Greetings
Does anyone have any recent papers about hydroponic mushroom productio?
I am currently using an NFT system and I wonder if i could adjust it in order to cultivate several types of mushrooms.
Any information is welcome
Thanks in advance
Dear Voutsinos,
This is rather an interesting idea.
We do have liquid culture for mycelium production, which is usually conducted in bioreactors. However, when talking about “mushroom” production in liquid or by liquid cultures is another story.
Recently, we have a concept known as “compost enrichment”. The idea is that when the available nutrients around the mycelium are over, we can enrich the compost with fresh nutrients in liquid form, to help the mycelium survive and produce more mushrooms. It will save a lot of time and expenses to dispose of the spent substrate, and introduce new composts in the system. If you’re “NFT” is about to contribute to this idea that’s great. I’ tried the idea, and had some success; however, at this point because I don’t know about your project setup and specifications, I’d like to share some very basic and important points with you.
Be advice that when you provide microbial foods under an open space or non-sterilized conditions, or even when you inject into the compost block or bed, microbial and fungal contamination are very likely to destroy your system very soon.
In saprophytic varieties like shiitake, the mycelium produces a protective shell around the compost block to save it from drying out or contamination. So, you should inject the nutrient into the compost block. It is not literally hydroponics! So you should see what variety is more compatible with this idea.
The growing medium’s pH and temperature are very important. A so called hydroponic system could be very unstable when talking about these parameters. Plants could tolerate some levels of abiotic stress, but what about fungus mycelium? Your system should be very jumpy and fast to correct the pH and temp fluctuations in the medium.
Mycelium produces some wastes when literally digest its food, and excrete it in their substrate block or medium. This liquid is the main cause of nutrient toxicity for the mycelium itself. Such system could contribute to solve this problem by setting up a feed/wash intermittent irrigation!
Regards,
Solomon
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