Mushroom cultivation differs from gardening and horticulture in that mushroom crops do not need an abundance of light. Scattered winter lighting is quite enough for them, and direct sunlight can be harmful.
Temperature requirements are much lower compared to plants. Therefore, growing mushrooms in a greenhouse all year round is economically attractive – during the winter cold, heating and lighting costs are low. It is also possible to organize a mushroom plot in the cold season in a greenhouse, where vegetables and greens ripen in summer.
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Pros of growing mushrooms in a greenhouse
The main advantage of growing mushrooms in greenhouses is the ability to do it all year round. But greenhouse mushroom growing has many other advantages:
- Health safety. Mushrooms are able to absorb harmful substances from the air and soil. For this reason, they are not collected near highways and in industrial areas. Growing mushrooms in a greenhouse eliminates the possibility of poisoning.
- Minimum financial investment. The main expenses are for the purchase of planting material and equipping the greenhouse.
- Profitability. Mushroom growing can become an additional or even main income, since the product is in high demand. It is more profitable to master the breeding of boletus, boletus and boletus, but oyster mushrooms with champignons will also bring a good income.
- Off-season harvesting. Under the right conditions, mushrooms grow regardless of the season.
Another plus is unpretentious care. Even a beginner in mushroom growing can master the cultivation of mushrooms at home in a greenhouse.
What mushrooms can be grown in a greenhouse?
Almost any mushroom crops thrive in greenhouse conditions. The easiest way to deal with unpretentious oyster mushrooms and mushrooms in a polycarbonate greenhouse. These are the most popular greenhouse mushrooms.
But if you want and have patience in greenhouse conditions, it is realistic to plant mushrooms such as:
- boletus;
- chanterelles;
- different varieties of honey agarics;
- shiitake.
The cultivation technology for mushroom crops is different. It is necessary to decide in advance what varieties you want to populate the greenhouse space. If there is a good mycelium, boletus, boletus, boletus, and mushrooms can grow in the greenhouse.
Detailed guide on Best Mushroom Fruiting Chambers.
growing conditions for mushrooms in a greenhouse
Greenhouses for growing vegetables and mushrooms are not fundamentally different. It is possible to breed mushroom colonies in a structure made of various building materials. For this, wood-glass, polycarbonate, and film structures are used.
In order to create a suitable microclimate, greenhouses are equipped with:
- heating heating systems, preferably water type;
- ventilation units and steam supply equipment;
- “Daytime” lamps with diffused light or phyto-lamps with a natural spectrum.
Each lighting device has its own illumination radius, their total number is determined based on the area of the greenhouse.
Myceliums require frequent moistening, which is carried out using a spray bottle. If the greenhouse has a large area, special devices for spraying moisture should be installed in it. For small volumes, this can be done manually.
Providing a high level of humidity allows you to achieve containers with water, placed in the greenhouse at a distance of 1.5 from each other. This method provides additional moisture circulation.
Arrangement of internal structures – hangers or shelving racks – depends on what kind of mushroom crops you are going to grow and in what way.
From autumn, you need to seal the greenhouse to maintain a comfortable microclimate:
- Carefully seal the damage in the coating with tape;
- seal the cracks between the frame part and the base with a sealant;
- glue door openings and vents with sealing material and equip with locking elements.
To insulate the greenhouse, a second covering loop can be assembled. To do this, inside the greenhouse, arcs from a polymer pipe or fiberglass fittings are installed and covered with a covering material.
The dimensions of the arches should not impede the installation of racks and free movement. For these purposes, polycarbonate sheets are also used – they are fixed on the inside of the frame structure. An air gap between the sheets will provide excellent thermal insulation.
In addition to improving the thermal insulation qualities of the greenhouse, the covering material allows you to protect delicate mushroom caps from sunburn. The climate in the double cover loop will be stable despite the weather conditions outside.
A greenhouse with an open translucent roof is not suitable for growing mushroom crops – they do not like a bright sun. The greenhouse is being remodeled so that the lighting is dim.
This effect can be achieved in several ways:
- paint the transparent ceiling of the greenhouse with lime or chalk;
- tint the roof and walls with self-adhesive film or mesh;
- curtain with a translucent material made of artificial fibers.
To protect the mushroom plantings from sunburn, you can choose not transparent, but matte or colored polycarbonate sheets for insulation. In the spring, if you decide to replace mushroom crops with garden crops, simply remove the sheets and remove them before winter.
Growing features for Mushroom
For year-round cultivation of greenhouse mushrooms, tree crops, especially unpretentious oyster mushrooms, are ideal. But if you wish, you can populate the greenhouse with any mushrooms, even exotic ones – shiitake, ice, Judas ear.
Champignons are well suited for a greenhouse – in such conditions, they need the least maintenance. If you know the peculiarities of growing popular mushroom crops, you can get huge yields in greenhouses.
Oyster mushrooms in greenhouse
In greenhouses, the method of growing wood mushrooms on chocks is rarely used, because it takes a lot of time for a log to grow with mycelium. Usually, oyster mushrooms are grown in plastic bags that are filled with soil mixture – this technique allows you to get mushroom harvests all year round.
First, you need to prepare a nutrient mixture. Various organic components can be used for it, the main thing is to observe the proportions:
| Main ingredients (%) | Additives (%) | |
| For replenishment | For mineralization | |
| Sunflower husk – 90 | Soy flour – 5 | Grated chalk – 5 |
| Wheat straw – 85 | Ground stalks of peas or beans – 13 | Grated chalk – 2 |
| Cereal straw – 45, cabbage stubs – 45 | Bran – 6 | Gypsum powder – 3, grated chalk – 1 |
| Deciduous tree sawdust – 45, shavings – 45 | Bran – 8 | Grated chalk – 2 |
To prevent the formation of mold, fungicides “Fundazol” or “Benlate” are mixed into the nutrient mixture in a ratio of 10 g per centner of soil mixture. For the destruction of insect larvae, “Dimillin” is introduced – 2.5 g per centner of the nutrient medium. Dry components are crushed to pieces no more than 5 cm and mixed thoroughly. After that, they are steamed in boiling water and dried.
The seed and the prepared soil mixture are mixed on a disinfected table. Mixed with mycelium, the substrate is packaged in polyethylene bags with a volume of 5-15 kg. You can fill the bags in layers – 5 cm of the nutrient mixture and 0.5 of the planting material. In the walls of the bags, cuts are made up to 2 cm in length at a distance of 10-15 cm. Oyster mushrooms will grow through these holes.
The size of the mushroom bodies corresponds to these holes. If you plan on canning or pickling mushrooms, it is best to make the holes smaller. Ready-made packages are placed on shelving shelves or attached to a hanger installed under the roof of the greenhouse.
Caring for oyster mushrooms in a greenhouse is not particularly difficult:
- Before the first shoots, the mushrooms need darkness, so the transparent parts of the greenhouse must be covered with curtains. The temperature regime is maintained in the range of 20-25 degrees Celsius.
- When whitish threads and small fungi appear in the slots, the temperature is lowered to 15 degrees. The humidity is kept so that the indicator does not fall below 90 percent.
- Ripe oyster mushrooms are not cut off – each family must be turned out of the soil mixture.
When all the ripe mushrooms are removed, the substrate is watered and the temperature is increased to 25 degrees. In a few days, new oyster mushrooms will appear. The first, second, and third harvests are the most plentiful, the fourth poorer. After that, the soil mixture goes into the compost. It can be applied immediately as a top dressing for garden plantings. It is enough just to pour out the used soil mixture at the roots in an even layer.
Another effective method is the cultivation of a variety of mushrooms, including oyster mushrooms, in briquettes. This option involves growing mushrooms on the basis of a substrate pressed into blocks.
This method is economical in terms of area and labor costs, because you immediately acquire a briquette of the nutrient mixture with the seeded and germinated mycelium.
Blocks are small – from 2.5 kg and large – 20 kg. Briquettes are mixed in containers on racks, having made several holes in the substrate, and covered with paper sheets or other hygroscopic material, which is regularly sprayed from a spray bottle. When the first seedlings appear, the cover is removed, and the blocks are covered with soil. Humidification is also carried out from a spray.
Growing Champignon in a greenhouse
This crop is easy to grow in a greenhouse all year round. Champignons do not need lighting: the light that happens in winter is quite enough for them. If you approach the process correctly, it is possible to consider growing mushrooms in a greenhouse as a business. After all, you can harvest decent harvests all winter.
Compost material is prepared on the basis of horse manure and straw in a 1: 2 ratio, for example, a centner of straw is needed for 50 kg of manure component. Instead of the cereal component, you can use well-dried grass or tops of garden plants. The main thing is that the filler is not ripe.
Additionally, you will need two kilos of urea and superphosphate, five crushed chalk, and eight – gypsum. You can take chicken manure in an equal mixture with straw with the addition of gypsum and alabaster (8 and 4 kilos per centner of droppings).
Compost the substrate as follows:
- The straw is soaked in a spacious container. After a day, layers of straw and manure are laid out in layers in a high pile – about three layers of each component. This can be done directly in the greenhouse, if it is well ventilated, or in an area under a canopy.
- When laying out, each layer of straw is moistened with water, treated with urea and superphosphate.
- Stir the pile every five days to speed up composting. After five such cycles, the substrate is checked for readiness. Mature compost is elastic, springing when pressed.
- The soil mixture is cooled to 25 degrees.
For growing mushrooms in the greenhouse, you can choose any planting method. It depends on the design features of the greenhouse and the location of the shelving. The easiest option is to mount several long shelving cabinets, lay oilcloth on them and distribute compost in an even layer.
Ground beds can be used if the greenhouse does not have a floor. It is even easier to sow mycelium in containers, boxes, or bags. The temperature in the greenhouse must be maintained at least 30 degrees.
Sowing mushroom material is grain or compost material. The first variety is sold in plastic bags. It can be stored at temperatures less than 4 degrees for no more than six months. Planting requires about 400 g of mycelium per square meter. The compost type will rise if it is kept at a temperature of no more than 20 degrees for three weeks, at zero – a year. It will take 500 g per “square”.
The planting material in the grains must be spread over the substrate, a layer of compost about 4 cm should be poured on top. The compost is planted by analogy with garden crops – cakes with a radius of one and a half millimeters are placed in small holes dug in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of 25 cm.
Before the appearance of the first mushrooms, the plantation is covered with a covering material, cloth, or paper, and the surface is periodically moistened. Maintain a temperature regime of about 25 degrees. After two weeks, the temperature is reduced to 18 degrees.
When the first shoots appear, the covering material is removed, and the compost is covered with a four-centimeter layer of sterilized soil based on garden soil, peat, and sand. Make sure that the lighting is diffused: the sun’s rays are destructive for mushrooms.
The first mushrooms are removed approximately 60 days after planting. It is really possible to “raise” up to 10 kilos of mushrooms from 1 m3. The collection is carried out by twisting the fruit bodies. The remaining hole must be covered with soil mixed with compost. A new mushroom will grow there. If the bottom of the hat turns dark, you are late with picking – overripe mushrooms are not edible. They need to be removed from the substrate and eliminated.
The compost remaining after harvesting the mushrooms cannot be reused as fertilizer or added to a new substrate since it is toxic.
If you approach the cultivation process correctly and follow agrotechnical rules, everyone can cope with the year-round cultivation of mushrooms in a greenhouse. Mushrooms are unpretentious, they do not require complex care, and the initial costs in the presence of a greenhouse are minimal.
