Growing Gourmet Mushrooms For Profit. Table of Contents. Introduction What Are Mushrooms... 9 Medicinal Benefits...11

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1 Table of Contents Introduction... 7 What Are Mushrooms... 9 Medicinal Benefits...11 Chapter One Growing Oyster & Shiitake Mushrooms...12 Materials You ll Need...13 Preparing The Straw Substrate...15 Preparing The Sawdust Substrate...17 Pack Your Bags...19 Additives...20 Cleanliness...21 Chapter Two Incubation...23 Incubation Lighting...23 Chapter Three Fruiting...25 Fruiting Stimulation...26 Alien Molds...27 Humidity and Misting...27 Chapter Four Harvesting Your Mushrooms...28 Chapter Five Marketing Your Mushrooms...30 Restaurants...30 Grocery Stores...31 Food Co-ops...31 Farmer s Markets...31 Best value-added mushroom products for small growers...32 Comparison Shopping...36 Demonstrations...36 Free Advertising Page 3 of 52

2 Online Marketing...37 Help your customers find you with keyword marketing...39 Let Google Help Your Customers Find You...40 Chapter Six Resources...42 Mushroom Organizations...42 Mushroom Growing Workshops...42 Mushroom Growing Books & Videos...43 Mushroom Growing Supplies...45 Packaging Supplies...46 Mushroom Cultivation Simplified...46 Growing Medicinal Mushrooms...47 Secrets of Successful Gourmet Mushroom Growers Page 4 of 52

3 degrees C. - and so are more widely grown in the warmer parts of the U.S. The most common species of shiitake mushroom grown commercially in the U.S. is: Lentinula edotus. What Are Mushrooms When you eat an apple, you are eating the fruit of the apple tree. Likewise, a mushroom is the "fruit" of the fungus that produced it. The fungi family is an enormous one, including such diverse relatives as yeasts,( used to make beer and wine) and molds (used to make penicillin, miso and flavor cheese). Mushrooms are fungi with a fruit large enough to be noticeable. There are thousands of variations in mushroom color, shape and texture. The oyster mushroom got its name because of its resemblance to the saltwater oyster. The shiitake mushroom s name came from the shii chestnut tree that provides the logs or sawdust used to grow the mushrooms in Asia and the name take, which means mushroom in Japanese. Plant cellulose is the world's largest renewable food resource. This woody material that acts as the support system for plants requires the proper digestive system to turn it into food. Only a few organisms such as fungi and some insects have the digestive enzymes needed to transform cellulose into food. Fungus can transform dead trees, sawdust, wood chips, straw and many other forms of plant cellulose into delicious fresh mushrooms. This proven method has been used for thousands of years in Asia. Asian growers merely copied the ants and termites by growing edible mushrooms on rice straw. Since then, growers have succeeded in domesticating many mushrooms, growing them on logs, sawdust and straw. Page 9 of 52

4 Chapter One Growing Oyster & Shiitake Mushrooms Five Simple Steps To Grow G rowing oyster mushrooms is a simple, five step process. First, you'll need the "spawn" to start a culture. There are two ways to do this. You can use sterile culture to produce your own spawn, or you can purchase ready-to-inoculate spawn from a supplier. For the more advanced mushroom grower, the sterile culture method is the preferred method to produce your own spawn, and less costly in the long run. But since the start-up costs can be high (several hundred to several thousands dollars for a workable commercial-scale system), I recommend that you start out by purchasing your spawn. The cost - pennies per pound of harvested mushrooms - is small in relation to the retail price. After you've learned the basics of growing, you'll be ready to advance to spawn production. Next, you'll need a "substrate", or growing medium. A mushroom substrate can be any substance that the mycelium will grow on with ease. Mycelium is the vegetative growth of a fungus. The actual mushroom is the fruit of the mushroom plant. Most growers use straw, usually from any cereal grain, such as barley, oats, rice, rye or wheat. There are other materials, such as deciduous wood chips, coffee grounds or wood pellet fuel, that will work, but straw is readily available in most areas at feed stores at a reasonable price. Page 12 of 52

5 To make it easy for the mycelia (spawn) to spread through the straw, it needs to be chopped into short pieces, wetted, then heated to pasteurize it. Next, the prepared substrate is inoculated with the spawn. Spawn is simply a nutrient-rich material, such as grain or sawdust, that the mycelium can start to grow in before taking over the substrate. After innoculation, the substrate is placed in plastic bags and moved to a controlled environment where the spawn will spread through the substrate as mycelia, visible as thin white threads (much like spider webs). Once the entire substrate has been "colonized" or taken over by the mycelia, you "shock" the mycelia with cold for a short time to encourage the production of "fruit", or mushrooms. We'll look at each step in closer detail, showing you the "hows" as well as the "whys." While the process of growing mushrooms might seem radically different from that of growing vegetables, it's surprisingly similar. In both instances, you plant "seed, cultivate your "plants" and finally harvest the "fruit." Materials You ll Need Like most other ventures, you can start growing mushrooms with basic economical materials, or you can go "whole-hog", purchasing the finest professional equipment. If you talk to a supplier, don't be surprised if they encourage you to spend as much as possible. After all, they make a profit on each and every item you buy. Profit aside, better equipment will help to produce better results, so don't hesitate to buy what will help you increase either quality or production. If you start small and shop sensibly, you should be able to get into production for a Page 13 of 52

6 Preparing The Sawdust Substrate Shiitake mushrooms have been grown outdoors on logs for centuries, duplicating what occurs in the wild. But log shiitake mushroom production is a slow process that can take several years. More recently, commercial growers around the world have switched to growing shiitake mushrooms on sawdust, as the production cycle can be shortened from years to months. In addition, the yield from sawdust logs is three times that of natural outdoor log production methods. The sawdust comes from hardwood trees, such as oak, poplar and sweet gum, which can be purchased fresh from local sawmills. Both shiitake growers and buyers prefer the sawdust log method, because it can produce a consistent supply year-round instead of seasonally. This means a steady income for mushroom growers and regular deliveries of mushrooms to their buyers. Adding starch-based supplements, such as wheat bran or rice bran, to the sawdust provides more nutrition for the growing shiitake mycelium, and can increase yield substantially. Most growers find adding about 30 percent by dry weight works well. The sawdust and supplements need to be well blended before being packed in bags. A small growing operation can use an affordable portable electric cement mixer to blend the mix. As the mix is blended, water is added to raise the moisture content to around 60 percent. Page 17 of 52

7 Chapter Four Harvesting Your Mushrooms T wo weeks after the blocks of substrate are cold-shocked and placed in the fruiting room, you'll see pinheads, called "primordia", forming on the surface. Most will be growing on the sides of the block. At first, the mushroom seems to be all stem, and suddenly the cap grows rapidly. When are the mushrooms ready to harvest? As the mushroom grows, the edge of the cap will be curled under, unrolling slowly. Just before it is fully uncurled is the best time to harvest. At this point, the edge of the cap becomes wavy. If you wait until the cap is completely uncurled, the mushrooms don't have as good a flavor or texture. To pick the mushrooms, twist the stem off as close to the growing block as possible. To harvest a close-growing cluster, use a sharp, clean knife. Most experienced growers prefer to harvest once, then recycle the grow bag by selling it at the farmer s market to someone who is happy to buy a mature bag that will produce a second, smaller crop in a week or so, and then a final third harvest. Page 28 of 52