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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 65: Growing Mushrooms with Nick Van Halteren
Ever wondered how mushrooms thrive? Our dive into mushroom cultivation uncovers the meticulous balance of art and science behind the process. Mushroom expert Nick shares his transition from mechanical engineering to mushroom farming, emphasizing the importance of environmental controls like carbon dioxide, moisture, and temperature. Explore the nuances of growing mediums such as peat moss and straw, and learn how strategic adjustments can lead to the perfect harvest. We draw parallels between nature's cycles and the rhythms of mushroom farming, highlighting how consistency and cost-effectiveness can enhance production.
Finally, we journey into the realm of natural health with insights from Bill, who successfully managed his blood pressure with Chaga tea. Explore the intriguing potential of combining green tea with Chaga for enhanced wellness. Our conversation also touches on the medicinal benefits of enoki, lion's mane, and oyster mushrooms, whether grown commercially or at home. With innovative techniques and the growing accessibility of these health-boosting fungi, we invite you to explore the intersection of sustainable agriculture and natural remedies.
Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 4:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes All the other guys would go golfing Me, and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing.
Speaker 2:To scientists. But now that we're reforesting and everything, it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 4:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside.
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Speaker 6:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 6:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy.
Speaker 6:We can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. We always appreciate it All around the world, all those guests that listen to us in Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana and across Canada, of course, and as always, if you have any questions or you have any suggestions for shows, we're more than happy to listen to the questions and find out what we can. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time, but we appreciate that and it's always good to hear from our listeners, canada and worldwide. Now, this morning I was out, same as usual.
Speaker 6:Most mornings I was out first thing, at first light walking, ensign Gunner, my chocolate lab, and we're seeing all kind of mushrooms in the fall this time of year and I know I'm picking up garrett, my son, who is working the potash mine in saskatchewan this morning from the airport, after we're done here and some of the spots that we're out with, we're seeing loads and loads of turkey tail and birch polypore mushrooms. But that's the time of the year that these sort of things come out and, for those that look, those are a couple of medicinal mushrooms that people utilize for a number of different purposes and it just seems to be an abundant year with the way the conditions are, at least in my area, and I've harvested quite a bit of birch polypore already as well, as I've got a harvest coming up of turkey tail like I haven't seen before. This entire ash log is just covered with it. So we'll be getting some of that. And I was out with Josh when we were cutting and splitting and hauling firewood and just happened to cross a huge turkey tail.
Speaker 6:But this morning we're taping, and it's early in October. We're taping with a mushroom expert, nick. Nick, tell us a bit about yourself, like where you're from, for example. Nick, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks for the invite, jerry I am from. Basically I grew up in Richmond Hill and met my wife, actuallyerson, and her father started Greenwood Mushroom Farm. I went to school for mechanical engineering and worked actually for a magna company for about a year and then had an opportunity to work at the mushroom farm and I originally was hired as basically to start a new part of the mushroom farm, which is to grow oyster mushrooms. And so there was a farm that used to be at Brock Road and the Fifth Concession, just north of Pickering, that had been there for already probably about 40 years, and when the government expropriated the land actually expropriated the mushroom farm as part of the airport lands, and we rented or my father-in-law rented that property to basically increase the size of the mushroom farm. At that point in time it was in the early 80s and so, anyways, anyways, the oyster mushrooms uh, yeah, I started growing those, uh did that for about a year.
Speaker 3:Uh, we did it in a different kind of a setup that, uh, most people would do today.
Speaker 3:It was done, um, very similar to regular commercial mushroom production which is on a shelf, and if you know, anybody has seen a mushroom farm, commercial farm they grow them on shelves about five feet wide. The compost in the shelf is about 12 inches deep and they grow, you know, right across the surface. Typically, specialty mushrooms are grown in bags and then kind of harvested all the way around the bag and in lower volumes. This was actually a setup that actually worked really well, except for the fact that the oyster mushrooms are an open mushroom and, uh, the strain that we were using was actually because it's when I say open, when you look at an oyster mushroom or oyster, you can see how it has the. The gills are all exposed right the underside of the, the underneath the cap. Yeah, and because of that they released, you know, when it in production they release a lot of spores and unfortunately, yeah, we had some health issues because of that and we actually had to get out of oyster mushroom growing and they just moved that production to white button mushrooms.
Speaker 6:Right so, and I know like all things happen for a reason, right so, and I know like all things happen for a reason. And the good Lord had a scene together last week at a faith breakfast where, first time I ever met you, yeah, and you said you were the fun guy yeah, fun guy, because you're a mushroom guy. So I said, oh, this is kind of interesting. I happen to be looking for somebody with some mushroom expertise that was in the business to talk about it. And so you've given us a bit of a background through your wife that you got involved in growing the mushrooms. And now you said you were growing originally oyster mushrooms. Yeah, now we had a international chef on.
Speaker 6:We talked about, oh, medicinal herbs and spices for cooking and things like that. A lot of people don't realize. Things like rosemary is supposed to be able to assist with memory, or basil, for example, is another one that helps with anxiety and neurological issues as well helps with better neuro. So we talked about that. But one of the things that he was looking for was Antonio was looking for was oyster mushrooms, and he was getting his oyster mushrooms out of Chicago because there wasn't a good source of in the area that he could find a good quality and a good regular consistency for oyster mushrooms. Now, what type for oyster mushrooms? Now, what type of oyster mushrooms were they? Because I know there's different types. And lately I've been picking up we pick up from another mushroom farm pink oysters and I saute them with a little bit of butter and freshly chopped garlic and they're spectacular as a part of a regular meal. But what type of oysters were you growing at that time, nick?
Speaker 3:You know, I'm actually not sure of the type of strain they were called, but I mean there's so many different varieties of oyster mushrooms, right? And so I mean, at that point in time, there are companies that produce what they call the spawn and what they do is they basically have grain that they sterilize and at that point in time they were producing this. It was a darker brown oyster mushroom. Oh yeah, I know what you mean. Producing this, it was a darker brown, uh, oyster mushroom and it was, oh yeah, I know, yeah, so, so I I'm not sure if, other than it was a dark brown strain, um, but they didn't specify.
Speaker 3:But then, after, after, uh, the issues that people had with the production of, uh, you know the the excess amount of spores, then to other varieties that had, uh, let's sporeless, or you know the excess amount of spores, then they went to other varieties that had, let's say, sporeless or you know less spores. It's kind of like you get the seedless watermelon, yeah, same kind of idea. They said, okay, well, they have less spores, so they're, you know, safer for people to work with.
Speaker 6:So maybe, nick, we can just kind of let our listeners know Spores, I've talked to a number of different mushrooms, whether it's turkey tail, and the medicinal applications and utilization for things like that, but maybe you can just kind of give us a breakdown of the main components of a mushroom you know, the mycelium, the fruiting body and the spores. Maybe just kind of let our listeners know exactly from yours what the main components of a mushroom are, or a fungi well, basically, I mean, are you talking about, like, what material the mushrooms grow in, or the basic of mushroom?
Speaker 6:so the roots of it would be the mycelium right yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 3:so I mean, basically, when you're uh for for production of mushrooms I mean when you go on uh for for production of mushrooms, I mean when you go on uh YouTube and different things, like if you want to produce your own mushrooms, uh, obviously the spores are kind of like seeds and uh, I mean you have to have enough spores, uh, to kind of get something growing in the right, uh kind of a growing substrate, Right and uh, so the mycelium just becomes the uh, the roots of a, in the end, mushrooms. But basically what happened?
Speaker 6:what happens is you're you're getting that root or mycelium to grow through the substrate and then the substrate, so people understand it's just the, the growing material that it grows in, and I think you mentioned the grain spawn was what you were growing in mostly.
Speaker 3:Well, what happens is the grain spawn is basically a sterilized grain and it's used as basically a carrying substrate that you can broadcast. So you've got these points where the mushroom mycelium will start growing off of and then you distribute that through the substrate. Now the substrate is made of basically the main components of a substrate For white button mushrooms it's straw, chicken litter, corn cobs, and then they use some urea and we also used at the windmill farms a green mushroom farm hay and you basically have to make a nitrogen, you know, carbon balanced substrate, substrate, that that is, you know, suitable for growing mushrooms, and it goes through a whole process.
Speaker 3:It's uh right uh in europe and in canada or united states they have kind of two different uh processes of uh growing or making that substrate and they're done, done differently and and I mean in the end it's the same kind of material, same kind of spawn, it's just the. You know, you add some fertilizer and different things to it and and you grow. You grow the mushroom, I see them in the substrate, and then the process is we control the carbon dioxide, the moisture content and the air temperature in the rooms. When you're growing mushroom substrate, put a layer of peat moss on top of uh that grown in mushroom substrate and uh you'll have. The mycelium will actually grow into the casing we call the peat moss. It's a casing material and when you see it's kind of white and growing just through the surface uh.
Speaker 3:We change the air temperature, drop it, you know, like uh five degrees celsius and uh drop the carbon dioxide level, uh down in the room and how fast and how. You know much change you make in the air temperature and the compost temperature or substrate temperature. That actually determines the uh, the size of the mushrooms, that actually determines the size of the mushrooms. And so, yeah, my father and I used to say it's an art and a science. You can't just say, oh, I'm just going to put a computer program and just ignore all the conditions that are happening. You have to actually kind of make all things happen at the same time.
Speaker 6:So when you lower the carbon dioxide level, is it to a point where you need to wear breathing equipment when you go into the rooms?
Speaker 3:No, it's actually. It's the opposite, because you're actually increasing the oxygen content. So what happens is when mushrooms, or the compost sorry, the mushroom, my ceiling is growing, it's breaking down the organic matter and and it's producing a CO2, like carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide in the room goes way up.
Speaker 3:It can go up to, you know, 5,000 parts per million, and so you drop it down to let's it's basically, you're giving the uh, this, the whole mycelium, the idea that it's dying and it has to produce. Okay, yeah, it has to produce fruit, so it's kind of like in the fall, like you were talking about. So why, why are we getting this? Uh, you know why do the mushrooms start growing and you start seeing them in the fall? The temperatures are dropping at nighttime, you're you're getting you fall, the temperatures are dropping at nighttime, you're getting you know the moisture, uh, you're getting, you know, really, really fresh air. Uh, so all those combined to make, uh, the mushroom production happen interesting.
Speaker 6:So and I know I happen to read some material from another guest we had john bell on um from the sporting dogs association, but he had picked up some mushrooms that he picked when he was in vegas capsules that he was taking and they were growing the material there in in wheat, stalk and potato starch okay, which I found interesting, and I didn't realize that they would grow it in potato starch. But according to the jars and the containers, that's what they grew their material in, which was interesting in itself. So there's different substrates that you can utilize, can you not? Like I just mentioned the potato starch and you mentioned about the grain, the purified grain, to make sure it was contaminant-free, right? Yeah, there's other growth materials that can be utilized.
Speaker 3:I mean, again, it depends on the type of mushroom that you're growing. So oyster mushrooms actually need a less, let's say, sophisticated type of mushroom substrate or compost. Okay, and white button mushrooms, but when we were actually, you know, growing it, we were using the same mushroom compost for growing oysters as we did for the white button mushrooms.
Speaker 3:Oyster mushrooms actually grow quite nicely on wood, so they have different types of wood for shiitake and for oyster mushrooms that they'll use for the substrate. They'll break it down and they can get shavings from a lumber mill. You're getting oak and that kind of stuff and then they'll use that and and obviously it's uh, if it's shavings and it's something that they're just trying to get rid of, then then you got actually a cheap source of, uh, you know, substrate, whereas the straw, uh, it, it can be fairly expensive and and uh, and you but the but. But the advantage of the straw as a basis for, you know, let's say, oyster mushroom compost is that it's consistent and so you can have. You know, if you're trying to do it commercially, you can say okay and do it all year round, like we do in a commercial white button mushrooms, right? So you want something that you can have there and produce it all year round.
Speaker 6:So. So once you use the substrate, the material to grow it in, can it only be used once or can you reuse it over and over and over again?
Speaker 3:So what happens in the with with the mushroom substrate, when, when I first started so I was originally with the oyster mushrooms and then got involved with the white button mushrooms, and it used to be that they would produce mushrooms for a period of five weeks of production.
Speaker 3:So what happens is you'll pick, let's say, three pounds per square foot in the first week, and once all those mushrooms are off, then you'll start seeing new, like what they call pins, just like little small pinheads coming up. And then that's what we call pins, like just like a little small pinheads coming up, and then that's what we call the second break. And the second break would come off in the next week and you'd be maybe two pounds per square foot, and then the next week after that, the third, what we call the third break, would you know, produce, uh, let's say, three quarters of a pound, uh, of mushrooms, okay, and then, if we kept it for the fourth break, it might produce, you know, half a pound, and then if you kept it for the fifth, it might produce a quarter pound, right. So you say, oh, they're free mushrooms, right, and? And and you know, because you already have the material in the beds and everything's been done. But the problem is the quality. As they get older, like when you go from the, like the number, number of what they call number ones, or how long the mushrooms will last as they become older. One, the production drops and two, the quality becomes, becomes less.
Speaker 3:So what, what happened uh now? Uh, we actually only pick for two, two breaks, two weeks. They only pick the first break and the second break. And they, what they do? They, they use live steam and they'll take the room up to 140 degrees and kill off all of my ceiling and stuff that's in the room, and then it gets uh, taken out of the room and uh, you know, arts, let's say mushroom arts, uh landscape supply or uh farmers will take it and they'll spread it on their field. It's like a fantastic growth media oh, very interesting.
Speaker 6:And so you mentioned about the wood chips for for oyster mushrooms is a good. If they change the type of wood chip, so instead of oak they're using maple or using ash, or they're using pine or or spruce or something like that, does that change anything with the mushrooms?
Speaker 3:you know what I I'm not sure of because I didn't grow with uh on wood chips, okay, but I do know like it would be the same thing as uh with with, you know, regular mushrooms. Like when you use more hay versus straw, it changes your growing dynamics. But but the issue is, I mean the, if you're growing, uh, a white button, like sorry, like a garrick us by spores, whatever it's, it's a white button mushroom. It's still the same mushroom, it's just, you know, maybe growing a different type of material, but then right, yes, the reason I asked that, nick is because I know.
Speaker 6:I realistically, comparatively speaking, I know know nothing about mushrooms as you're telling and giving us all this information. I find it very fascinating. But the one that I do have a little bit of expertise would be the Chaga mushroom, which is grown predominantly and all the research comes off birch trees, because it extracts specific components out of the birch bark itself triterpenes and betulin and betulinic acid and then the mushroom itself then converts into things that are beneficial to people. But I had no idea about the oyster mushrooms or the shiitakes and things like that, because shiitake is, and the matakis are, another medicinal mushroom that has a lot of benefits in it as well, and I didn't know if growing it on different material extracted different things.
Speaker 3:But I don't know if there's any expertise in those fields, if they've done any research and that kind of stuff I'm not aware of it, but I would imagine there there is so much uh information, phds and all the stuff done, all sorts of things, right, because when, when I was, um, right, when we were growing mushrooms there, there was uh in vineland, uh, like, actually, uh, guelph university had its own uh research extension, uh in vineland, and I mean vineland worked with, uh, you know, the grape production and peaches and all the fruits and stuff like that, but they also had a specific uh actually for growing mushrooms and uh, what, what?
Speaker 3:What has happened over time is, um, mushroom farms used to be, you know, some mom and pop operations and basically in order to uh, you know, to stay a viable, viable companies. I know from my father-in-law, like he started off, as you know, a small mushroom farm growing maybe 20,000 pounds a week, and you know what, the only way I'm going to be able to have weekends off is if I grow, right, and not that he ever took a weekend off, because as you grow, right, not that he ever took a weekend off, because as you grow you get more and more headaches right, and he just loved his farm and the operation, but now the mushroom farm is basically producing over 600,000 pounds a week, so it's a big change from 20,000 pounds a week.
Speaker 6:Yeah. So then, one of the things, these mushrooms, the white buttons or the oysters, they're not grown in manure as a substrate, as a growth material, right?
Speaker 3:They will use. And this is the issue. It's a specific, let's say, manure, but it would be horse stable bedding. Basically, you can't just say, oh, we just go to a pile of even horse stable bedding and it's been sitting around for three months or six months, stable bedding and it's been sitting around for, you know, like three months or six months. It's basically they're looking for uh straw that the horses have uh beat on that give that, that gives urea, okay, and um and and the uh, you know basically the uh, whatever the horses put out the other side too as well, and that just becomes a source of nitrogen and and different, different things that are available to help in the composting process. And once it's gone through the composting process, like you, like I said, use a straw, like they don't need stable bedding, so they'll call it a synthetic compost. So we'll just take hay and straw and urea and corn cobs and blend that. But typically I the stable bedding is a cheap source of straw and also urea and also chicken litter. Sometimes they use turkey litter if they get stuck, but they have to be very careful with that. But those are different ingredients.
Speaker 3:And then, like I said, you have to get that CN ratio all the right amount, otherwise you get into potential issues for disease. Okay, one of the big diseases that happens, uh, in a mushroom farm is, uh, it's called a green mold and, uh, we actually had green mold. Uh, you know, uh, disease uh at the farm about, I, I guess, four times like in a very large extent, to such a large extent that, you know, basically, one time my father would say, well, you know what, it's, three more months and I have to pull the plug, right, go and call the bankruptcy, right, go bankrupt basically. And so, fortunately, it turned around in the next month and we've had, you know, like I said, there was four times in our existence that we almost went bankrupt.
Speaker 3:And that's the challenge with when you're in a large scale production facility that, uh, you know things can go very well and then they go very, very bad. So it's uh, and and the challenge is, uh, that a lot of the changes in the in the mushroom farm, uh, we've gone to, you know, like it's all um, aluminum and, uh, you know, concrete and and the drainage and all that stuff is all done so that the contamination, contamination, you can actually control it right and that's, that's the change of the whole whole system is, you know, hepa filters and it's, it's, it's totally changed so that, um, the systems are, are a lot more controllable.
Speaker 2:So if they have a disease issue, you can, you know, isolate it or, uh, you know, just control stuff that way yeah back in 2016, frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
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Speaker 6:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health Wellness. Okay, here we are in Lindsay with Bill, who's actually? This gentleman has given blood over 230 times 233, yeah 233 and that's amazing, and you've had some success with Chaga. Tell us what you're dealing with and what you did and how you what you used.
Speaker 5:Well, I had mild high blood. Mild high blood pressure wasn't very really high, but I was on medication for a few years and then I quit drinking coffee and started drinking this tea, the combination tea, the green and the shaga Right, and my medication is gone.
Speaker 6:Your medication's gone, gone and you couldn't give blood during the other times. Yeah, I could.
Speaker 5:Oh you could I could, yeah, yeah, so, but a few times the machine kicked me out. Oh you could I could, yeah, yeah, so, but a few times the machine kicked me out. Oh, yeah, so, but now it doesn't anymore.
Speaker 6:So you think the green tea and the chaga helped normalize your blood pressures?
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, oh very good, because it wouldn't be just stopping coffee, it would have to be something else.
Speaker 6:And that's the only thing. You did different, yep.
Speaker 5:Well, thank you very much for that, and my blood pressure is probably that of a 40-year-old man and I'm 71. Oh, very good.
Speaker 6:Well, that's good to hear. Thank you very much for that, no problem. Okay, we interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode, and you mentioned the HEPA filters.
Speaker 6:Now I know I spoke with Andrew, who's a mushroom grower as well with andrew, who's a mushroom grower as well, and they um grow a number of white buttons, as well as the different strains of oyster mushrooms, whether it's the king oysters, which, if people haven't tried a king oyster, it's. Once you try a king, you don't want to go back. It's almost like eating scallops in my opinion. Yeah, if you cook them up the same way, they have the kind of same texture consistency of a scallop. And if you cook them up the same way, they have the kind of same texture consistency of a scallop. And if you cook them with the garlic and the saute them with butter, they're really good. But he was saying that when you talk about hepa filters and they use a lot of the the filters to filtrate out a lot of the spores in a lot of the growing rooms, do they not? In order to?
Speaker 6:because he was saying that um, what he coughs up spore balls or something like that from his lungs, because they get into the lungs and a lot of the workers that he has at the farm what they do is they all wear breathing masks to eliminate the spores that they breathe in, correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and, like I said, when I was growing oyster mushrooms and ours were done on, you know, like I said, it was done on a really, really high volume compared to the airspace. So like when people are growing them on bags, now they wouldn't have the number of open, let's say, mushrooms that we had and king oyster mushrooms. They are an open mushroom as well and I know what a lot of people have done. You know, it's kind of like when you have stormwater in Toronto. It's a lot of, you know, septic systems, their sewage systems, overflow and so basically, they call it dilution is the solution. So so that's kind of what a lot of farms do they? They put in a lot of fresh air and then, uh, you know, or recirculate the air in the room through a HEPA filter to uh eliminate, like you said, the spores that are running around in the room, and the other thing they can do is keep the humidity really high, right, that helps the spores just to drop out of the air.
Speaker 6:I know I have a curing room where I cure my chaga in and I have air purifiers in there constantly going to eliminate any of the spores that may potentially come out, and so we utilize that. You talk about growing oyster mushrooms in bags. I happened to do some research earlier, a couple years ago actually, and there was companies in England that were going around to vacant store locations and asked if they could grow mushrooms in them and they were growing bag mushrooms, hanging them from, kind of almost like a hanging coke rack sort of thing, these bag mushrooms that. So they get a large clear bag right and maybe you can kind of just talk about how they grow these sort of oyster mushrooms in bags.
Speaker 3:Maybe you can elaborate on that a bit, nick yeah, so, basically, uh, they, they have a plastic bag and remember I was talking about keeping the co2 high, yeah, so they would grow mycenae. They have the substrate, they put in a plastic bag, they close it up, they might have like a little filter on there, just so that allows some breathing, uh, but just one way, so that uh, like it basically would be like a kind of idea, like just a, so it allows, um, stuff to go out but doesn't allow, let's say, other mycelium, other spores, to come and affect the, uh, the substrate that's growing mycelium. Okay, until the mycelium is actually calling it. We call colonized all that straw, uh, all that substrate, whatever's in that bag, right, it's very, you know it can be affected because it's it's made to be something that grows, uh, any kind of mycelium if it has a chance to grow. And so you want to get the oyster mushroom mycelium to grow the best of everything else.
Speaker 3:And then the same thing we were talking about you say, okay, now it's time to start growing mushrooms and having fruit.
Speaker 3:So in that case they would basically put holes, like you actually might have a knife or like a nail, a board with nails, and they just kind of push it and they say, okay, and they got nails of push it. And they said, okay, they got nails holes all the way around the bag and that actually is allowing, uh, the change of the carbon dioxide and the moisture level and uh, and then the mushrooms will start growing out of those spots and and once it starts growing, they still have to keep the moisture level up high. So they either use like a fogger in the room to keep them, you know, the moisture in the room at like, you know, as high as possible. What we would do is, you know, we would actually kind of, basically, with a wand for watering, just, you know, just kind of wet the bags down and then just you kind of have to watch it. You can't have it too wet and you don't want it too dry, because either one, if it's too wet you can get, other, it can start rotting. So that's yeah.
Speaker 6:And the one thing that I found interesting with these, these, this operation that was in England, was they were using coffee grounds as their substrate to grow their their mushrooms in which I had not heard of before and they had quite a bit of information on it. And what did they do? They went around to all the coffee shops and asked for their old grounds and were utilizing that inside the bags to grow their mushrooms, with which I found very interesting. Right, yeah, yeah, because they were saying that inside the bags to grow their mushrooms, with which I found very interesting Right, yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, because they were saying that when you process coffee you only take about two percent of the nutrients out and the other 98 percent is still retained within the grounds and can be utilized as a substrate. So I found that very interesting. Yeah, but you were saying that you had problems with the spores when you were going oyster mushrooms and the operation had to change to white buttons yeah, we had just like that.
Speaker 3:what you were taking your friend was talking about where people were, you know. Basically, I would come to work and uh, I'd be walking down the hall and and and I'd sense what the heck I got a headache. Every time I go to work I'm getting a headache. And then one of the other workers, you know, was coughing or whatever. And we did try you know masks and you know we went first with just a paper like N95s and then we said, okay, well, let's try the, you know the cartridge filter mask and stuff like that. It still didn't work. It's just, you still are going to get some sort of a spore load.
Speaker 3:The issue is, once you're sensitive to it, you can't Some people have no problems with the spores, with with the spores and other people you know, just just walk in and and and they're, you know, having an anaphylactic reaction or whatever, right.
Speaker 6:So so he would cough up these. Like you know, cats coughs up fur balls and he was coughing up spore balls, wow, which, and he said it doesn't bother him, it just. But some of the other people. They have to wear all the masks and change quite a bit of what their operation was for that reason and that's the overabundance of spores you're saying, which is basically the seeds that are released into the air.
Speaker 6:Yes, yeah, yeah, and when I'm telling talk about picking wild mushrooms, I always mention the fact that the reason they carry mushrooms in like a wicker basket is because they're spreading those spores all through the forest or wherever they're harvesting from, and they're keeping those mushrooms growing in a number of different areas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean if you, if you, well, the ideal like you see mushrooms, they sell them in cardboard boxes, right, and they have holes in them. And the whole idea is the mushrooms are actually, every day, they're what do you call it? Respiration. They're actually still growing, even though you know you cut them off and they don't have their mycelium in the peat moss anymore or in mushroom growing operation. Right, they're still releasing. You know they're still growing. And so at you know, a commercial mushroom farm.
Speaker 3:you know what we do is we use a it's a vacuum cooler a uh, it's, it's a vacuum cooler, and what we do is basically, you drop the temperature of the mushroom as quickly as possible so that that respiration, that growing slows down and that keeps the quality of the mushrooms, uh, for an extra three, three days, let's say, compared to not having it. So if you, if you see mushrooms and you leave them in the warmth, they'll just deteriorate really quickly.
Speaker 6:So I picked up. Last Saturday I picked up some pink oyster mushrooms and I trimmed the bottom where the substrate or the growth material is on the bottom of the mushroom. Can you utilize that to start growing your own mushrooms from?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was actually just looking on on uh youtube and I just saw somebody was actually chopping up, uh, you know, oyster mushrooms and and they had, you know they're making their own substrate of you know, from cardboard and a bunch of different things and uh, yeah, so I mean it's it's obviously uh, the mycelium on the bottom that that is actually still alive and growing. Right, if you got them fairly recent, if you're going by the spores, I think it would be harder to grow than if you would actually take the bottom trimmings. If they were still there, they had them with the roots on them. That's actually live mycelium. You know this stuff is not that old and yeah, it should be a source of growing mycelium. Just continue it growing.
Speaker 6:So there's two ways you just mentioned about growing mushrooms the spores and the mycelium correct? Yeah, just kind of give us some insight on. You said the mycelium is easier to grow with as opposed to the spores yeah, because the spores basically you have to it's kind of like a seed it has to start, you know, growing into um, it has to start.
Speaker 3:You know, it's kind of like when you get a, even with this covid thing, right, like so some people got sick from covid and and and other people didn't.
Speaker 3:Well, uh, some people were um more susceptible to growth of, of of a foreign body like that, like a virus in them. Yeah, it's the same thing with that. You know, if you have uh, it's harder to grow in some uh like like you'll see uh science like if you go to a science lab, they have a little what they call agar plates and they have a sterile um the little clear plastic uh trays they have and they put agar, which is actually just a source like it's got glucose and different things that will grow whatever. If you put spores in there, they will actually probably grow over time. But it's kind of like taking a the one is like a baby and the other one's like an adult. Like the mycelium is growing on the end of the mushroom Right of the mushroom right is actually stuff that's already growing and working and you're just taking that and just letting it, you know, grow uh without having to go through the baby process and there's different types of agar that you can use.
Speaker 6:I know I've tried a number of different materials to grow the shagam mushroom and I've now used. It's taken quite a bit of time before I can get some mycelium to start to initiate growth in my containers that I have that are growing in. But there's different types of agar, which is just basically a basic ideal growth condition material that's used to promote the growth of mushrooms, correct?
Speaker 3:So I didn't really, you know, in a commercial mushroom production situation, we would just, you know, basically call up what they call the spawn company and we would say what mushroom we're trying to grow, and they do all that to make sure it's exactly the right. You know, whatever they do, their science, that they do is their kind of thing. They do it under pharmaceutical conditions and we just get, we get a bag, you know, a 50-pound bag of what we call mushroom spawn and that's, you know, basically the sterilized grain that they grow the spores and they grow it into the grain and and then they sell that to mushroom growers and the different varieties. So they have, you know, whatever there's. There's, there's a number of different varieties of, uh, white button mushrooms that you might want to grow and and uh, and then there's actually different, actually mushroom uh spawn suppliers as well, and they have the same issue that a mushroom farm could have they get different diseases, they get viruses.
Speaker 3:So one time we had that in our production cycle on a commercial scale is that we had a virus. And you don't know that. Except you know everything's growing and looks good, but then, uh, you will go from, you know, six pounds per square foot to, uh, three pounds per square foot to you know, two pounds per square foot. And you're going what the heck? We're doing everything the same? Yeah, it's, it's, you know, and once it gets in the system it's really hard to get it out, and so you know right.
Speaker 6:Are there a lot of these spawn companies, or how does somebody go about finding a a spawn company to to pick up other material to grow stuff with?
Speaker 3:well, nowadays, with the amazon and all that stuff, it becomes a lot easier. There's a mushroom like if you just go online you'll find different mushroom companies, that people will sell the stuff to you right online Amazon, wherever.
Speaker 6:I've actually seen some of the big stores I won't mention which one that was growing or had mushroom logs that you could buy in the store to grow your own mushrooms, which I found interesting. Mushrooms are starting to catch on. I mean there's a lot of medicinal applications. I know in Japan they found it very interesting that one community had certain types of cancer where they had 80 percent less incidence of and I don't remember which cancer it was in this community. They couldn't figure out why, but they found that the principal employer was a mushroom farm in japan that grow, that grow it was called what do you say? Inoki mushrooms, and that all the workers were allowed to take seconds home and the things that were not perfect and consumed large amounts of that.
Speaker 6:So there's a lot of different medicinal applications out there and there's a lot of different mushrooms that are now being made available out there, such as uh well, there's the you know I can find them just about everywhere Yoyoki, the king oyster, a lot of the oyster mushrooms as well Talk with your white buttons and the shiitakes and the matakes.
Speaker 6:And actually I see chanterelles or morels being made available now at some company in British Columbia, which is kind of interesting. I find that there's a lot of different options, and lion's mane is another one that seems to be very how shall I say in vogue right now, because lion's mane is supposed to reconstitute neural pathways in the brain and spinal column. We're not doctors or give medical advice or anything like that, but some of the research indicates that lion's mane but I'm seeing that in stores now so mushrooms are just starting to catch on and more and more people are finding out about all these sort of things which is good, yeah, and those are like like white button mushrooms and and and the brown mushrooms I mean people they're seeing from, from the health benefits you know they could.
Speaker 3:They could replace meat, a meat substitute, and there's a lot of micronutrients in them that are very healthy for you, right? And, like you said, all these other ones. The challenge is the pharmaceutical industry obviously doesn't make any money and they're not doing a whole lot of research on health benefits of anything, right, other than the drugs they sell. So that's the challenge. So a lot of stuff has to be done, has been done or, like you said, is done through something like oh okay, these guys are eating enokis and they have that much less cancer in this area, right?
Speaker 6:So that's kind of cool nick, how hard is it for people to grow their own mushrooms at home? Like is it difficult and obviously in small batches and we you mentioned some of the cautions about the amount of spores and things like that, but just for regular home usage I don't think they would have to worry about spores and my limited knowledge in it, but you're more the expert it's, it's we had.
Speaker 3:I had, uh, years ago I did a um again, it depends on the substrate that you buy and uh, so I did a um.
Speaker 3:We had a uh, a kids group that that I worked with and I said, oh, you know it, just it'd be interesting to see. Take, basically, um, a small, actually that five pound mushroom box, um, and we put, uh, the mushroom substrate in it and put, you know, about an inch and a half of peat moss on top of it and allowed the mycelium to grow, and I gave them instructions on how to grow it and then, uh, basically just take the lid off it once the uh, and then basically just take the lid off it once the mycelium had grown into the peat moss or the casing soil on top, and just told them okay, just put a little bit of water on it and just put it into your cold cellar in the basement, and most of them had good success in growing mushrooms. So it's not, you know, there's just some principles that you have to do, right, but follow those principles. It's not that hard to do so great.
Speaker 6:Now the other thing is I see a lot of online stuff, so what they call is plugs, and are you familiar with plugs and how they? Um?
Speaker 3:they're mycelium plugs yeah, you know what I? I'm not that familiar, but I know basically, you know they drill, drill logs and drill whole oak logs and that kind of thing and uh, and then it just grows. I mean, it's basically. Basically it's kind of like our the idea of the mushroom spawn so they will start growing from those spots into the logs and then, uh, over time we'll produce mushrooms, right, like typically oysters or shiitake mushrooms, right yeah, and there's there's so many variables how much of these plugs you put in, because you can buy various amounts in a log and I know I see some of the things you uh freshly cut logs.
Speaker 6:They wanted to wait about six months before it's freshly cut log. They wanted to wait about six months before it's um, before you start. But a lot of times when I'm out walking, I mentioned about the turkey tail uh growing on the on the one log that we saw, but you'll find other mushrooms that are growing on those logs as well, and so I think logs and I think there's various grades of how hard it is to grow a mushroom, so some are a lot easier to grow than others.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, some are toxic to growing fungus, right, so that's why I like cedar. Yep Probably doesn't grow, you know, it probably has components that keep funguses from growing, right, so it's not going to grow.
Speaker 5:Thank you Jerry.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so well, that's very interesting. Well, nick, I found this podcast very interesting. I have to tell you, I learned a lot. I did not realize so many of the different things that you talked about about you know the spores and you had to change and the grain spawn and all the substrates and utilizing the agar and all that and I found it very interesting. Where can people find out more information and details about how to grow mushrooms or how they can contact people that you would suggest they contact to find out all kind of information about people that you would suggest they contact to find out all kinds of information about?
Speaker 3:So it's, it's, you know, basically, probably the simplest source to begin with would be just, you know, researching, and then YouTube. There's a lot of people that have posted different videos on, you know, growing and even growing facilities like Windmill Farm, actually the farm I used to work at Right, like windmill farm, actually the farm I used to work at right. They have just brought in the most, let's say, modern growing. It's really from a harvesting standpoint of setup. So they actually have a bed that has a belt and the belt is got holes in it and people pick with two hands and they just put mushrooms, uh, into this belt, right and, and it's automatically moving. So they're just passing the, the mushrooms as as the, as they're harvesting them, and they're putting the mushrooms in the belt, um, in the holes in the belt, and the mushrooms will go up and they'll automatically get trimmed and then they'll automatically get trimmed and then they'll automatically get put in different trays or boxes and then taken to the packing room. So so, uh, I mean it's trying to eliminate a lot of the labor costs associated with harvesting mushrooms and packing mushrooms and and uh.
Speaker 3:But you know, like it's's even a farm, like you know, greenwood Mush Farm or Windmill Farms? We don't. They don't know everything, and they actually keep bringing in experts from Europe, around the world Right To them directions on addressing quality issues, either in growing, making the substrate, or you know growing the mushrooms, or even how to harvest the mushrooms, and there's so many different things, because you know you can pick a mushroom one inch in diameter, or you could pick a mushroom and three inches in diameter and it's not just oh, okay, obviously, that's it's three times the size. No, it's not just three times the size, it's it's three times three. So it's it's nine times the size. No, it's not just three times the size, it's three times three. So it's nine times the size against the volume.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so basically you know harvesting technique is a huge part of you know growing mushrooms on a commercial scale, but there's a lot of interesting. You know a lot of places to find information on growing mushrooms and, like I said, it used to be a Vineland Research Station. I actually worked with beginning growers or people who were interested in growing mushrooms. But we're talking about people who are actually interested in like the challenge is you have to invest a lot of money to grow mushrooms if you want to do it on a commercial scale. So I mean just for small stuff. You can look up that on YouTube.
Speaker 6:Well, thanks, nick. I found our podcast very interesting and, although it was kind of internal, I learned a lot about mushrooms and something else that is out there growing under the canopy. Thanks a lot for being with us today, nick. We really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 4:What brings people together more than fishing and hunting? How about food? I'm Chef Antonio Muleka, and I have spent years catering to the stars. Now, on Outdoor Journal Radio's Eat Wild podcast, luis Hookset and I are bringing our expertise and Rolodex to our real passion the outdoors.
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