Welcome to the mushroom growing adventure! This kit will allow you to easily grow your own mushrooms, whether at home, at school or with friends. Discover the pleasure of watching your oyster mushrooms grow and harvest.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Time Before Harvest: 4 to 6 weeks

Mycelium Conservation
If you do not use it within a week of receiving it, store the mycelium in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Cultivation Steps

Start by cleaning all work surfaces with soapy water as well as your hands and forearms. Work in a clean environment.

Preparation of Bags
Distribute the lime among the 5 bags (one teaspoon per bag). Add 2 liters of water per bag and let the pellets absorb the water (+-5 minutes).
For mini-kits, lime is already included in the pellets. The purpose of lime is to enrich the substrate with calcium and raise the pH (=basify) to limit the development of bacteria and mold. Since lime is a little irritating to sensitive skin, avoid contact or wash your hands afterwards.
Addition of the Mycelium
Add ±300 g of mycelium per bag.
Closure of Bags
Reseal the bags with tape or a sealer.
Blend
Gently mix the bags to evenly distribute the mycelium throughout the substrate.
Colonization
Leave the bags for 2 weeks at around 20°C in the dark to allow the mycelium to properly colonize the substrates.
Aeration
Squeeze the air out of the bag and make a 5-10 cm cut in the side of the bag at the substrate level to allow the oyster mushrooms to develop.
Humidity
Maintain humidity by spraying daily or placing the bag on a large plate with a damp towel underneath.
Growth
Oyster mushrooms will begin to grow from opening in 1 to 2 weeks.
Harvest
Harvest before the caps rise and release their spores. Be careful, they grow quickly! If you harvest them a little later, it's no big deal, but they may be a little less tender and flavorful.

Each Bag Can Produce 2 to 3 Harvests: In total, 600 g of oyster mushrooms per bag, or 3 kg for the 5 bags. After each harvest, let the bag rest for 3-5 days before re-moistening it by immersing the bundle overnight in a basin of water.

To spread out the harvests, place some bales in the refrigerator or in a cooler room after colonization.

Objects made of mycelium?

You can also try the " mycomaterials " mode to make mycelium objects by choosing the "reishi" variety. More information on our mycomaterials tutorial .

Choose the Mini or the Maxi-Kit DIY?

Mini-Kit DIY	Maxi-Kit DIY
✔️ 1 bag with breathable micro-filter	✔️ 5 bags with breathable micro-filter
✔️1 kg of straw pellets (certified organic) and lime	✔️ 5 kg of straw pellets (certified organic) and slaked lime
✔️ 300 g of oyster mushroom mycelium	✔️ 1.5 kg of oyster mushroom mycelium
✔️ Instructions for use	✔️ User manual
	✔️ Pair of gloves
	✔️ 1 mini-spray
👉 Harvest potential: 600 gr of oyster mushrooms	👉 Harvest potential: 3 kg of oyster mushrooms

Precautions

Work as cleanly as possible: wash work surfaces and your hands before starting.
Lime, although slaked, can be irritating to the hands. Avoid direct contact or wash your hands immediately.
Times may vary depending on temperatures. Cold slows down the metabolism of the fungus, which can influence the distribution of harvests.
It is recommended to use the mycelium all at once. If you still plan to use it several times, be sure to work cleanly and close the bag tightly after use. Store it in the refrigerator and use it within 2-3 weeks.

Important Note: Most mycelia are produced to order. Depending on available stocks, delivery time may take 1 to 3 weeks.

Educational Pack

You want to organize an activity with your students or children about mushrooms, this is the perfect kit.

Pack Pédagogique Champignon

Educational Objectives

Understand what a mushroom is and its role in nature.
Explore the life cycle and metabolism of mushrooms.
Discover the different kingdoms of life and the classification of mushrooms.
Raise participants’ awareness of the importance of fungi in ecosystems.
Identify the main families of mushrooms.

Topics Covered

Definition of a Mushroom
Understand that the mushroom is the fruit of a mycelium, and not a plant.
Metabolism of Fungi
Study how mushrooms feed and grow.
Mushroom Reproduction Cycle
Observe and explain the stages of mushroom growth.
Kingdoms of the Living
Locate mushrooms in biological classification.
Ecological Role
Discuss the importance of fungi in ecosystems, as decomposers and symbionts.
Fungi Families
Discover the characteristics of the main families: Basidiomycetes (like oyster mushrooms), Ascomycetes, and Zygomycetes. Understand the differences in functioning between saprophytic, symbiotic and parasitic fungi.

Mushroom Science Project Ideas for Kids

Compare the Environments

Obtain two mushroom grow kits of the same type and slightly modify their growing environments. The main factors for mushroom growth are humidity, light and air flow. You can try changing the amount of humidification a kit has, changing the amount of sunlight a kit receives, or changing the amount of airflow a kit has. The kit that receives different conditions is the experimental kit. Keep the other kit in ideal conditions as a control and watch what happens! Remember, only change one factor at a time to get the best possible data! Does this change the number of mushrooms that grow? Does this change the distribution of mushrooms on the block? Do the mushrooms in the experimental kit look different? Record your observations!

Describing and Identifying Mushrooms

Although you already know what type of mushrooms your kit will grow, you can work on the mushroom identification process using your kit. Photograph or draw your mushrooms through the different stages of growth, and demonstrate how to use the following techniques to identify mushrooms:

Look at the mushroom: What color is the cap? How is the foot formed? Is the hat convex, flat, conical?

Look under the cap for spore-producing structures. Does the fungus have lamellae, pores, or teeth? Does the fungus have warts, a veil, a ring?

Touch the mushroom: Is the top of the mushroom cap smooth? Velvety? Dry ? Scaly? Is the foot (or stipe) downy or fibrous?

Smell the mushroom: Many mushrooms are identified by their smell. These smells may be the normal mushroom smell that we are all accustomed to with button mushrooms, or they may smell rotten or like almonds, or even like cinnamon.

A spore print

Remove the stem from the hat and place the hat slat side down on a sheet of paper. Some mushrooms (like shiitake) produce white spore prints, so you may want to make one on white paper and one on colored paper. Cover the mushroom caps with a bowl or other lid to prevent drafts from moving the spores and leave them for a few hours. After waiting, you should be able to carefully lift the mushroom caps and see the spores left behind on the paper! Mushrooms leave spore prints of many different colors, so it's a useful technique!

You can also find a wild mushroom (during fall or spring) and compare your observations between your home grown mushrooms and wild mushrooms! Please note: Wild mushrooms should never be consumed without 100% positive identification!

Reproduce the mycelium

Take a nice piece of mycelium and mix it with different substrates such as coffee grounds, pasteurized straw, cardboard, wood shavings, etc. See how to react and how the mycelium manages to colonize or not these different environments.

Observe under the microscope

If you have a microscope, you can observe the "hyphae" (filaments of the mycelium), or the spores of the mushroom. Compare with other varieties of mushrooms collected in the wild for example.

These are just a few ideas for mushroom science projects; use your imagination! Be curious! Ask questions, and see if your mushroom growing kits can help answer them! Mushrooms have much to teach us about their life cycle, their ecosystem, and the global environment. But above all, have fun!

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