Conditions You Must Create For The Shiitake Logs To Bear Fruit

When it comes to producing high-quality mushrooms, cultivators need a fruiting chamber. This chamber provides the perfect conditions for them to grow. So, how do you build such an enclosure? The process isn’t as simple as selecting a large room with a lot of space. You have to ensure there’s enough humidity. Additionally, the level of carbon dioxide should be high enough combined with appropriate temperature conditions and lighting. Commercial growers usually resort to fans, humidifiers, and heaters for the task. They even build a room having walls that can retain moisture. By the end of this topic, you’ll learn about the main parameters to ensure consistent fruiting.

Carbon dioxide content: The Shiitake Logs you buy from Agrinoon will house the mushroom spawn. While edible fungi grow in a substrate, they do need high carbon dioxide content. It’s one of the main reasons why you need to pack them into airtight bags and containers. Since you’ll be using logs, you have to leave them inside carbon dioxide-ridded spaces. In doing so, you prevent contamination. Then again, after your mushrooms are ready to yield the final product, you need to reduce the carbon dioxide content in the air. Just like every other living creature, mushrooms need oxygen to survive and thrive. They also breathe out carbon dioxide. This fact proves how mushrooms are more akin to animals than plants.

 

Humidity: The next point of consideration is the humidity level. Mushrooms grow perfectly on Shiitake Logs, but you have to keep them in a considerably wet environment. In the wild, they grow particularly during the cool, wet days in the autumn, and they often begin their lives under piles of damp, rotting leaves. The water content of edible fungi, or any other mushroom for that matter, is usually more than 90%. As you can probably imagine, keeping the humidity above 80% inside the fruiting chamber at all times is mandatory. It will prevent the product from drying out.\

Lighting: Mushrooms do require a specific level of lighting as an individual that it’s the right moment to grow. Of course, photosynthesis is entirely a plant thing. It has nothing to do with fungi. Nevertheless, the latter grows towards the sun in nature. However, you have to strike a balance between the two. Your mushrooms should grow if you provide just a little bit of sunlight. Just don’t make the mistake of providing more than necessary. Otherwise, the mushrooms will have stunted growth or they will dry out completely.

 

Temperature: Fungi will survive and thrive if you maintain the appropriate temperature level. As they prefer fairly cool temperatures, you have to mimic the effects of a cloudy autumn day. Based on the mushroom species you’re trying to cultivate, the temperature requirements will change. If you manage to keep it between 15.5 and 18-degree Celsius, you shouldn’t have any problems.

 

To conclude

 

Since you’re growing shiitake, you don’t have much to worry about. Both shiitake and oyster mushrooms grow in almost every temperature condition. Whether it’s a blazing summer day or the chilly night of a snowy winter, both variants can grow perfectly.