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Growing mushrooms starts with selecting the right mushroom growing substrate for your grow. The mushroom growing substrate is another word for the mushroom growing medium. This is what the mushroom mycelium grows through and it provides nutrition to the mushroom mycelium and subsequent fruiting mushrooms.
You can think of a mushroom growing substrate just like soil for plants – some plants require special soil or enriched soil, while others don’t. In this guide, we will break down the different substrates that common growing mushrooms prefer.
Choosing a Mushroom Growing Substrate
The key part to understand is that every mushroom tends to grow best in certain types of substrates. For example, a King Oyster mushroom may grow best in hardwood sawdust, while a White Cap mushroom may prefer Manure.
As stated above, the nutrition of each substrate is what the mushrooms depend on to grow. This can be protein content, sugar content, potassium, fats, and nitrogen.
Another key component of the mushroom growing substrate is the water content. Many substrates require water as an added ingredient, but the amount of water is important. This can sometimes be 1/4 water as the volume of the ingredients, but it highly depends on the mushroom chosen.
You may have learned from other sources that sterilization of the substrate is important, and this cannot be understated. Using a sterilized growing medium is extremely important, otherwise you risk mold overtaking your substrate and ruining the mycelium. Always use safe and effective methods to sterilize your mushroom growing substrate, such as a pressure cooker.
Learn how to sterilize substrates in our guide here.
Mushroom Growing Substrate Examples
King Oyster Mushroom Substrate
King Oyster mushrooms grow best on cellulose-rich mediums. This is usually going to be sawdust, straw, or a mix of the 2. Our best recommendation for king oyster substrate is the following:
- Blend of hardwood sawdust (Amazon)
- Supplement of 5-10% of wheat bran (Amazon)
- 60-70% moisture content
- a ph level of 6.5 after sterilization.
These conditions and ingredients will allow the king oyster mushrooms to grow best. Other mediums can prove successful, but this blend is known to be highly effective.
Always take into consideration the other aspects of a well-controlled grow such as temperature of the grow room and lighting. While we can’t cover all of that detail in this guide, we have plenty of guides on that information on our site here.
Shiitake Mushroom Substrate
Shiitake mushrooms grow best on wood-based mediums. Much like the king oyster mushroom, they prefer hardwood sawdust. Other mediums will work, but Shiitake mushrooms are more picky than Oyster mushrooms and it’s best to choose sawdust or other forms of ground wood. Here are the ingredients for Shiitake substrates:
- Blend of hardwood sawdust (Amazon)
- Supplement of 0-5% of wheat bran (Amazon)
- 55% moisture content
- a ph level of 6.5 after sterilization.
Portabello Mushroom Substrate
Portabello mushrooms prefer an alternative substrate of manure-based compost (Amazon). This will usually be a compost that is blended with manure. This should be easy to find, as many types of compost already come mixed with manure.
You will still perform the normal steps of sterilization, and layer your manure-based compost into a wide cubic bin. Then, you’ll pour in some of your portabello spores and then leave the substrate to grow. This can be done indoors or outdoors, but given that compost/manure can be a bit messier than other substrates, outside is best.
White Button Mushroom Substrate
White Button mushrooms also prefer manure-based compost (Amazon) as their preferred growing medium. This will be a similar process to the above portabello guide.
An easy trick for growing white button mushrooms is to combine a 50/50 blend of manure and compost and blend it up. Now, with this substrate prepared, you can be assured you’re using the best substrate for white button mushrooms.
Conclusion
We listed a few of the most popular mushroom’s favorite growing mediums. These are some of the mushrooms that are easiest to grow at home. In the entire kingdom of mushrooms, there are so many mushrooms that require such special growing circumstances that you simply can’t grow them at home. This includes mushrooms that require a fresh forest burn to grow, or mushrooms that grow on dying trees.
Because of this, choosing easy-to-grow mushrooms is important, especially as a beginning grower. Choose a simple mushroom with an simple substrate and get started.
To really drive the point home, we highly recommend you take the sterilization of your growing substrate very seriously. Much of your hard work can go to waste if you don’t properly sterilize your mushroom growing medium with a pressure sterilization method.
