How To Grow Mushrooms

There are two types of mushrooms namely button and oyster. Spawns (seedlings) are the ones which are planted and you have to buy them from Kalro, farmers or any other institution.

The biggest challenge in mushroom production is getting quality spawn. You will also need a room where you will plant the mushrooms because they are not grown in the field.

You will also need wheat straws, bean straw, millet straw or rice straw for preparation of compost on which the mushrooms will grow. Compost is made by mixing the straw with molasses, cotton seed cake and urea.

The straw should first be soaked in water and then mixed with the other ingredients. The compost should be sterilized to avoid pests and diseases.

After compost preparation, planting of the spawns follows and this is done by mixing the compost with the spawns in sacks.

The sacks are then taken to the growing room. The temperature around the bag should be maintained at 32°C. After about 10-14 days the spawns start to emerge.

When they are visible as small white grains, add some soil preferably from forest in the sacks. At this stage, humidity should be introduced by use of a humidifier or a knapsack sprayer.

Make sure you use clean water and spray the air and the floors of the growing room. Humidity is needed for growth of the mushrooms.

Depending on the days the spawns took to emerge, mushrooms are ready for harvesting after 10-14 days and harvesting continues for one and a half months.

Make sure that you observe high standards of hygiene.