maybe slang spores

[Ungh]

I have had the idea for years of growing Shiitake mushrooms to sell to restaurants around town. I consider myself a decent chef and today I found out that Royal Trumpets sell for $46 a case. That has pretty much sold me on the idea. The particular restaurant I am working at now doesn't use Shiitakes and I don't know how much a case goes for but I'm sure its a lot.

My question is does anyone know of any growing techniques and substrate for Royal Trumpets? The only thing I could find out is that commercial growers use sawdust or a sawdust blend for the Trumpets. Right now I would like to focus on that type of mushroom since my employer would be easily convinced to buy them if they are of commercial grade good quality.

Well, by "Royal Trumpet" I assume you mean Pleurotus eryngii  aka The king Oyster aka Boletus of the Steppes, and apparently in your area aka Royal Trumpet.

It's really neat to find someone that's actually making money the way you are so I'll save you some time and post the stats you'll need straight from the book: Stamet's "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms". Although you probably should buy it at some point AND get a good tissue sample. That  last piece of advice was purely for success in cultivating and big yield purposes.

Anyhoo ... here we go (this is for bag cultivation btw):

Growth Parameters

Spawn Run:
Incubation Temps: 75f
RH: 90-95%
Duration: 12-16days
CO2:5,000-20,000ppm
Fresh Air Exchanges:1per hour

Primordia Formation:
Initiation Temp: 50-60f
RH: 95-100%
Duration: 4-5days
CO2: 500-1000ppm
Fresh Air Exchanges: 4-8per hour
Light: 500-1,000lux

Fruitbody Development:
Temp:60-70f
RH: 85-90%
Duration: 4-8days
CO2: <2,000ppm
Fresh Air Exchanges: 4-5per hour
Light : 500-1,000lux

Cropping Cycle:
Two Crops, 14 days apart in 45 days

Now, I don't know how you grow your Shiitake, but if it's like most people it'll be off of inoculated logs. King Oysters will/should do fine this way also.  Though, you probably(definitely) won't get the best of yields. These buggers are grown best using methods (plastic bags, columns and bottles filled w/ either sawdust/chips/bran mix, or straw) identical to those used for the cultivation of other oyster species.

Stamets mentions his yields were best with the "enriched sawdust" mixture, and I believe it.

His recipie for it is as follows (this is for 160-180 bags btw!)

100lb sawdust
50 lb wood chips (1/2 to 4 inches)
40 lb oat wheat or rice bran
5-7lb of gypsum

You really don't want the sawdust to be too powdery. It should have a bit of consistency to it. So, not like flour but kind of like polenta. If it's got shavings in it (ie. you're sourcing from a wood mill or something like that) it's fine.

If I remember correct he's got a scaled down recipe in the book and some  other tips for making spawn. Though, if I can make an assumption here I'd say that your operation is of the kitchen/basement/backyard variety.  If so then stick to straw and maybe enrich it a bit w/ course sawdust and a few hand fulls of oats/bran or even cooked brown rice. But you should get nice enough yields off of the straw alone.  

Oh, and the REASON commercial farms use "sawdust" is because it produces 1lb of fruit from 5lb of substrate (that's 90% bio efficiency!). You'll never get that from straw.

Good Luck! (and pick up the book   )