Key Technical Points and Detailed Methods for Oyster Mushroom Cultivation

Plastic bag cultivation saves labor, is easy to manage, makes full use of mushroom house space, reduces pests and diseases, and makes cultivation success easier. It is suitable not only for indoor cultivation, but also for cultivation in plastic greenhouses, air-raid shelters and other places, and the bags can also be placed in paddy fields, corn fields and vegetable plots for intercropping with rice, corn and vegetables. This is a new cultivation method that has been widely adopted in recent years.

1. Specifications for plastic bags: choose plastic tubes (open at both ends) 0.03-0.04 cm thick, 24-30 cm wide and 40-50 cm long.

2. Preparing the substrate: because plastic bag cultivation has good water retention, the ratio of substrate to water should be lower than for raised-bed cultivation. Generally, add 550-650 ml of water to 500 g of substrate.

3. Filling bags and inoculating: first tie a plug made by rolling dry cottonseed hulls in clean old newspaper (3.3 cm in diameter and 6.6 cm long) at one end of the plastic tube, or tie a 3.3 cm long corncob plug dipped in a 0.3% carbendazim or potassium permanganate solution, sprinkle in some spawn, then add the substrate, pressing it firmly as you fill. When half full, sprinkle another layer of spawn, then continue filling; when nearly full (6.6 cm from the bag opening), sprinkle some more spawn, level and press firmly so that the spawn is in close contact with the substrate. Then take another plug and tie it tightly with string. The inoculation amount is generally 10-15% of the substrate. The key is to sprinkle more spawn near the bag opening so that the oyster mushroom mycelium grows first and contaminating microorganisms find it hard to grow.

4. Stacking: arrange the tied bags layer by layer and stack them together. The number of layers should be determined by the air temperature at the time of spawning. At about 10 °C, stack 3-4 layers high; at 18-20 °C, 2 layers is suitable; above 20 °C, the bags can be arranged in a scattered stack or laid flat on the ground to prevent the substrate temperature inside the bags from rising too high and killing the mycelium. After about 15 days, once the substrate temperature in the bags has basically stabilized, stack them 6-7 layers or more.

5. Management: two days after spawning, the substrate temperature begins to rise. Pay attention to changes in substrate temperature every day and prevent it from rising above 35 °C. When the temperature rises to 32 °C, open doors and windows in time and spray water on the floor to lower the temperature. If the temperature continues to rise, turn the stacks or reduce the number of layers to achieve cooling. It is best to keep the temperature at about 24 °C. After about 15 days, rearrange the stacks, putting those with good mycelial growth together and those with poor growth together, and remove contaminated ones. For lightly contaminated bags, open the bag mouth and leave them in a cool place to air for a few days, or smear them with 0.3% carbendazim; for heavily contaminated ones, dig a deep pit and bury them. In this way, fruiting is uniform and management is convenient. Keep the indoor relative air humidity at about 65%. Generally, after about 30 days, the mycelium will have grown well.

After the mycelium has covered the entire substrate, primordia appear in the bags after 5-10 days. At this time, untie the bag mouth in time, remove the plug (the corncob plug need not be removed), turn the bag mouth outward, and expose the cluster of primordia. Subsequent management methods are basically the same as for indoor raised-bed cultivation.

With this method of cultivating oyster mushrooms, after harvesting 4 flushes, the plastic bags can also be removed and the mycelial blocks buried in vegetable plots, shaded woodland, corn fields or cotton fields (opening furrows along the rows). After watering, 2 more flushes can still be produced, which other cultivation methods cannot match.