What to do when Pleurotus nebrodensis mushrooms grow deformed? Introduction to practical solutions
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What should you do if you find deformed mushrooms when growing Pleurotus nebrodensis? What methods can prevent and control them?The occurrence of deformed Pleurotus nebrodensis mushrooms lowers the product grade, and can even cause them to lose their commercial value, affecting the grower's economic returns.
Common deformed mushrooms include: caps tightly clasped and not spreading, in a "fist shape"; long, thick, fat stalks with small caps, in a "vase shape"; sunken caps with cracked, outward-curled edges, in a "broken bowl shape"; narrow, long caps, in an "ox-tongue shape"; spotted cap surfaces, in a "pockmarked face shape"; swollen, protruding lumps in the center of the cap, in a "swollen belly shape"; two caps spreading side by side with stalks tightly joined, in a "butterfly shape"; crooked, uneven caps, in a "wavy edge shape"; round caps wrapping the gills which shrink, in a "bald head shape"; longitudinal cracks and fissures on the cap surface, in a "flower mushroom shape"; and several mushrooms growing together, in a "lotus shape". In addition, there are also shriveled mushroom forms and yellowish, discolored mushroom forms. The causes of deformed mushrooms, summed up, are that the cultivation environmental conditions do not match the special physiological requirements of Pleurotus nebrodensis. The key lies in poor coordination of temperature, humidity, light and air during the fruiting period, and operational mistakes in management techniques.
Unreasonable room and shed structure
Existing Pleurotus nebrodensis cultivation sites include indoor mushroom rooms and outdoor mushroom sheds. Because they are often simply built, their structure is unreasonable. Some mushroom rooms have doors and windows on only one side, and some have vents opened in the upper half of the wall, so the indoor air does not circulate; some plastic greenhouses, although having vents on both sides, have all the vents facing the two ends of the mushroom wall; and some, although they have vents, never open them, only to keep warm. Because the air in the shed does not circulate, severe oxygen deficiency results, causing the aerobic Pleurotus nebrodensis to become deformed.
Improper stacking of the mushroom wall
The fungus bags are brought into the shed and the wall is stacked too high, that is, 10 bags to a stack, exceeding 1 m; some mushroom walls have sticky soil filled between them, which is not breathable; some have insufficient watering after filling with soil; some mushroom walls are stacked too densely, with no soil filled in the middle; and some, when building the wall, do not cut the film at the bag ends properly, cutting only 1/3 of the part inserted into the wall, cutting too little, while instead cutting the film at the end left exposed, so the mycelium is exposed to the air without moisture retention, causing the growth and development of these fruiting bodies to be inhibited. For example, in the north, when fungus bags are stacked into walls, if the water content of the soil filled between the bags is insufficient, and when winter comes and heating is used to induce budding, the moisture is on the dry side, the water content inside the fungus bags is instead absorbed by the filled soil, dehydrating the mycelium and producing deformed mushrooms with caps that do not spread or are shriveled. And sticky soil, being compacted and poorly breathable, cannot regulate the mycelium, but instead hinders normal physiological and reproductive activity.
Congenital nutritional deficiencies
There are four manifestations: First, the raw and auxiliary materials in the formula, such as cottonseed hulls and wheat bran, are old, damp and moldy, and their nutrients have degraded. The formula contains too little nitrogen-containing wheat, so there is no adverse reaction in the early stage of mycelial growth, but by the mushroom-growing stage the nutrition cannot meet the need. Second, the culture medium turns sour and spoils. Third, the water in the fungus bags evaporates, dehydrating the mycelium. These belong to congenital malnutrition, so the mushrooms produced have thin caps in a wavy-edge shape, or variant mushrooms with caps that do not spread and a yellowish rather than white color.
The expected fruiting time is not judged accurately
Often because the grower is eager for mushrooms, budding is artificially induced before the mycelium is physiologically mature, causing premature and deformed fruiting.
Bud-inducing techniques are inadequate
After the mycelium is physiologically mature, it still needs 10 to 15 days of low-temperature stimulation at 0 to 13°C, and during this period it also needs 5 to 7 days of temperature-difference stimulation above 10°C, before the primordia can be forced to differentiate into mushroom buds. This is a characteristic that makes Pleurotus nebrodensis different from others. Growers often, because they have not mastered this unique species trait, provide an insufficient low-temperature mycelium-resting period and insufficient temperature-difference stimulation, causing the development of the fruiting bodies to be inhibited and deformed. Some mushroom farmers, when bringing the bags into the shed in early December to induce budding, neglect ventilation in order to keep warm, and the shed becomes severely oxygen-deficient; as a result, the induced mushrooms have stalks as long as 20 cm and caps tightly clasped and not spreading, all of them "fist mushrooms".
Bud thinning has not been taken seriously
Some people are overjoyed to see mushroom buds growing in clusters, and even though they know the buds are too dense, they cannot bear to pick them off. Some worry that picking one bud will harm the others; and some, although they thin the buds, leave too many. Because of improper bud thinning, the fruiting mushrooms crowd each other, so variant forms such as butterfly-shaped, long ox-tongue-shaped and humpbacked mushrooms appear.
Poor management during the mushroom-growing period
After the mushroom buds appear, they gradually differentiate into fruiting bodies. During the mushroom-growing period, poor regulation of temperature, light and air often causes the mushroom bodies to develop leaning and growing sideways, or to be humpbacked, or to have sunken caps, or spots and a pockmarked face and discoloration, as well as harvesting past the proper time, making the mushroom bodies oversized and not meeting grade standards.
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