Detailed Explanation of Key Techniques for Bag Cultivation of Lingzhi (Reishi) on Wood Blocks

I. Selection of Strains Currently, artificially cultivated lingzhi in China can be divided into three major types: (1) Medicinal type: such as Taishan Red Lingzhi, South Korean Lingzhi, Yuanzhi No. 6, etc. (2) Medicinal and ornamental type: such as Black Lingzhi g43-1, Black Lingzhi g43-2, etc. (3) Ornamental type: such as Shushe Lingzhi (Ganoderma applanatum), Zhougai Wuzhi, Huanglian Lingzhi, etc. Because consumer markets differ from place to place, growers should be guided by the local market and flexibly select lingzhi varieties that are in demand, so as to generate the best economic returns.

II. Culture Medium Formulas (1) Mixed wood sawdust 73%, wheat bran 25%, soybean powder 1%, gypsum powder 1%, appropriate amount of water. (2) Cottonseed hulls 98%, sucrose 1%, gypsum powder 1%, appropriate amount of water. Either formula (1) or (2) above is mixed evenly with water and set aside as filler. At 65%, take 8-10 blocks, bundle them into a handful, and use a knife to trim flat the surrounding burrs and set aside. Because lingzhi has a strong ability to decompose lignin, and wood blocks can both preserve the density of the original wood and, after bundling, have many gaps and good aeration performance. III. Bagging and Sterilization Take polyethylene special-purpose mushroom bags 24 cm wide and 48 cm long. First place a few handfuls of sawdust or cottonseed hull culture medium at the bottom of the bag as a base, carefully load the wood blocks into the bag, and tightly fill the gaps with culture medium and cover the wood blocks. After gathering the opening and tying it tightly, it should be placed the same day into an atmospheric pressure sterilization pot for steaming over water at 100 degrees C for 10-12 hours, or kept in an autoclave at 1.5 kg pressure for 3 hours, to ensure thorough sterilization. IV. Inoculation and Spawn Management When the bag temperature drops to 28 degrees C, place it together with the spawn and inoculation tools into an inoculation box or room, and inoculate lingzhi spawn according to aseptic operating procedures. The inoculated bags should be moved to a ventilated, dry place for dark culture. Because lingzhi is an aerobic fungus, during the culture stage, in addition to regularly turning the piles every 7-10 days, it is also necessary to combine this with puncturing holes or loosening the bag opening by one round to facilitate aeration. After 35-40 days of culture, the mycelium can fill the entire bag and reach physiological maturity. V. Bag Removal and Casing Soil When the outside air temperature stabilizes at 24 degrees C, the mature culture bags can be moved into a lingzhi shed with 50% light transmittance for fruiting. First remove the bags and carefully take out the mycelial columns, and place them upright on the lingzhi bed at a spacing of 8×15 cm. Then take garden soil or alluvial soil to fill the gaps between the columns, and cover the columns by 1-2 cm. Finally, arch film over them to maintain a bed temperature of 20 degrees C, and after about one week the primordia can appear. VI. Management and Harvesting The quality of lingzhi as a commodity depends mainly on field management. When the primordium grows to the size of a ping-pong ball, use a plastic ring 3 cm in diameter to encircle the primordium, forcing the lingzhi stipe not to branch and thus form one stipe and one cap. When the cap grows to 2-3 growth rings, in addition to keeping the lingzhi bed moist, also combine loosening the soil and applying decomposed manure. When the cap grows to 8-10 growth rings, the light transmittance of the lingzhi shed should be reduced from the original 50% to 20%. In a low-light environment, lingzhi becomes black, glossy and shiny, and the cap noticeably thickens. After 45 days of growth, when lingzhi discharges a large amount of brown spore powder, it can be cut off with pruning shears, graded, sun-dried, and then sold. At the current market price of black lingzhi, the net income per mu can reach over ten thousand yuan.