Growing The Reishi Mushroom With Peroxide

Once they have successfully grown organic mushrooms and other exotic edible plants, many people want to try their hand at growing the reishi mushroom. If you are interested in giving this a try, then you may want to consider using a cultivation method that involves applying peroxide during different stages of growth. It has been very successful in helping to prevent problems such as fox glove, laminar flow hood and some sterilization issues.

As opposed to using pressure sterilization, it is feasible to simply do a 10 minute steaming to make the sawdust spawn medium from the wood pellet fuel, if you use peroxide for a cultivation technique. For growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms, this is one of the fastest ways to make your own mushroom spawn, which may then be cultivated in the home instead of needing to use a laboratory that has been sterilized. In addition, this means that you are not restricted to producing only the amount of spawn which will fit in a small pressure cooker, as you could use most large containers, provided they've got fitted lids.

There are several benefits to growing organic mushrooms utilizing the peroxide form of cultivation, including the fact that you no longer have to heat or sterilize the substrate or supplements for the sawdust cultures to be ready to use. However, in order for the reishi mushroom to be edible and non-toxic, you will need to use peroxide compatible starting materials, such as certain nitrogen supplements and wood pellets for fuel. You can also use plastic buckets that have lids or trash bags rather than using the more expensive bulk substrate, patch filter bags.

A lot of mushrooms require a denser substrate which is achieved through tightly packed sawdust based substrate. Adding peroxide to the cultures helps to keep them from becoming anaerobic (not needing oxygen) as the mushroom mycelium decomposes the peroxide, which then produces oxygen.

Peroxide does kill the reishi mushroom spores so that makes it possible to grow the agar cultures inside the same enclosure or building that is used to fruit the mushrooms, even when the mushrooms create a higher spore load. Another benefit to using peroxide is that mushrooms grown this way do not contain any contaminants and are grown without encouraging the creation of any new type of resistant strains. Most people prefer to use the 3% solution as it contains no odor, and it is non-allergenic, readily available and inexpensive.