High-Yield, High-Quality Cultivation Techniques for Oyster Mushrooms in Winter and Spring Imitating Wild Conditions

    Oyster mushrooms produced using wild-simulation cultivation techniques not only taste as delicious as wild ones, but also truly achieve ecological, high-quality, high-yield production. Even in severe winter and low-temperature early spring, quality oyster mushrooms that are thick and tender can be produced in a relatively enclosed shade shed by making full use of ground temperature. This method increases yield by more than 60% compared with conventional cultivation methods, and by more than 40% compared with cultivation methods such as mushroom walls, with a biological conversion rate of more than 220%.

    1. Mycelium culture. Use high-pressure or atmospheric-pressure sterilization, inoculate according to conventional methods, and culture to physiologically mature mycelium. Fermented material obtained by treating raw materials with high temperature and strong alkalinity can also be used to culture mycelium. Specific procedure: when mixing materials, add 4% quicklime in the form of limewater to the material and mix well. Then pile 1000 kg as 1 pile and ferment it covered. When the material temperature reaches above 60°C, maintain it for 24 hours, turn the pile, and repeat 2-3 times. When the raw material feels moist and elastic in the hand, is tea-brown in color, has no off odor, has a pH of 7.5, and has a water content of 65%, spread it out to cool, bag the material for spawn running (or press into blocks for spawn running), and culture it into uncontaminated fully colonized bags. Whether using sterilized material, fermented material, or raw material fully colonized bags, the raw materials used can be cottonseed hulls, corncobs, or other substitute materials. The spawn used should be high-quality spawn that has been tested and shows good comprehensive traits locally.

    2. Shade shed construction. Choose high-quality land such as a vegetable garden, courtyard, or sandy loam soil to build the shed. Inside the shed, dig beds 20 m long, 1.3 m wide, and 0.22 m deep, with two beds forming one shed. Leave a walkway in the middle between the beds, and firm the surroundings. When making the arches, use moso bamboo with a diameter of more than 4 cm, folded in half to form arches, then reinforce them with horizontal bamboo, cover with plastic film, and put on straw mats (or shade materials woven from various stalks).

    3. Arranging the mushroom bags. Remove the plastic film from bags 30 cm long (long bags can be cut open), and arrange the bags at a 75-degree angle until the bed is full. When arranging the bags, carefully check whether the bags are contaminated by foreign fungi. If so, remove the contaminated part with a sharp tool to prevent spread.

    4. Casing soil treatment. Loam is best for the casing soil material. In late autumn, winter, and early spring, treat with 1% lime powder; in late spring, early autumn, and summer, treat with 3% lime powder: mix the lime powder evenly into the soil, striving for no large particles. The treated soil can be used to cover the arranged bags, with a soil thickness of 1.5 cm at the upper end of the bags being appropriate, and sweep it level with a broom.

    5. Irrigation requirements. A water pump can be used to draw groundwater or other clean water sources, and flood irrigation should be applied from one end of the bed until the bed is fully penetrated, and let the water remain in the bed for 12 hours (if the bags have already produced mushrooms, they tend to float up, so they can be pressed level again after the water has penetrated). After flood irrigation by this method, part of the overlying soil may sink. After the water in the bed has completely penetrated, spread another layer of soil and sweep it level, then sprinkle nutrient water (composed of 2% urea, 0.2% magnesium sulfate, zinc, and trace amounts of Enfei, Gaomeishi, or other growth promoters, and high-efficiency liquid compound fertilizer), so that the newly spread soil is moist but not sunken, and can be stuck up after the surface slightly dries.

    6. High-yield principle. In conventional oyster mushroom production, the main factors limiting high yield are that after the first flush of mushrooms is produced, lost water and nutrients are difficult to replenish, and the mycelium easily ages, making it difficult to produce good second and third flushes. With this technique, nutrient water can be irrigated once after each harvest, so that the mycelium relatively maintains sufficient nutrients and water, which can extend mycelial life and the mushroom-producing period. One week after casing soil and irrigation, new mycelium links the entire bed of bags into one unit. During mushroom formation and growth, the soil continuously supplies nutrients and water to the mycelium, so when producing the second and third flushes, the mushrooms are still plump and tender, with strong staying power. Because the humidity in the shed is suitable and shading is good, from the formation of small mushroom primordia to mature harvest, the mushroom-growing environment is like a moist shaded forest floor, overcoming the drawbacks of conventional cultivation, where spatial humidity is difficult to control and the bags are difficult to supplement with nutrients and water; in addition, trace fertilizers, hormones, and growth promoters can seep into the soil with irrigation, making them easy for the mycelium to absorb and utilize, so stable and high yields, high quality, and high efficiency can be obtained.