How to Grow King Oyster Mushrooms? A Detailed Guide to High-Yield Cultivation Techniques

The king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii) is a fairly common food ingredient in daily life. Its exterior is cylindrical, white at the bottom and light gray on top. It has high edible value. At present, sales of king oyster mushrooms on the market are still quite considerable, so many people want to grow them. Understanding its cultivation method is a key step.

High-Yield Cultivation Techniques for King Oyster Mushrooms

1. Cultivation season. Because the cost of fruiting in cold storage is relatively high, the time must be staggered from that of mushrooms grown in sheds. In northern regions, fruiting is generally best chosen from June to October to meet market demand.

2. Cultivation method. When using cold storage or a cold room for cultivation, the existing space must be fully utilized. Plastic bags and shelf-style fruiting are mostly used, with 17×33 cm polyethylene plastic bags, about 100 mushroom bags per cubic meter.

3. Spawn production. (1) Mother spawn: The commonly used medium is PDA or PSA. Prepare test tube slants and inoculate and culture by conventional methods. At a constant temperature of 25°C, the slant will be fully covered in 8-10 days. (2) Stock spawn and cultivation spawn: The stock spawn medium formula is: wheat grain 93%, rice bran 5%, sugar 1%, monopotassium phosphate 0.3%, gypsum 1%. For cultivation spawn, cottonseed hulls are best to prevent contamination by foreign bacteria during the fruiting period. Its medium formula is: cottonseed hulls 78%, sugar 1%, wheat bran 18%, gypsum 1%, lime 1.5%, monopotassium phosphate 0.3%. Weigh the ingredients according to the formula, mix evenly, fill into jars or small bags (12×25 polypropylene), then sterilize under high pressure for 2.5 hours or 4 hours, remove and cool to below 30°C before inoculating, and culture at 25°C for 30-35 days until fully covered and ready for use.

How to Grow King Oyster Mushrooms

Method of burying mushroom bags. After the mycelium has fully covered the bags, move them into a vegetable greenhouse and bury them in soil. The soil in the shed must be loose and fertile enough. The biggest feature of soil-covered cultivation of king oyster mushrooms is: the fruiting bodies grown are large, fresh and tender, and high-yielding. First remove the bags: select bags with no foreign bacteria and good mycelial growth, cut the bags open with a knife, take out the mushroom blocks intact, then place them neatly and horizontally into the bed, leaving 2-3 cm gaps between bags. Then fill the gaps with sterilized clean fine soil. After the whole bed is covered with fine soil, spray clean water once, then cover with plastic film, and cover the film with rice straw. Continue incubation for 15 d. After the soil is covered with king oyster mushroom mycelium, remove the film and ventilate, maintaining a certain temperature, which is beneficial to the formation of king oyster mushroom fruiting bodies. At the same time, during the fruiting stage, a certain amount of light is needed. After the king oyster mushroom fruiting bodies form, no watering is needed within 7 d; strengthen ventilation and keep the air in the mushroom shed clean. From primordium formation to maturity of the fruiting body, king oyster mushrooms generally need 13-15 d. Young mushrooms grow relatively slowly. When the mushroom body grows to more than 6 cm, the humidity in the shed needs to be increased, and the mushroom bodies should be exposed to scattered light, with a relative humidity of 85%-90%, to promote the formation of normal fruiting bodies.

Growing Conditions for King Oyster Mushrooms

1. Air: During the mycelial growth stage, the oxygen requirement is relatively low. Low concentrations of carbon dioxide even stimulate mycelial growth. As the mycelium grows, the CO2 concentration in the bag (bottle) gradually rises from 0.03% in normal air to more than 2%, and the mycelium can still grow well. During the primordium initiation stage, sufficient oxygen is needed, and the CO2 concentration should drop to about 0.5%. Otherwise, the primordia will not differentiate and will swell into a spherical shape. During the fruiting body growth and development stage, fresh air is needed, and the CO2 concentration should preferably be less than 0.01%.

2. Light: The mycelial growth stage does not need light; in a dark environment, mycelial growth will accelerate. The primordium initiation and fruiting body growth and development stages need a certain amount of scattered light, with a suitable light intensity of 500—1000Lx.

3. pH: The pH range for mycelial growth is 4—8, with the optimum pH being 6.5—7.5. The optimum pH for the fruiting stage is 5.5—6.5.

Pest Control for King Oyster Mushrooms

1. The planting site must be chosen in a place with good sanitation, ventilation and water source conditions, avoiding low-lying livestock pens and toilets and garbage dumps, to reduce chances of contamination.

2. Before fruiting bodies grow, spray 0.1% low-toxicity phoxim 1-2 times in the surrounding environment for prevention. If pests are found, the same method can also be used for control.

(1) There are many kinds of nematodes, commonly including blood nematodes, mushroom maggots, and segmented worms. Blood nematodes have a body length of 3-4 cm and are very slender, like blood threads, gathering in groups within the 1-2 cm deep soil layer around mushroom buds, damaging young mushroom buds and causing the mushroom body to stop growing, turn yellow and wilt, or rot.

(2) Mushroom maggots are the main pests damaging mature mushrooms. Their body length is about one cun, and they mostly burrow into the inner side of the mushroom body, seriously reducing mushroom quality and causing loss of commercial value. When mushroom maggots occur, spider-web-like substances or insect-bored holes can be found at the base of the mushroom body and between the gills.

Control methods:

1. Spray 0.3-0.5% trichlorfon water locally, and spray sumithion tincture around the perimeter.

2. Integrated control: clean up the surrounding environmental sanitation. Maintain a clean water source. When pests and diseases are found, handle them promptly to prevent spread.

In the early stage of growing king oyster mushrooms, it is necessary to understand their growth habits and choose a suitable environment for cultivation. The cultivation method is generally bagging, which is relatively common. In the later stage of cultivation, management work needs to be done well. King oyster mushrooms are prone to pest attacks, so strengthening pest control is essential.