How to Grow Edible Mushrooms in Winter? Detailed Explanation of Key Cultivation Techniques

I. Site. There are many ways to cultivate edible mushrooms. In the cold winter, indoor heated cultivation is the most suitable. Indoor heating methods include pipe heating, coal stoves, etc. Considering cost and practicality, heating with a coal stove is the most effective. This setup is suitable for relatively cold regions, achieving low cost, fast heating, and convenient operation. When cultivating edible mushrooms such as oyster mushrooms in low-temperature seasons, pest and disease damage is light, the contamination rate from competitor fungi is low, and high and stable yields are easy to achieve. The mushroom caps are large and thick, the stems are short, the color and texture are good, and the quality is high. Moreover, there are few vegetables in winter, making it easy to capture the market and obtain ideal returns.

II. Raw materials. The choice of raw materials is crucial. For example, the oyster mushroom is one of the easiest edible mushrooms to cultivate, with simple cultivation methods and diverse approaches, among which raw-material cultivation with low cost and simple operation is the first choice. Substrate can be used for raw-material cultivation and sterilized cultivation. Raw-material cultivation means the substrate has not undergone high-temperature sterilization, and generally the method of heap fermentation is adopted. That is, after the substrate is mixed with water to an appropriate degree, pile it up, cover it with plastic sheeting, and let it heat up naturally. Each time the temperature at the center of the pile reaches 60°C, turn the substrate from the edges into the middle, continue to pile and seal it, and let it heat up naturally again. After 3 times, it can be inoculated and bagged for cultivation. By controlling a certain carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and high-temperature environmental conditions, the reproduction of competitor fungi can be effectively inhibited, promoting rapid growth of oyster mushrooms.

III. Bagging. Regarding bagged substrate, some people think that small bags hold less substrate and have a short cycle, but the yield is low and labor costs are high; some people think that large bags hold more substrate and have high yield, but the cycle is long and the returns are not actually high. Through comparative cultivation trials, it was found that plastic bags with specifications of 18×45 cm (30 cm long after filling) and 0.6 kg of dry material are the best. In terms of bagging method, a three-layer spawn, two-layer substrate approach is used, that is, one layer spread at each end and one layer of spawn sandwiched in the middle, which is more suitable for intensive production.

IV. Management. The fixed-position fruiting method can be adopted. Oyster mushrooms and others grow from the oxygen-enhancing holes reserved when bagging, which can effectively prevent mushroom buds from forming large numbers of shriveled ones due to competition for nutrients during growth, causing unnecessary nutrient loss. With conventional open-mouth fruiting, the mushroom clusters are too large, there are many dead mushrooms, and the quality is poor. With the fixed-position fruiting method, the bag opening is not left open, and the water evaporation from the mushroom bag is less.