How To Grow Oyster Mushroom At Home

Oyster mushrooms, the common name for the species Pleurotus ostreatus, are one of the most common types of cultivated mushrooms in the world. Also referred to as Dhingri in India. The oyster mushroom is one of the most suitable fungal organism for producing protein rich food from various agrowastes without composting.
Substrate preparation

The popular methods of substrate preparation are as follows:
1) Steam pasteurization:

In this method pre-wetted straw is packed in wooden trays or boxes and then kept in a pasteurization room at 60-80C for few hours. Temperature of the pasteurization room is manipulated with the help of steam through a boiler. Substrate after cooling at room temperature is seeded with spawn. The entire process take 3-5 days.

2) Hot water treatment:

The substrate after chopping (5-10 cm) is soaked in hot water (65 to 70°C) for one hour or 60 to 120 minutes at 80C or in case of paddy straw at 85C for 30-45 minutes. After draining excess water spawn is added. The leached water contains a lot of soluble sugars and phenolic compounds. Hot water treatment makes the hard substrate like maize cobs, stems etc. soft so the growth of mycelial takes place very easily. This method is not suitable on large scale commercial cultivation.
Cultivation Technology
The procedure for oyster mushroom cultivation can be divided into following four steps:

(i) Preparation or procurement of spawn
(ii) Substrate preparation
(iii) Spawning of substrate
(iv) Crop management

Spawn Preparation
A pure culture of Pleurotus sp. is needed for inoculation on sterilized substrate. It takes 10-15 days for mycelial growth on cereal grains. It has been reported that jowar and bajra grains are superior over wheat grains.
Substrate Preparation
Oyster mushroom can be cultivated on a large number of agro-wastes having cellulose and lignin which helps in more enzyme production of cellulose that is correlated with more yield. These include straw of paddy, wheat and ragi, stalk and leaves of maize, millets etc.

The popular methods of substrate preparation are:

· Steam Pasteurization;
· Hot Water Treatment;
· Sterile Technique (Till method);
· Fermentation or Composting; and
· Chemical Sterilization.
Spawning of Substrate
Freshly prepared (20-30 days old) grain spawn is best for spawning. Old spawn (3-6 months) stored at room temperature (at 20-300 C) forms a very thick mat like structure due to mycelium aggregation and sometimes young pinheads and fruit bodies start developing in the spawn bottle itself. The spawning should be done in a pre-fumigated room (48hrs.with 2% formaldehyde).

Crop Management
(A) Incubation
Spawned bags, trays or boxes are arranged in a dark cropping room on raised platforms or shelves for mycelium colonization of the substrate. Although mycelium can grow from 10 to 330 C, but the optimum temperature for spawn running lies between 22 to 260 C.

(B) Fruiting
When the mycelium has fully colonized the substrate, the fungus is ready for fruiting. Contaminated bags with moulds may be discarded while bags with patchy mycelial growth may be left for few more days to complete mycelial growth.

While various species require different temperature regimes all require high humidity (70-85%) during fruiting. Frequent spraying of water is required in the cropping room depending upon the atmospheric humidity. Fruit body produced under humid conditions (85-90%) is bigger with less dry matter while those developed at 65-70% relative humidity are small with high dry matter.

CO2 concentration during cropping should be less than 600 ppm. or 0.6%. Sufficient ventilation has to be provided during fruiting.

Harvesting and Yield

The right shape for picking can be judged by the shape and size of the fruit body. The fruit bodies should be harvested before spore release, by twisting so that the stubs are not left on the beds (straw). It is advisable to pick all the mushrooms at one time from a cube and the next flush will appear at one time.

More than 500 kg. of fresh mushrooms per ton of dry wheat or straw can be obtained in case of crop produced in 45-60 days.
POST HARVEST MANAGEMENT
Storage
(A) Short-term Storage
Fresh mushrooms are packed in perforated polythene bags which are directly sent to the local market situated nearby. Freshly harvested mushrooms can be stored at low temperature (0-50 C) for 1-2 weeks without loss in quality in case it is to be sent to the distant markets.

(B) Long-term Storage
Dried mushroom with 2-4% moisture, can be stored for 3-4 months in sealed pouches without any change in taste. The dried produce can be rehydrated in luke warm water (40-500 C) within 20-30 mins. giving 80-90% of original weight.
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