Cultivating Oyster mushrooms on newspaper........

[Lazlo]

Cultivating mushrooms of the Oyster variety is very simple using paper products like newspapers, paper bags, shredded cardboard, exc. You'll need to have a substrate for the spawning of the paper product like, colonized grain or a PF style cake.

First thing's first, the materials.

1- clean plastic grocery bag with no holes in it. If there's holes in it, simply double up the bags.

1- bottle of bleach

1- quart of spawning substrate. Either 1qt. of whole grain or PF style substrate

1- measuring cup

1- clean sink or clean bucket large enough to house 2.5 gallons of water.

1- sunday editions worth of newspaper




Now simply add the newspaper or papers to a sink exc. of bleached hot tap water. The bleach to water ratio is 2.5 gallons of hot tap water to a 1/4cup of bleach. Allow the newspaper to hydrate for about an hour and then simply stir up the newspaper and hot water. Lightly break up the paper into large chunks so all of the paper can be cleaned up with the bleached water. Then simply allow the paper another hour of soak time and it's done. Or it's done when the water's cool enough to touch easily. Under 80 degrees for spawning.



Now simply ring out chunks of the paper to where only a few drips of water come out of it. Then simply start loading up the grocery bag. You want about 3/4" of inch of paper per layer. Then add a coating of spawn on top of each layer until you've run out of spawn. The top and final layer should be newspaper.




After the bag is loaded up, simply take the handles of the plastic grocery bag and tie them into a cross knot. Like you're tying your shoes, without the final knot. Don't worry with a filter, as CO2 escapes through the top of the bag where the handles cross.



Then simply push down rather hard on the bag, getting the air out of it while compressing the substrate into a block. You don't have to stand on the bag, but you want the substrate to be nice and firm. The total substrate thickness should be 4" after being packed firmly.



Then simply write the spawning date on top of the bag and give it 2 weeks or as long as takes for colonization. Let it get nice and thick with mushroom mycelium. Don't worry if some of the paper on the sides doesn't colonize. That will happen from the paper being pushed up against the bag hard. Not a problem and will colonize once the substrate's birthed.

Here's a picture of the substrate colonizing at 1 week.



Substrate at 2 weeks and ready for birthing.



Birthed substrate in the Oyster strains fruiting enviroment. Each individual species of Oyster has a different fruiting temperature for the most part. You'll need to know what temperature your species fruits at to have success. You'll want to maintain 90-95% RH for all of them though. This way the substrate and fruit bodies don't dry up on you.



Pleurotus primordia forming on the paper substrate block.



Simple as that. I'll update the thread accordingly.

[Lazlo]

Something else. Ignore the Lion's Mane spawn in the first photo. It's an experiment.

And don't concern yourself with the ink either. Newspaper ink is derived from soy beans, so it's perfectly fine. Although it does stain your hands a bit, but washes off easily with soap and water.

[reefer]

very nice work!

[golly]

Thas beautifull Laz...Love the simplicity...Would this work with the King oyster...?...Great pix too btw...

[Lazlo]

With King's it should work as well. The SUPPOSED isolate from the salt thread gobbled up paper bags rather well. It's nearly finished up and we'll see if it's indeed the King isolate.

[Lazlo]

By the way, this is an isolate of Pleurotus pulmonarius. She's a beauty and will eat your home if I spawned it. So don't mess with me.

[fucgubarn]

This is very nice,show us the fully grown mushrooms,please.


do you have more pictures of the ready jars,before the speading to newspaper?

the reason for asking is because most of my jars look contaminated ,but when fruited all works fine,strange ehh.

[Odin 13]

A foaf had a wooden box set up w/ a tire jack which had another board that fit into the box. He would put the paper in the box, crank the jack a bit & squeeze out the water, then add his spawn. He would continue in layers, & in the end had a nice square brick/bag. After the spawn worked it's way thru the paper, he poked the bag w/ a broadhead arrow & the oysters grew thru the holes.

[bullfrog]

awesome job lazlo. you got a good recycling system for your paper.
a very nice job , and made me have to try this one. have you seen the pic of the living room chair colonized and fruiting ? i'll try to find it to show you. great pics as well.

very nice thread, thanks alot lazlo.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

Cultivating mushrooms of the Oyster variety is very simple using paper products like newspapers, paper bags, shredded cardboard, exc. You'll need to have a substrate for the spawning of the paper product like, colonized grain or a PF style cake.

Nice post, going to do up some 1/2 pint PF jars just to try it out and give you a follow up using P.ostreatus and P.cornucopiae...how many PF/Hippie Mycro jars do you think it would take to do this using lets say a big sunday paper from either LA, KC, STL, NY?

Originally Posted by Lazlo

And don't concern yourself with the ink either. Newspaper ink is derived from soy beans, so it's perfectly fine. Although it does stain your hands a bit, but washes off easily with soap and water.

Great point, however, what about the advertisement inserts, might they not use the soy ink?

Myth #4 Newspaper Ink is Toxic to Animals and Humans
One major concern for livestock producers and consumers is the safety of livestock bedded on newspaper containing inks. Until 10 years ago, lead, cadmium and other toxic heavy metals were commonly used in paper inks.

Now, however, most publishers use organic pigments. Most of these pigments are the same as those used in tattoos, lipstick, hair coloring and other cosmetics.

You may have seen the "soy ink" symbol on a newspaper, which tells the reader that the newspaper company is using soybased inks for printing. Soy inks are derived from soybeans, one of Ohio's largest cash crops.

A Pennsylvania State University study of beef steers bedded on newspaper for 140 days revealed no detectable traces of heavy metals in the blood or liver tissues of the animals. It was noted that the paper used was primarily "blackon-white" newsprint and contained a very limited amount of colored inks. Cornell University researchers fed pelletized newspaper at rates of up to 10 percent of the total diet to dairy cows and found no significant risk to human or bovine health.

The newspaper industry has made great efforts to generate a non-toxic waste stream. Printed matter from advertising inserts, catalogs and magazines, however, is not subject to the same voluntary controls of ink quality. Unregulated paper products for bedding of animals that provide meat and milk should be used with caution.

----------------------------------------------------------
http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/0136.html

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by fucgubarn

do you have more pictures of the ready jars,before the speading to newspaper?
the reason for asking is because most of my jars look contaminated ,but when fruited all works fine,strange ehh.

No I don't. But the jar looked fine. How do they look contaminated? With bacteria?

And I don't use the inserts either! A lot of them have staples in them that don't feel very good when you're ringing out the paper. Ouch!

4-5 colonized half pints should be plenty. The more the better though.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

4-5 colonized half pints should be plenty. The more the better though.

Cool, then that is what I will do, thx

[casgoodie]

thanks lazlo, ive been considering baby blue oysters and now i am even closer to doing something about it due to the simplicity. thanks again, i would like to see the mature fruits too! peace

[spacecake]

Wow...,a nice and cheap way to grow edibles !

Cool Lazlo !

[dial8]

Ah, very nice laz. Cheap an and environmentally friendly way to grow shrooms. Turns your trash into compost! ME likes a lot!

[Cyantific]

Good information Lazlo!
Thank you for the write up.

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by Odin 13

A foaf had a wooden box set up w/ a tire jack which had another board that fit into the box. He would put the paper in the box, crank the jack a bit & squeeze out the water, then add his spawn. He would continue in layers, & in the end had a nice square brick/bag. After the spawn worked it's way thru the paper, he poked the bag w/ a broadhead arrow & the oysters grew thru the holes.

You can certainly poke holes around the perimeter of the bag for fruiting. But this way i'm doing it, you have more exposed surface area for fruitbodies to form.

You may be able to simply fruit right in the bag. Just open it, poke a few holes in the bag right above the substrates surface for FAE and keep the sides of the bag misted. I'm sure it would work. Like using the bag as a terrarium. I may try that now that I think of it. For cubensis and Panaeolus, that would be prime time i'd think. Easy as pie also. It sounds easy anyways.

[reverend trips]

Cool thread Laz, thanks!

[Lazlo]

This isolate is PURE white growing on this medium. Very neat, yet weird indeed! It looks nothing like it does growing on sawdust. I'll show you tomorrow with a quick update.

[Hippie3]

spacecowboy
i've worked in the printing industry
including doing advertising inserts
and virtually ALL modern inks, colored too,
are soy-based and non-toxic.

[Lazlo]

That's good to know Hippie. It seams that if an ink smears easily once moistened, it's prolly soy based. That seems to be the main complaint with it anyways. That's just a guess really.

[dial8]

Hell that is still pretty damn good for a sub that was destined for the garbage.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

That's good to know Hippie. It seams that if an ink smears easily once moistened, it's prolly soy based. That seems to be the main complaint with it anyways. That's just a guess really.
Well, this is embarrassing! It appears that my isolate doesn't care for the newspaper very much. I guess I should've used an isolate that was selected from a newspaper grow, rather than a hardwood. Hehehe. Look at the color of it! This isn't even close to what it looks like on hardwood sawdust. Much larger mushrooms and far more prolific as well on the hardwood sawdust. Doh! What a perfect time to do something stupid.

Man..don't be so hard on yourself....them oysters look goood...afteralll...you is recycling right, logs take at least a year to grow, bet you accomplished this task in less than 30 days???!!!

Hoorah

[fucgubarn]

ther jar on the right, a part of it looks like it is not colonized or it is but with some weaker/thiner mycelium and i'm always mistrustful to something like that, apparently there is no problem,

cool grow

[Lazlo]

The jar on the right is a Hericium jar that's begun to fruit. The dark areas are from a mushroom growing. I let it go for too long. And I don't think it likes newspaper either. hehe

Ok. Well I asked Workman what he thought about the ordeal and he seemed to think the substrate change could be the problem also.

Well, looking good none the less. I can't wait to fry these puppies up.

[spacecowboy]

Just got done PCing seven 1/2 pints done with standard PF formula, but I used a sawdust contam barrier. Will inoculate tomorrow after jars cool.

[Lazlo]

Good luck.

Here's the first crop. I'll go ahead and harvest now. Let's see how the next one works out. Better hopefully, as there were some aborted mushrooms on this one. This is odd to have this many, so don't let that scare you.








Little honkies. :wink:

[dial8]

:clap: Nice laz! How do they taste? They look srumptious!

[SpornStar]

Originally Posted by bullfrog

awesome job lazlo. you got a good recycling system for your paper.
a very nice job , and made me have to try this one. have you seen the pic of the living room chair colonized and fruiting ? i'll try to find it to show you. great pics as well.

WHAT??? Really? gotta see this chair!

[bullfrog]

they look very tastey ! the young ones are the best imo.
have you tried slicing long ways , batter dip, and deep fry !!
thats my favorite.

[Lazlo]

They're very good raw believe it or not. I haven't tried deep frying Oyster's, but it sounds good. It's a strange taste to describe really. Believe it or not, this particular species of Pleurotus will continue to grow some more after they're harvested, so it's best to pick these while they are a bit young.

[spacecowboy]

Coolest feature I like about the oysters is when I let them over mature they start to put out fruit bodies from the fruit bodies....trippy in a fractal-back to back mirror kinda way....but I don't eat them unless they are small and fresh too.

...time to inoculate.

[I_am_me]

Very nice thread. Thanks for sharing it Lazlo.

Its amazing how much/many types of mushrooms will eat cardboard and paper like that, very good recycling possibilities.

[dial8]

The picture of the chair grow is in Stamets' Growing Gourmet and Medicinals.

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

Holy cow, what an idiot! The greenhouse temperature is nearly 10 degrees warmer than the room temps. Geeze, i'm glad I caught onto that. Hehehe

Had similar problems with my incubator...took awhile to get it set to maintain an internal temp of 30'C, and then reviewed the GGMM and realized that the diverse array of strains I m growing work best at 5(+)(-)'F at the most, so I removed the lower temp strains from the incubator, boxed em, and then set them on top of the incubator to collect the excess lower heat/room temp.

[fucgubarn]

mushrooms look very nice!

congrats!

where can i see that colonized chair online, possible?

[Lazlo]

Thanks. It's about the easiest and cheapest way I could come up with to cultivate Oyster mushrooms. The cost is next to nothing and one can find a newspaper anywhere, versus the folks that don't have access to hardwood sawdusts.

Something else. It may take your newspaper substrate a little longer or a couple of days less than 2 weeks to colonize well enough for fruiting. Just make sure the substrate is nice and thick with mushroom mycelium prior to fruiting it. Really, mine could've waited a few more days until fruiting, but I was trying to get the ball rolling on the thread.

And if you're concerned with using bleach for cleaning of the paper, you can always pasteurize the paper for 2 hours @ 150-165 degrees.

[RootsDubJah]

Thanks for the great post, Lazlo!

I'm playing around with some oyesters I bought from the grocery store - I have them cloning on various paper products to see what work best, but I wasn't sure what I should do for my next steps to get some fruiting going. I think I may follow your lead here and try it with some newspapers.

My only issue is I don't have a good terrarium/growing chamber that is temperatrure controlled, so things are slow going (I just have stuff sitting in a closed tupperware container). Since the house is in the low 60's right now, the mycelium in my clones is growing, but very slowly. Although it is neat to look at some of the cardboard and see the long mycelium 'hairs' sticking up into the air looking for more food.

Maybe now is a good time to do a simple growing chamber setup that I can better control temp and humidity in...

[Lazlo]

Ok. The mushrooms are looking as they should on this flush. I X-Nayed the steamer of course. I'll update this thread soon with pictures of the 2nd flush. It's been set back because I was having greenhouse issues. I've fixed them.

[Soliver1]

Fucking awesome idea -

Oysters on the super-cheap.

I love it, can't wait to try this out!



soliver

[spacecowboy]

Originally Posted by Soliver

Fucking awesome idea -

Oysters on the super-cheap.

I love it, can't wait to try this out!



soliver

Me too, got some half pint jars started with good colonization, 7 in all, one I plan on fruiting directly form the PF substrate formula 's sake.

Inoculated regular 1/2 pint jars with PF formula via direct insertion of dowels into the substrate down the center (made easy via the internal reservoir hollow center created by inserting a pen down the middle of the PF cake and then plugging the hole with a small piece of napkin balled up).

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by Soliver

Fucking awesome idea -

Oysters on the super-cheap.

I love it, can't wait to try this out!



soliver

Sweet! Glad you like it my friends. It's super simple and cheap.

[StroFun]

Excellent work!

This looks like it would compliment a straw/paper product laundry basket such as in Vision's tek!

If you had some gypsum and wheat bran would you throw a bit of that into the mix?

[Lazlo]

For sure. This is just an easy was to do it. Adding gypsum and a bran, or bran alone would certainly help out. I myself don't mess with bran much.

[spacecowboy]

Great pictures too, sorry for the delay...been doing volunteer work taking from the rich and giving to the poor. I ran your work by my boss and now currently I have one of the oyster PF cakes siting in his office as an experiment. Told the man it is very possible that we could recycle all the waste paper from card board and local newspapers to help feed the people. He is defiantly interested. He also has grant writers working with him too.
On the down side since I have been so busy playing Robin Hood I am pretty sure my cakes have over grown. The one I took to the boss was a pain to get out of the jar, actually came out in two parts as they were done with regular half pints. So now I am going to start over again, but using the small 40z jelly jars PF style using one plug each down the middle. I also have an interesting twist to your protocol that I have tried with straw in the past, but I almost always seem to get the green after the first flush with straw so I stay away from it.
Are you still getting decent flushes?
and...
May I borrow your pics and protocol details to run by him and get his feed back, already showed him my work and he liked it with a big smile?

I already told him that the PF cake is either going to turn green and black, or here in about a week or two it should have worm looking things growing out of it.

I also use strains designed for logs, but use them for composite growing too. I know mine will fruit better off logs, but they fruit quicker of composite.

Your work is really good, you got results. You might not think that they are all that great, but it worked.

[Lazlo]

PitcherCrab has kindly given me some photos to share using the technique. He's had some nice results as you can see. These Oyster's are from the blue colored variety.

[shroom_seeker]

Such a great idea Lazlo!
I just ordered some oyster spawn from SC, I'd like to give this a try too..

[Phatman]

Very Cool...I have some white oysters, I might have to try growing them this way...thanks very much for sharing!...


Phatman

[hyphaenation]

Two year bump ...



One of the best threads ever in my books. Thanks for the inspiration Lazlo !