Long time since I have posted, but I am hitting up all the forums I know. I wanted to discuss how people are large scale mushroom farming. I am working with gourmet mushrooms, and that is my primary focus, but I would love to learn about large scale psilocybin grows as well.
I have been doing my own small scale mushroom cultivation, and I am starting to think of ways to ramp up my methods. Is there any advice anyone can contribute? Would love to see how you are doing it.
Great topic. I’m going to share with some heavy hitters and see if they chime in. We’re having a great mushroom festival in Washington next month. Lots of big and small cultivators will be presenting and there for conversations.
Mushroom guy at my local farmers market does really well. I’ve visited his grow. It’s basically a pole barn split into two halves, with separate climates. One side grows mycelium in bags and the other side fruits.
Following this
I feel like there’s no way those 5lb bags are the best way to grow at scale. I have no idea what would be a better alternative. Maybe the same concept, but with much bigger bags? But then contams would be verrrrry costly.
the sterility of the bags is important, the environment is not. Barns, moldy mobile homes, abandoned pallet factories condemned due to mold, etc all worked.
two weed toting hippies can do about 1000lb of sub a day using 10# unicorns. Source reliable name brand bags. Two more for harvesting.
bugs can be solved if you use predatory insects geared for oysters, very similar to cannabis ipm
never added more than gypsum as an amendment
the prices of gourmets are going to be near the same as actives, we just aren’t far enough In to 2024 to see that yet…it’s $300/lb wholesale now, but the floor is $75/lb. If you can make actives for $35/lb, then it’s totally possible to try to play. I’m not sure if that’s possible to meet compliance and $35/lb production cost.
extracts will be introduced in a few years in addition to dried homogeneous biomass.
For now the 5lb bags can get alot done. Its definitely faster than totes.
Only thing faster/better is proprietary trays that work in automated machinery. Think of those machines that fill pots with dirt, except it fills trays and layers in spawn. As it goes thru it gets fed into a roll of plastic that can be sealed on both ends and sent down the conveyor line to be placed onto a shelf or rack
are they growing from the tray or is the tray after being loaded in to bags? That is an interesting idea, do you know who is working on this? @Thetetraguy
I think right now there are a lot of cultivators all over the world (I am talking not only psy mushrooms but also about gourmet). I saw one option with plastic bottles but I am not sure if its eco friendly because of plastic use…
Btw, does anyone know any good quality suppliers/manufacturers for bigger scale mushrooms’ cultivation?
Y’all are going to need people to harvest. You can automate production, but you’ll need a meatbag at some point.
Edit: I want to add that harvest is perpetually picked by people, usually on at least two shifts. By the time you’ve checked all your production spaces, others have become ready.
It’s always a race to not allow sporing to occur, as it affects yield directly.
Extraction may change this, allowing you to just do one flush with no qualms about sporing, etc.
As far i see it, the meta will be to do giant indoor fruiting rooms with a shit ton of shelfs and racks.
Just do one flush, then dump it outside into beds to get ur subsequent flushes.
If everything is in a flawless rotation, then going for a second flush is not the best route, simply because ur getting diminishing returns from each flush after the 1st and inside real estate is way more valuable then outside.
You do need perpetual shifts of pickers, but if your just going for 1 flush and strictly just growing biomass for extraction, then the picking can also be automated.
Automation can also take the spent material and redistribute it into your outdoor beds.
A couple million for the mushroom facility, a giant cow farm and a couple hundred acres of grain/feed and a couple of tractors. Is all it would take to basically grow the whole nations demands for actives.
I actually love the idea of tossing the used substrate out for outside flushes, it certainly has been useful in my gardens, but utilizing it specifically for outdoor cultivation would be interesting concept to look into
I was thinking the same thing. you could automate harvest for milled fruits/mycelium, but to get intact fruits is probably gonna have to be done by hand… unless someone comes up with something that can just shear everything off the top of the sub
