A Detailed Guide to the Latest Cultivation Precautions for Lion's Mane Mushroom
The lion's mane mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) gets its name because its shape resembles a monkey's head. It has extremely high nutritional value and excellent health benefits, is deeply loved by people, and sells very well on the market. However, as wild resources become increasingly scarce, many people have begun to cultivate it artificially, but there are many issues to pay attention to during cultivation. Let's take a look below at the cultivation precautions for lion's mane mushroom.
1. Cultivation substrate
The lion's mane mushroom is a wood-rotting fungus with an extremely strong ability to decompose wood, and it can also make extensive use of nitrogen sources, carbon sources, mineral elements, and vitamins. In artificial cultivation, the most suitable carbon source is sawdust; in addition, sugarcane bagasse and cottonseed hulls are also ideal carbon sources, while the most suitable nitrogen sources are wheat bran and rice bran, which are economical and excellent. It can also use urea, peptone, ammonium salts, and nitrates as nitrogen sources. In addition, during the growth of lion's mane mushroom, it needs to absorb elements such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
2. Temperature
The lion's mane mushroom has different temperature requirements at different growth stages. Its mycelium grows best at 6-34°C, with the optimum temperature at 25°C. If the temperature is below 6°C during mycelial development, its metabolism will stop; if it is above 30°C, the mycelium grows slowly and is prone to aging; above 35°C, growth stops and it may even die. The fruiting body grows best at 12-24°C, and grows fastest between 18-20°C.
3. Air
The lion's mane mushroom is an aerobic fungus and is extremely sensitive to carbon dioxide. Generally, when the carbon dioxide concentration in the air exceeds 0.%, it will continuously stimulate the differentiation of its stipe, making it very easy to form coral-like deformed mushrooms. Therefore, during cultivation, ventilation must be carried out frequently to reduce the carbon dioxide concentration in the mushroom shed, so as to prevent deformed growth of the lion's mane mushroom and avoid affecting profits.
4. Light
The lion's mane mushroom does not need light in the early growth stage, that is, during the mycelial growth stage, but it cannot do without light during the fruiting body formation and growth stage. If there is no light when the fruiting body is forming, its primordia cannot form; at this time, weak scattered light is needed as a stimulus to make it form fruiting bodies. In addition, sufficient scattered light is also needed during fruiting body growth, as this can promote the fruiting bodies to grow plump and white. However, once the light is too strong, it will cause abnormal color of the mushroom body and affect yield and quality, so attention should be paid to this.
5. Humidity
In addition to the above points, one thing that must also be noted is humidity. During cultivation, the water content of the substrate should be 60%-70%, but if the water content is lower than 60% or higher than 80%, the number of differentiated primordia will decrease noticeably, leading to late maturation of fruiting bodies and lower yield. During mycelial culture, the air humidity should be noted as 70%, but when the fruiting body is forming, it needs to reach 85%-90% to ensure that the fruiting body grows quickly and is white. If during the fruiting body formation stage the humidity is lower than 70%, its surface will dry, shrink, and turn yellow due to water loss, causing severe yield reduction; conversely, if it is higher than 95%, the spines will be long and thick, the mushroom body will have a small central core and become branched, forming deformed mushrooms.
The above is an introduction to the cultivation precautions for lion's mane mushroom. We hope it can help you. If you want to learn more related knowledge, please stay tuned to us.