GROWING GOURMET - Anto2ni.it

Figure 129. Dispersing the spawn throughout the
sawdust by shaking. The inflated bag not only faciJitates
shaking, but provides a sufficient
atmospheric plenum within each bag, accelerating
the growth of the mushroom mycelium.
By placing a small thermometer between the
two faces of the touching bags, the laboratory
manager can track temperatures to be sure they
do not stray into the danger zone of >95° F. (35°
C.). Above this temperature, thermophilic
fungi and bacteria reign.
In 3 days, recovery from the concussion of
inoculation is clearly visible from the grain kernels.
The kernels become surrounded by fuzzy
mycelium. Looking at a population of bags on
a shelf from afar quickly tells the laboratory
manager how even the spawn run is. Concentrated
pockets of growth, adjacent to vast
regions of no growth, result in poor completion.
If evenly inoculated, the sawdust spawn is ready
to use within two weeks.
Sawdust spawn is used for one of five purposes:
CREATING SAWDUST SPAWN 159
I to sell to log growers
I to inoculate outdoor beds by dispersing the
spawn orby burying the block into the ground.
I to inoculate sterilized hardwood dowels in
the creation of plug spawn for log and stump
growers
I to grow mushrooms on. (However, most of
the species described in this book benefit
from having the sawdust enriched with a
readily available, nitrogenous supplement
such as bran.)
I to inoculate 5-20 times more sterilized
enriched sawdust, usually sawdust supplemented
with nitrogenous sources such as
rice bran, soy bean flour, etc.
PDF compression, OCR, web-optimization with CVISION's PdfCompressor