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As a rule, only those who have already become adept at breeding other mushrooms, which are easier to cultivate, try to grow mushrooms at home or in the country. For beginners, it is suggested to begin with mastering the method of breeding champignons or oyster mushrooms. If you have at least the slightest experience in mushroom growing and now intend to master the technique of growing mushrooms, first decide which variety to choose for these purposes.

Among the edible and suitable for cultivation, there are two types: summer and winter.

You will learn about the basic methods of how to grow honey mushrooms at home and on a personal plot by reading this article.

What summer mushrooms look like

This mushroom is quite widespread, and mushroom pickers collect it in almost all forests. Honey mushrooms grow on dead wood, as a rule, in numerous groups. Walking through the forest, you can often see a yellowish-golden cap formed by many individual mushrooms on fallen deciduous trees or stumps. This picture is observed from June to September.

It is a small mushroom in size, the diameter of the cap usually ranges from 20-60 mm, the shape is flat-convex, the edges are omitted. There is a characteristic tubercle in the center of the cap. The surface color of the honeydew is yellow-brown with specific watery lighter circles. The pulp is quite thin, tender, white in color. Leg length - 35-50 mm, thickness - 4 mm. The leg is equipped with a ring of the same color as the cap, which can quickly disappear, although a clear mark will still remain.

Close attention must be paid to the plates, which are first creamy in the edible honey fungus, and brown during maturation, which distinguishes them from poisonous false honey fungi. The plates of the latter are first gray-yellow, and then dark, greenish or olive-brown.

These photos show what summer mushrooms look like:

The taste of the mushroom is very high. The smell is strong and pleasant. Hats can be stored after drying.

Legs, as a rule, do not go to food due to their rigidity. On an industrial scale, honey mushrooms are not bred, because the mushroom is perishable, requiring quick processing, and besides, it cannot be transported. But lone mushroom growers appreciate the honey mushroom in Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, etc. and willingly cultivate it.

The following describes how you can grow mushrooms in your garden plot.

How can you grow summer mushrooms on the site on stumps

Dead wood is used as a substrate for growing summer mushrooms, and mycelium is usually purchased in the form of a paste in tubes. Although you can use your own planting material - an infusion of mature mushroom caps or pieces of wood infected with a fungus.

Before growing honey mushrooms in the country, you need to prepare mycelium. The infusion is made from hats with dark brown plates, which must be crushed and placed in a container with water (it is recommended to use rainwater) for 12-24 hours. Then the resulting mixture is filtered through cheesecloth and the wood is abundantly moistened with it, having previously made cuts on the ends and sides.

In addition to the infusion on wood, you can decompose mature caps with plates down, removing them after a day or two. With this method of growing honey agarics, mycelium grows for a long time and the first harvest can be expected to be obtained only at the end of the next season.

To make the process go faster, you should use pieces of wood with sprouted mycelium, which can be found in the forest, starting in June. Pay attention to tree stumps or fallen tree trunks. Pieces should be taken from areas of intensive growth of mycelium, i.e.from where there are most of all white and creamy threads (hyphae), and also exudes a characteristic strong mushroom aroma.

Pieces of fungus-infected wood of different sizes are inserted into holes cut in a prepared piece of wood. Then these places are covered with moss, bark, etc. So that when growing summer mushrooms, the mycelium more reliably moved to the main wood, the pieces can be nailed and covered with a film. Then the first mushrooms are formed at the beginning of next summer.

Regardless of the method of infection, wood of any deciduous species is suitable for growing honey agarics on stumps. The length of the segments is 300-350 mm, the diameter is also any. The stumps of fruit trees, which do not need to be uprooted, can also act in this capacity, since they will fall apart in 4-6 years, being completely destroyed by the fungus.

On freshly cut wood and stumps, infestation can be carried out without special preparation. If the wood has been stored for some time and has time to dry out, then the segments are kept in water for 1-2 days, and the stumps are poured over it. Infection for growing mushrooms in the country can be done at any time throughout the growing season. An obstacle to this is only too hot dry weather. However, be that as it may, the optimal time for infection is spring or early autumn.

The most commonly used wood for infestation with honeydew in central Russia is birch, in which a lot of moisture remains after felling, and a reliable shell in the form of birch bark protects the wood from drying out. In addition to birch, alder, aspen, poplar, etc. are used, but summer honey grows worse on coniferous wood.

Before growing mushrooms, watch this video:

Sections of infected wood are installed in a vertical position in previously dug holes with a distance of 500 mm between them. Some of the wood should protrude from the ground by about 150 mm.

To grow honey mushrooms on stumps correctly, the ground must be watered abundantly with water and sprinkled with a layer of sawdust in order to prevent moisture evaporation. For such areas, shaded areas under trees or specially designed shelters should be chosen.

Optimal results can be obtained by placing the infested wood in the ground in greenhouses or greenhouses where the moisture level can be regulated. Under such conditions, it takes 7 months to form fruit bodies, although if the weather is unfavorable, they can develop in the second year.

If you grew mushrooms in the country as the correct technology suggests, the mushrooms will bear fruit twice a year (in early summer and autumn) for 5-7 years (if pieces of wood with a diameter of 200-300 mm were used, if the diameter is larger, then fruiting may continue longer).

The yield of the fungus is determined by the quality of the wood, weather conditions, and the degree of growth of the mycelium. Crop volumes can fluctuate greatly. So, from one segment, you can get both 300 g per year and 6 kg per summer. As a rule, the first fruiting is not too rich, but the next harvest is 3-4 times more.

It is possible to grow summer mushrooms on the site on forestry waste (small trunks, branches, etc.), from which beams with a diameter of 100-250 mm are formed, infect with mycelium using any of the described methods and buried in the ground to a depth of 200-250 mm, covering the top with turf. The work area is protected from wind and sun.

Since honey fungus does not belong to mycorrhizal fungi and grows only on dead wood, its cultivation can be carried out without fear of harming living trees.

Details about growing honey agaric are described in this video:

Honey mushroom is just as tasty a mushroom as it is undeservedly overlooked by mushroom growers. The outlined cultivation technology needs to be fine-tuned on a case-by-case basis so that hobbyist mushroom growers have ample opportunity to be creative with experimentation.

The following describes the technology of growing honey agarics at home for beginners.

The technology of growing winter mushrooms at home

The cap of the winter honeydew (velvety-footed flammulina) is flat, covered with mucus, small in size - only 20-50 mm in diameter, sometimes it grows up to 100 mm. The color of the cap is yellowish or creamy, in the center it may be brownish.Cream-colored plates are wide and few. The pulp is yellowish. The leg is 50-80 mm long and 5-8 mm thick, strong, springy, light with yellowish above, and brown below, possibly black-brown (on this basis, it is easy to distinguish this type of honeydew from others). The base of the peduncle is hairy-velvety.

The winter mushroom is widespread in natural conditions in Europe, Asia, North America, Australia and Africa. This wood-destroying fungus grows in large groups, mainly on stumps and fallen trunks of deciduous trees or on weakened living trees (usually aspens, poplars, willows). In central Russia, most likely it can be found in September - November, and in the southern regions even in December.

Artificial cultivation of this variety of mushrooms began in Japan several centuries ago and was called "endokitake". However, both the quality and the volume of the harvest when growing winter mushrooms on wooden chocks were very low. In the mid 50s. in Japan patented the method of cultivation of the same name on wood waste, after which the cultivation of flammulina became more and more popular. Currently, winter honeydew is in third place in the world in terms of production. Above are only champignon (1st place) and oyster mushrooms (2nd place).

Winter honeydew has undeniable advantages (winter harvest in the absence of wild competitors in the markets, ease of manufacture and low cost of the substrate, short growing cycle (2.5 months), disease resistance). But there are also disadvantages (high sensitivity to climatic conditions, in particular to temperature and the presence of fresh air, a limited choice of methods and techniques of cultivation, the need for sterile conditions) .And all this must be taken into account before growing mycelium honey agaric.

Although honey mushroom takes the third place in industrial production, it is relatively little known among amateur mushroom growers, as well as among mushroom pickers.

Since flammulina belongs to mycorrhizal fungi, i.e. is capable of parasitizing living trees, it should be cultivated exclusively indoors.

Growing winter mushrooms at home can be carried out both by the extensive method (that is, using pieces of wood) and by intensive (breeding in a nutrient medium, which is based on sawdust of hardwoods with various additives: straw, sunflower husk, brewer's grain, corn, buckwheat husk , bran, cake). The type of additive used depends on the availability of the appropriate waste on the farm.

The proportions of the necessary ingredients for growing mushrooms at home can be different, taking into account the specifics of the nutrient medium. Sawdust with bran, which is a rich organic additive, is mixed in a ratio of 3: 1, sawdust with brewer's grains - 5: 1, when mixing sunflower husks and buckwheat husks, the same ratio is used. Straw, corn, sunflower husks, buckwheat husks are mixed with sawdust in a 1: 1 ratio.

As practice shows, these are quite effective mixtures that have shown good results in the field. If you do not use additives, then the yields on empty sawdust will be small, and the development of mycelium and fruiting will slow down significantly. In addition, straw, corn, sunflower husks, if desired, can be used as the main nutrient medium, where sawdust or other substrates are not needed.

It is recommended to add 1% gypsum and 1% superphosphate to the nutrient medium for growing domestic mushrooms. The moisture content of the resulting mixture should be 60-70%. Of course, you should not use ingredients if they are of questionable quality or with traces of mold.

After the substrate is ready, it is subjected to heat treatment. This can be sterilization, steaming or boiling, pasteurization, etc.To grow honey mushrooms, sterilization is performed by placing the culture medium in plastic bags or glass jars with a capacity of 0.5-3 liters.

The heat treatment process for cans is similar to conventional home canning. Sometimes heat treatment is carried out before laying the substrate in jars, but in this case the containers themselves must also be thermally treated, then the protection of the nutrient medium from mold is more reliable.

If the substrate is planned to be laid in boxes, then heat treatment is carried out in advance. The compost placed in the boxes is lightly tamped.

If we talk about the key conditions for growing domestic mushrooms honey agaric (temperature, humidity, care), then it is necessary to strictly adhere to certain rules, on which the success of the entire event will largely depend.

Heat-treated containers with a nutrient medium are cooled to 24-25 ° C, after which the substrate is sown with grain mycelium, the weight of which is 5-7% of the compost weight. In the center of the jar or bag, holes are made in advance (even before heat treatment) to the entire thickness of the nutrient medium using a wooden or iron stick with a diameter of 15-20 mm. Then the mycelium will quickly spread throughout the substrate. After adding the mycelium, the jars or bags are covered with paper.

For growing honey agarics, you need to create optimal conditions. The mycelium grows in the substrate at a temperature of 24-25 ° C and takes 15-20 days for this (the characteristics of capacity, substrate and varieties of honey fungus play a decisive role for this). At this stage, the mushroom does not need light, but care must be taken that the nutrient medium does not dry out, i.e. room humidity should be approximately 90%. Containers with a substrate are covered with burlap or paper, which are periodically moistened (however, they should not be allowed to get abundantly wet).

When the mycelium grows in the substrate, the cover is removed from the containers and moved to a lighted room with a temperature of 10-15 ° C, at which the maximum yield can be obtained. After 10-15 days from the moment the cans were moved to a lighted room (25-35 days from the moment the mycelium was sown), a bunch of thin legs with small caps begins to appear from the containers - these are the rudiments of the fruiting bodies of the fungus. As a rule, the crop is harvested after another 10 days.

Bunches of honey agarics are carefully cut off at the base of the legs, and the stub remaining in the substrate is removed from the nutrient medium, best of all, with the help of wooden tweezers. Then the surface of the substrate does not hurt to moisten a little from the spray. The next crop can be harvested in two weeks. Thus, the moment the mycelium is introduced before the first harvest, it will take 40-45 days.

The intensity of the appearance of mushrooms and their quality depend on the composition of the nutrient medium, heat treatment technology, the type of container used and other growing conditions. For 2-3 waves of fruiting (60-65 days), 500 g of mushrooms can be obtained from 1 kg of substrate. Under favorable conditions - 1.5 kg of mushrooms from a 3-liter can. If you are not at all lucky, then 200 g of mushrooms are collected from a three-liter jar.

Watch a video about growing mushrooms at home to better understand the technology of the process: