Early-spring mushroom fruiting tips: manage it this way for good fruiting

After the Start of Spring, temperatures gradually rise. If you carry out simple yet clever management of mushroom beds that already fruited continuously the previous autumn, you can easily prompt a season of spring mushrooms. The specific methods are as follows:

1. Loosen the compost and replenish the soil.

When the temperature rises back to 10°C, loosen the compost and replenish the soil promptly. This not only helps expel waste gases from the compost, but is even more helpful for breaking apart old mycelium, promoting the growth of new mycelium, and forming strong mycelium, laying the foundation for increasing spring mushroom yields.

Loosening the compost is divided into deep, medium and light loosening, and should be determined according to the actual condition of the mushroom bed compost. For mushroom beds where the mycelium within the compost grows vigorously and the mycelium in the soil layer has caked together, deep loosening should be used. You can scrape the fine soil to one side, use a bamboo skewer inserted diagonally to the bottom of the soil layer to pry up the coarse soil, pick out the shriveled old mycelium, sprinkle 0.2 kg of lime powder per sq m, and then spread the fine soil back level. For mushroom beds where the mycelium in the soil layer is not growing vigorously, medium or light loosening should be used. When loosening the compost, there is no need to scrape out the fine soil; pry up the coarse and fine soil together, then use new soil to fill level the sunken areas on the surface of the compost.

2. Apply supplementary fertilizer and replenish water.

After the compost has fruited continuously through the previous autumn, nutrients are severely depleted and the pH value has also dropped considerably.

After the beginning of spring, supplementary fertilizer and water must be applied promptly so that spring mushrooms can produce high yields. Each place can adapt to local conditions and use local materials, choosing any one of the following methods; the results of supplementary fertilizing and watering are all quite ideal.

(1) Fermented compost soaking liquid. Chop up dried fermented compost, add boiling water at 10 times its dry weight, soak overnight, then take the filtered liquid, add 1 times its volume of clean water, and spray it onto the bed surface.

(2) Mushroom root soup. Take the mud-covered mushroom roots trimmed off during harvesting, add water and boil for 15 minutes, take the broth and add 10 times its volume of clean water to apply as a top dressing on the bed surface; this can bring fruiting earlier and prolong the fruiting peak.

(3) Urea water. Take 50 g of urea and 10 g of glucose, add water to make a 0.1%-0.2% urea solution as a top dressing; this can noticeably increase yields in the mid-to-late stage, and the mushrooms are whiter and more tender.

(4) Mushroom vigor tonic. No. 1 vigor tonic can rejuvenate the mycelium and speed up mycelial growth, while No. 2 vigor tonic can promote the formation of fruiting bodies and accelerate their enlargement. When using, add 40-50 kg of clean water per 100 g, and spray 0.3-0.4 kg per sq m.

(5) Diluted human and livestock urine. Take fresh urine, boil it until the foam disappears, add 10 times its volume of clean water, and spray it in 3-4 applications before fruiting, using 0.5-1 kg per sq m sprayed on the mushroom surface, then spray once more with clean water after spraying. In addition, when applying top dressing before fruiting, you should also spray 1-2 times with 2% lime water to adjust the pH of the soil layer to between 7.8 and 8.5.

3. Keep warm and ventilate.

In the early stage of spring mushrooms, the focus should be on preventing low temperatures; the mushroom bed should not be watered too early, and the bed surface must not be too wet. Ventilation and watering of the mushroom house should be done at noon, while in the morning, evening and at night warmth should still be reinforced.

In the mid-to-late stage of spring mushrooms, the focus should be on preventing high temperatures. Doors and windows should be shut tightly during the day, and ventilation should be carried out at night or in the early morning, to avoid a rise in the mushroom house temperature that causes mushroom death or disease.