Spent Barley Used To Grow Mushrooms

[ArgM]

Has anyone tried growing mushrooms from a mycelium sample taken from store bought mushrooms? Mainly the organic ones I notice it on...
The spent coffee doesn't seem to have a large success rate with lots of infected batches from what I've read online

 

[Judanero]

A friend of a friend mixed spent barley into a bulk substrate, ~50/50 horse manure/barley and it worked fine when innoculated with jars of rye spawn..

They only did it once though so not sure if it was a fluke, the horse manure provided all the necessary nutrients or if it is a reliable substrate filler.

If you have even a minimal amount of mycology experience, namely sterile technique and whatnot it would be fairly easy to try as a 100% substrate (added gypsum), not sure how it would go being used as spawn ie-whether the extracted sugars would render it unsuitable?

 

[mr_wibble]

What's the gypsum for ?

There's a mushroom cultivation course on in Sydney on June, but it's ~$500 for the weekend. (milkwood permaculture)

 

[niftinev]

ask punkin, he's probably tried it. He used to grow mushrooms and sell them (spores that is)
I think he's on holidays at the moment though

 

[toncils]

Couple of weeks ago I put down a store-spawn packet. I hadn't read anything about pasteurising the soil, so I don't have high hopes.

Keen to hear from Punkin about using fresh mushrooms. Do you think it's similar to yeast; the more spore you put in the quicker it will take over, the less chance of infection?

 

[Judanero]

Do you think it's similar to yeast; the more spore you put in the quicker it will take over, the less chance of infection?

Yes. They're both fungus, it is more or less a numbers game.

What's the gypsum for ?

pH stabiliser and provides nutrients for the mycelium.

 

[niftinev]

don't forget you can even do your own spore prints saves you having to fork out for spores and very easy to do

 

[Hoops]

I think there would be too much nutrient for use as a casing layer, but may be good as a supplement, the same way coffee is used.
If you were going to give it a try, I would definitely start with an oyster mushroom - they grow fast and will out compete other contaminants.
I've been growing White oyster mushrooms on sugar can mulch, as well as on 100% spent coffee grounds with good success

 

[TimT]

I remember hearing about a guy who used straw bales to grow mushrooms on. He'd just hose water through the bails which had spores in them and they'd spread right through, from memory. Might follow up that link Braufrau posted for mushroom spore sellers, looks good!

 

[jafa5]

I have a few dozen logs innoculated in the garden with shitake and oyster. They should be fruiting in November but we had a cheeky first flush a couple of weeks ago. Nice and easy to do and good for insects int he garden. Good for NZ insects anyway, they don't tend to kill you here

We brewed this weekend and tonight's job is to make up the compost using the spent grain to have our first go at mushrooms. It seems pretty straight forward from the research I've done and so long as the compost gets up to temperature to kill off any other spores you're good to go. I have about 70kg of spent grain from yesterday (we knocked out 180 litres of beer which was a huge day for us) and I have three massive bags of oak and cherry chips from a cutting up the firewood a month or so ago.

30% spent grain
40-50% oak wood chips and shavings
10-20% twigs for structure and allow air into the mixture

I'm not going to add any lime or gypsum unless the pH is very acid and as spent grain is pretty good at breaking down I don't think I'll need an activator to get the composting going.

I just need to turn it every other day to keep it hot and maintain reasonable moisture content. Should take from 2-4 weeks to compost and once the amonia smell is gone I'll bag it for Oyster mushrooms and lay it out into trays for Shaggy Ink Caps and Burgundy.

Be good if we can compost each month to match the frequency of brew days.
50kg of compost should give us 5kg yield on 'schrooms

I'll let you know how we get on.

Liam

 

[jafa5]

Compost is a little slow to start for some reason, going to tip it out and put it back in again tonight, hopefully the aeration will kick start it into action. Smells nice though, week old spent grain is usually pretty honking.