Season and Varieties mushroom cultivated throughout the year Cultivation is indoor and it requires mushroom house White oyster (Co-1) and Grey Oyster (M-2) are suitable for Tamil Nadu Mushroom House A thatched Shed of 16 sq.m. is required. Divide the shed into spawn running and cropping rooms Spawn running room: maintain 25-300C, provide ventilation, no light is required Cropping room: Maintain 23-250C, RH above 75-80% with moderate light and aeration. (Digital Thermometers and Humidity meters are available in the market) Spawn (Mushroom Seeding) Suitable substrate: Sorghum, Maize or, Wheat grains Preparation of spawn: Half cooked grains, air dried, mixed with calcium carbonate powder at 2% level, fill the grains in empty glucose drip bottles, plug with cotton and sterilize in cooker for 2 hours. Put the pure culture of the fungus (Procured from agriculture departments/agrl. Universities) and incubate at room temperature for 15 days. Use 15-18 days old spawn for spawning. Preparation of Mushroom bed Suitable substrate: Paddy/wheat straw, sugarcane baggasse, hulled maize cobs Cooking of substrate: Cut into 5cm bits, soak in potable water for 5 hrs, boil water for one hour, drain the water, air dry to 65% moisture (no water drips when squeezed between hands) Preparation of bags: Use 60 ×30 cm polythene bags (both side open). Keep the beds moist by periodical spraying with water. Tie one end of bag, put two holes of 1 cm dia in the middle. Put handful of cooked straw in the bag to a height of 5 cm; sprinkle about 25 g of spawn. Layer the straw to 25 cm height. Repeat the process to get four layers of spawn and 5 layers of straw. Tie the mouth and arrange beds in tiers in the spawn running room. After 15-20 days, cut and remove the polythene bag and transfer the beds to cropping room. Harvest Mushroom pin heads appear on 3rd day of opening of beds and mature in 3 days. Harvest matured mushrooms daily or alternate days, before spraying water. Second and third harvest can be obtained after scraping the surface of beds after first or second harvest. Source: TNAU Agritech Portal Related resources Model project report on Mushroom processing (109KB) Buyers of Mushroom (70.3KB) A video on Mushroom Production Technology, Oyester, harvesting, infestation and building. A video on Mushroom Production Technology, Oyster, harvesting, infestation and building.