Gardeners often experiment, trying to grow not only vegetables and flowers, but also mushrooms on their plots. The most popular are champignons and oyster mushrooms. They can be grown both outdoors and in a warm room - in this case, you can harvest mushrooms all year round.
When growing mushrooms, a problem may arise with the acquisition of planting material - far from all varieties of mushrooms can be grown in artificially created conditions, and a mushroom grower often cannot prepare a high-quality substrate on his own.
How is mushroom mycelium obtained?
Special laboratories are engaged in the manufacture of mycelium - this is too time-consuming and responsible business to be able to prepare high-quality planting material at home. To grow mycelium, nutrient substrates are used on gelatin, oatmeal or agar. Subsequently, the steamed grain is infected with the resulting mycelium, which is introduced into the finished nutrient substrate on which the mushrooms are grown.
This requires compliance with sterility, which can be impossible to do at home. In such conditions, it is easy to infect the nutrient substrate with the mycelium of mold fungi, which will suppress the growth of the mushroom or oyster mushroom mycelium and the planting material will turn out to be of poor quality.
Where to buy quality mycelium
You can buy the mycelium of cultivated mushrooms in a laboratory that specializes in its cultivation. Together with the planting material, the seller must provide the buyer with documents for his product: a quality certificate, a description of the variety, instructions for preparing a nutrient substrate and the necessary requirements for growing mushrooms.
If you wish, you can buy mycelium during a personal visit to the company, but in most cases the laboratory organizes the delivery of planting material by a transport company to the region - there are only a few such laboratories in Russia. Transporting mycelium is a very responsible matter, since it must be stored at a certain temperature and humidity, it is impossible to do this without a special refrigerator. This condition significantly increases transport costs and the final cost of the mycelium.
Optimal choice for beginners - mushroom blocks
Often, the manufacturing company in the regions has its own representative offices, which facilitate access for mushroom growers to planting material, if the need for it is not too great. Farms and large enterprises specializing in the cultivation of mushrooms and oyster mushrooms often sell surplus quality mycelium. Some of them specialize in the preparation and sale of nutrient substrate, fill it with mycelium on their own and sell it to those who wish. This method minimizes the risks of novice mushroom growers, who, if the technology for creating mushroom blocks is improperly followed, can lose their money and crop prospects.
By purchasing a trial batch of ready-made mushroom blocks, a mushroom grower can assess his capabilities and decide whether to grow mushrooms at home. At the same time, the risk of losing your money is small - mushroom farms must also provide a quality certificate for their products, so you can not be afraid of counterfeiting.
