Detailed Guide to Tea Tree Mushroom Cultivation: A Full Analysis of Key Planting Techniques

Tea tree mushroom, also known as the tea plant mushroom, is a rare, precious and delicious edible fungus. Its caps are tender and its stems crisp, with a mellow, delicate fragrance and excellent texture, and it can be cooked into all kinds of delicious dishes. According to testing by the China Food Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, the fruiting bodies contain important nutrients such as glucose, fungal protein and minerals, and include all eight amino acids needed by the human body, among which lysine content is as high as 1.75%. It also has strong kidney-tonifying effects and antitumor activity, making it one of the top ten best-selling mushrooms on the international mushroom trading market, known as the "Chinese divine mushroom." On the supermarkets of Japan, Singapore, the United States, the European Community, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, China, each kilogram of dried product is worth as much as 100 US dollars.

China mainly relies on natural tea tree mushrooms for export. Only recently has artificial cultivation begun, but the cultivation scale is small, and products are far from meeting market demand. The domestic modern purchase price is 160-200 yuan per kilogram of dried product. Therefore, artificially cultivating tea tree mushrooms has significant economic benefits and broad market prospects.

I. Cultivation Season

Based on the biological characteristics of tea tree mushroom, whose mycelium growth temperature is 10-35°C with an optimum of 22-27°C, and whose fruiting body formation and growth temperature is 16-32°C with an optimum of 20-28°C, scientifically arrange the spring and autumn cultivation seasons, and specifically manage two points well: first, within 40-50 days after inoculation, the local temperature must not exceed 32°C; second, from the inoculation date, count forward 60 days to enter the fruiting period, when the local temperature must not exceed 30°C and must not be below 15°C.

II. Raw Material Formulas

Formula 1: sawdust 72%, wheat bran 25%, gypsum 1%, sugar 1%, superphosphate 0.5%, lime 0.5%. Formula 2: cottonseed hull 78%, wheat bran 20%, gypsum 1%, sugar 0.5%, lime 0.5%. Formula 3: sawdust 38%, rice straw powder (corncob) 37%, wheat bran 23%, gypsum 1%, superphosphate 0.5%, lime 0.5%.

III. Making the Mushroom Bags

Use polypropylene bags sized 17 cm X 33 cm X 0.05 cm for filling with material. Mix the raw materials evenly, with a moisture content of 60%-62% and a pH value of 6-6.5. Fill the bags with culture material to a height of 18 cm, about 450 grams of dry material per bag, put on neck rings and insert cotton plugs. Sterilize at normal pressure at 100°C for 10-12 hours, then cool to below 30°C after sterilization is complete. Inoculate in an inoculation box or inoculation room: each bottle of stock culture can be expanded to inoculate 25-30 bags. Then place them in a cool, dry, clean and ventilated cultivation room to grow the mycelium. It usually takes 40-50 days for the mycelium to fully cover the bags.

IV. Fruiting Management

When the mycelium has fully covered the material, it shifts from vegetative growth to reproductive growth, the material surface secretes yellow liquid and shows brown patches, and then small mushroom buds grow. At this time, open the bags promptly, straighten the bag mouths, water the ground, maintain the spatial humidity of the cultivation room at 85%-95%, and provide a certain amount of scattered light and ventilation. After 10-15 days of management, the fruiting bodies grow to eight-tenths maturity and can be harvested.

V. Harvesting

From the emergence of mushroom buds to harvest generally takes 5-7 days. When the cap is hemispherical and the ring has not yet detached, it should be harvested. After harvesting the second flush, the material has become somewhat dry; inject about 40 milliliters of water into each bag so that the moisture of the substrate meets the requirements for fruiting. Generally, 3-4 harvests can be made, and each bag can yield 40-45 grams of dried mushrooms.

VI. Processing

Use scissors to trim off debris at the base of the tea tree mushrooms, and they can be sold fresh on the market, or dehydrated and dried with a dehydrator, then graded and packaged. At present, China mostly exports dried products to Singapore, Japan, South Korea and other Southeast Asian countries.