Finding ways to grow Pleurotus ostreatus without pain has been one of my driving ambitions for the past several years. At first, finding them was a challenge. I would come across a bunch only rarely, and these are usually infested with a pesky little black beetle. I suppose they play a role in propagation, but they are not welcome at our Wednsday night festivities, bottom feeders that we usually are.

Growing them was easy. Just pluck out a bit of that nice soft angel-food consistency tissue, and put it onto a petri dish of malt agar and let 'er rip. Rarely did I get contamination, and the mycelia would grow real fast too. So fast that I had my hands full sterilizing mason jars full of yeast extract (B Vitamins) and calcium carbonate (to buffer Ph). We all know how mushrooms love the B vitamins. Pleurotus, it seems could care less.

It took me too many months of experiments to find out that not only was it too expensive to feed my friend expensive rice but the additives were totally unnecessary as well. These babies can grow on sawdust or light chainsaw chips or even straw. I could get all the free wood chips I could eat from the guy I get my firewood from...all mixed hard wood and free of contamination...I could easily inspect my woodpile for any clues of trouble. Not having seen any, I proceeded to obtain two large garbage bags full of chips and set about with several experiments to determine just how little work was really necessary to get a reasonable yield.

Oven bags, mason jars, testubes and any other container that was simple and cheap ended up getting fitted for steam treatment. Plenty of old canning jars could be found that worked fine. These make experimenting easy enough. They don't take up a lot of space, and numerous species can be tried all at once in a small window area. Everything got sterilized for 15 minutes at 15 pounds pressure. I did leave a few jars "dirty" to see if it was feasable to leave out the potentially dangerous, and time consuming operation of sterilization.

It seems that most of the commercially available Pleurotus grew very slowly or needed extra carbon source to get started. One of my hybrids grown from wild parents in New York state and Connecticut took hold immediately on the hardwood chips. (The fresher the chips, the better) After a bit of fooling around, it was found to be possible to start this one particular strain without fear on almost any cellulose or lignose material. As a bonus, everyone who tasted it seems to think that it had the best flavor of all the samples I presented them with to date! I did notice a difference in flavor between the rice-grown and the sawdust grown mushrooms. The rice-grown are better tasting by far, but much more work as well.

Here's how:

Get yourself a set of bookshelf rails and brackets and assemble them over a window.

Here is an end view of the brackets I made for the barn:

| |
| |
| |
| |  ........ toward window
| |
| | 
| |\______________________/|
| | metal bookshelf holder |
| | _______________________|
| |/
| |
| |
| |---Book shelf rail
| |
| |
| |

| |
| |
| |
| |  cut two furring strips with notches to fit across the window by                                 
| |  resting them on the book shelf brackets:                                                                   
| |         __                  __ 
| |         \   \              /   /  ---note that the one closest to you is placed almost at the end   
| |          \   \            /   /    of the shelf bracket and tips
| |\__________\___\__________/__ /____/|  toward you. Bottom of mason jar                                   
| |            \___\        /___/      |  rests against it.                                                               
| | ___________________________________|                                                                                          
| |/                                                                                                                                    
| |         /\                                                                   
| |         ||
| |         ||
| |          this one should  allow the mason jar to rest on it,
              laying almost flat with a  slight upward tilt.

• Cut slots on the ends of the furring strips to slip easily over the book shelf brackets at the correct angle. These will hold several mason jars full of culture...but watch the the weight! Set up as many rows as you dare...go ahead and put one over EVERY window in the house! Use good long screws, and try to get them into a wall stud or into the window frame and NOT just thru the plaster.
• In addition to light, fresh air flow is required with high humidity for fruiting and lowered to %80 for growth. Plastic tents of various shapes were tried over the growing area, and a variety of mist and water spray gadgets were tried out. Yechhhh...what a mess. Now i'm trying to use a room humidifier that uses a spinning disk - use unly distilled water in these! It seems to cool the air considerably. Try to keep the temperature between 15 and 20 degrees C.
• I've been using a square of aluminum foil to seal the jars. The mushrooms will find their way through the tightest squeeze and peek out thru the edges of the foil.If they are run through and still not fruiting, place the jars in the refrigerator or out in the snow for a night. The cold shock seems to trigger growth. --pf