Description
Oyster mushrooms are one of the easiest and fastest-growing mushrooms. They take between 9 days to 4 weeks to produce fruit.
Types: There are two types – New Zealand Native Oyster Phoenix mushrooms (grey to dark brown, can grow all year round in NZ, even in the south island during winter) and Pink Oyster mushrooms (more suitable for warm seasons).
Location: Choose a spot that receives indirect sunlight and is shady. For indoors, places like the garage, laundry, or bathroom can be suitable. For an outdoor patch, place it under a tree or shrub in a shady area.
Substrate: Use clean straw (avoid hay, barley, oat, wheat, etc.) or sawdust of hardwood and softwood. Straw can be found on Facebook marketplace or at some farmland stores. Pine pellets, used for making fire, can be purchased from hardware stores for around $10 for 15kg.
Cultivation method: There are various ways to grow oyster mushrooms, such as using buckets, containers, trays, plastic bags, or an outdoor patch. You can watch a short video demonstrating different methods of growing oyster mushrooms. For home growers, it is easier to use straw or pine pellets as they are commonly available and inexpensive.
For an outdoor patch or top-surfacing containers, simply wet the substrate and mix it with spawn without sanitizing the substrate. This method is simple and easy to set up. You don’t need to pasteurize the substrate as it is exposed to good airflow, reducing the risk of contamination. Use a whole bale of wet straw and place the spawn in between.
If you prefer using closed containers like buckets or plastic bags, you’ll need to pasteurize the substrate. Soak the straw in hot water above 80 degrees Celsius for at least one hour or add boiling water to the pine pellets (ratio: 1 kg pine pellets to 1.7 kg water). After the substrate cools down, mix the spawn evenly with the substrate. It’s recommended to use at least 5% spawn in relation to the wet substrate, but 10% is preferred for faster fruiting and better yield.
Maintenance: Keeping the substrate moist is crucial. For outdoor patches or top-surfacing containers, keep the substrate damp during colonization and fruiting. If you use buckets or plastic bags, no additional maintenance is required as the substrate inside retains moisture. Keeping them in a dark place helps speed up colonization. Once the mushrooms start to appear, spray them with water as mushrooms prefer humidity. The frequency of spraying depends on the dryness of the environment.
