GROWING GOURMET - Anto2ni.it

174 GROWING GOURMET MUSHROOMS ON ENRICHED SAWDUST
Three people can inoculate 400-500 bags in one shift by hand.
Person
Duties
Experience
Level
Lab Manager
Spawn Selector
Primary Inoculator
+++
First Assistant
Second Assistant
Shaker (1/2 time)
Bag Mover
are recommended over solid shelves.) Once inoculated,
the internal temperatures of the bags
soon climb more than 20° F. over the ambient
air temperature of the laboratory. Once the 95-
1000 F. (35-38° C.) temperature threshold is
surpassed, donnant thermophiles spring to life,
threatening the mushroom mycelium's hold on
the substrate. For cultivators in warm climates,
these temperature spirals may be difficult to
control.
Since the risk of contamination is greater
with supplemented sawdust, each step must be
executed with acute attention to detail. The lab
personnel must work as a well-coordinated
team. The slightest failure by any individual
makes the efforts of others useless. The same
general guidelines previously described for the
inoculation of sterilized agar, grain, and sawdust
media parallel the inoculation steps
necessary for inoculating sawdust bran.
Automatic inoculation machines have been
built in the attempt to eliminate the "human
factor" in causing contamination during inoculation.
I have yet to see a fully automatic
spawning machine that out-performs ahighly
Sealer
Bag Labeller
Product Stream Coordinator
++
+
skilled crew. When the human factor is removed
from this process, a valuable channel of
information is lost. The human factor steers the
course of inoculation and allows quick response
to every set of circumstances. Every
unit of spawn is sensed for any sign of impurity
or undesirability. The spawn manager develops
a ken for choosing spawn based as much on intuition,
as on appearance, fragrance, and
mycelial integrity.
Inoculations by hand require that either
gloves are worn or that hands are washed frequently.
With repetition, manual dexterity skills
develop, and success rates in inoculations improve
dramatically. Answering the telephone,
touching your eyes, picking up a scalpel off the
floor, making contact with another person are
causes for immediate remedial action.
Although one person can inoculate the
sawdust bran bags by himself, a well coordinated
team of three to four expedites the
process with the shortest intervals of "down
time" and the highest outflow of production.
The process can be further accelerated by premarking
bags, pre-shaking spawn, using
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