Vermicomposting mycelium

[Keighan]

OK, so I have a few hundred pounds of straw blocks from spent oyster mushroom mycelium would it be viable bedding for vermicomposting?

 

[Wetdog]

Good God! ..... YES!!!

At least that's been my experience with my raised bed gardens and rotted straw mulch. Now, there is a large amount of leaves added, but before I started with the leaves it was just straw.

If in bins of some sort just be mindful of aeration so it doesn't become too dense/muddy for the worms to work. That's a judgement call on your part. I've used other stuff, but now it's pretty much just perlite. This was after the first harvest using pine barrk fines and running everything through a 1/4" screen. Trying to, anyway. Didn't quite think that one all the way through. LOL

Wet

 

[cap master]

what about brf? I always have a shit ton of cakes from my magics with a bunch of old mycelium. iv ran for 5 seasons now and always just toss it outside and let it decompose? how would this benefit my current compost? iv never really experimented with this?

 

[Richard Drysift]

I'm wondering about this myself. It stands to reason that any spent mushroom substrate oughta be good to promote fungi & bacteria. If you have old cakes why not toss them in a worm bin...trippy worms make happy compost I would imagine. I have tossed substrate from my bulk shroom runs into my recycling soil bin but that had no actual myc in it; just 50/50 horse poo & straw mix sub from sublicious farms...really good shit btw; huge ass fruits

 

[cap master]

I always use worm castings brown rice flower vermiculite and honey when I grow em u can see my profile picture is a peek at some of the results I have grown magic mushrooms that are over a half oz... one mushroom and over a quarter oz fully dried. I naturally air dry mine 3-5 days on mushroom flats I get for free from my local food store. if anyone knows any beneficial results from adding these to soil please let me know. what strains do u grow drysift? edibles?

 

[Richard Drysift]

In my flower room I have:
Blue dream, critical jacks, strawberry sour diesel (my fave), strawberry blue (not my fave), and Casey jones.
As far as mushrooms go I try to do a bulk run of shrooms every spring so I got a nice fat sak of boomers for Summer festie season. I just use a dehydrator to get them bone dry if I dry them but I really prefer shroom tea brewed from freshies. I've run golden teacher, ecuadorians, and brazilians...all pretty much the same imo. I used to do brf cakes but I found bulk monotub growing easier & less effort for more yield. I could run them year round but honestly you can only eat so many of them & after awhile even your freinds say naww lol.
I know adding straight brf to your mix globally is beneficial as is any substrate for growing fungi would be but I would be a little concerned about contaminants wreaking havoc on an otherwise healthy mix. If the spent cakes are not showing contaminants it should be a welcome addition to any compost pile but then again trichoderma is good to have in your mix so it's possible even contaminated shroom subs oughta be good to add. Hoping somebody who has done it will chime in....

 

[cap master]

I should be doing a run in the next few months so after theyre finished fruiting I will make a post and run the results in a little experiment.
iv grow a large variety. been growing since I was 19 or so iv grown golden teacher, Ecuadorian, gulf coast, tailand lipa yai, alica benzi's, madigascar, west coast red spore a more exotic. as well as a few more exotic ones such as elephant dung, African transeki, and andies golds. my favorites are definitely GT alicas and the lipa yai they were extremely potent but are a lot smaller than your average GT.

 

[GrowerGoneWild]

what about brf? I always have a shit ton of cakes from my magics with a bunch of old mycelium. iv ran for 5 seasons now and always just toss it outside and let it decompose? how would this benefit my current compost? iv never really experimented with this?

Sounds awesome to me, could you shred the spent cakes, mix in a little bit of carbohydrate (or throw in some rootball) in there and throw some myco inoculant in there?.

My only problem is the vermiculite messing up the soil if added in large ammounts.

 

[cap master]

well I use verm in my soil already so I would just not add it in my soil and use the cakes as a replacement for my regular verm in the same measured amount I would assume. when I mix my soil I use a mixture 1:6verm 1:6peatmoss 2:6solid soil and 2:6pearlite. usually by the time the mycelium is done its not too solid bc I cut mine in half once completely consumed by the mycelium then lay it over a heavy bead of pearlite and cover with verm run them for aprox 4 flush rounds then smash it up and dump it behind my shed.

 

[cap master]

not sure if they would contain any beneficial bacteria or not and usually by the end they are starting to get kind of funky so I would imagine u would have to compost it anyways with normal compost and use the straight compost as a soil with the pearlite and verm in there

 

[GrowerGoneWild]

Well, if your cutting it with pearlite, I guess it would be ok. I wouldn't go to crazy with adding lots of it. Cannabis is a fast growing annual, so bacterial activity is favored over fungal action if you reference Jeff Lowenfells "Teaming with Microbes" . But not to say that mycorraize isn't helpful, I currently use granular myco products but those are only applied during transplant so that the grains touch the roots. I would do the same with spent BRF cakes that are shredded and inoculated with the granular myco. Instead of sprinkling in the myco product, a few scoops of the spent material in the transport hole would hopefully be better fungal action for improved rooting action.

 

[cap master]

yeah not quite sure of the beneficial properties it would have good idea tho

 

[Keighan]

Been looking into doing some cubes i do about 3-4 hundred pounds of oysters around spring time, ive been thinking about running some oysters in my flower room and see if I can naturally raise my co2 using them.

 

[cap master]

not sure if its possible but great idea if it works.

 

[GrowerGoneWild]

Been looking into doing some cubes i do about 3-4 hundred pounds of oysters around spring time, ive been thinking about running some oysters in my flower room and see if I can naturally raise my co2 using them.

Awesome idea.. I gonna have to look into oyster mushroom farming

 

[Wetdog]

Been looking into doing some cubes i do about 3-4 hundred pounds of oysters around spring time, ive been thinking about running some oysters in my flower room and see if I can naturally raise my co2 using them.

Boy, you stepped in it now. I want to do some oysters in straw this spring and am now waiting for my copy of "Mycellium Running" to arrive. I have it as a PDF, but prefer real books. It shipped 2 days ago, so the questions won't be long in coming. LOL

Wet

 

[cap master]

lol I would love to edibles but room is a factor.

 

[GrowerGoneWild]

Boy, you stepped in it now. I want to do some oysters in straw this spring and am now waiting for my copy of "Mycellium Running" to arrive. I have it as a PDF, but prefer real books. It shipped 2 days ago, so the questions won't be long in coming. LOL

Wet

Dang.. that book looks awesome.. thanks for throwing it out there. Im with ya there on the PDF, I have an e reader but I prefer the hardcopy.

Um can I borrow it?..

 

[cap master]

I second that I do dislike pdf but sometimes when cash is tight its cheaper then hardcopy

 

[Richard Drysift]

Been looking into doing some cubes i do about 3-4 hundred pounds of oysters around spring time, ive been thinking about running some oysters in my flower room and see if I can naturally raise my co2 using them.

That many oysters will increase co2 but just a couple monotubs like I usually run once a year the plants barely seem to notice. I think I get more of a benefit from the co2 emitting from my worm bin than my myco lab.