How to make mushroom substrate

Tell me how to make a substrate for champignons? We want to try to grow a trial batch of mushrooms at home. We ordered manure from a neighbor who has a subsidiary farm. We ourselves are beginners, this year we just moved to the dacha and bought chickens. So they haven't managed to collect their waste yet. They decided to invest financially in the first substrate. And if it works out - we will continue to make from our "products". What should be added to the manure?

If mushrooms grew in the garden, then instead of potatoes, everyone would grow champignons. However, mushrooms do not contain chlorophyll, so they cannot get their food from ordinary soil. Only in very light and rich soil can this popular delicacy grow and multiply. Ready-made mixes can be purchased in the store, but this entails considerable costs. It is much more profitable, and not at all difficult, to cook them at home. Knowing how to make a substrate for mushrooms, even novice mushroom growers will be able to provide themselves with high-quality soil for growing mushrooms.

What do you need to prepare the substrate?

The first step is to select and prepare the area where the compost heap will be sealed. It must be protected from above and below. A canopy will save you from rain, and asphalt or film will save you from contact with the ground, which should not be allowed to prevent the ingress of harmful fungi and bacteria.

There are many “recipes” for the substrate, and each amateur has his own secrets. But always the basis for compost is vegetable raw materials (leaves, straw, grass) and organic matter (droppings, manure), mixed with mineral fertilizers. The difference may lie in the proportions and use of specific drugs.

For example, you can use this method and prepare:

• 50 kg of straw;
• 50 kg of fresh manure;
• 4 kg of gypsum;
• 1 kg of superphosphate;
• 2.5 kg of chalk;
• 2.5 kg of carbamide.

How to make a substrate for champignons - step by step recommendations

The first step is to prepare the straw: soak it and leave it for three days. While the straw is getting wet, you can make a mineral dressing by mixing all the fertilizers dry. You will get a free-flowing mineral complex - it will be more convenient to add it than to add the components separately.
When the straw gets wet, you can start preparing the substrate:

1. Put a layer of straw on the prepared place.
2. Moisten it with water.
3. Sprinkle with a fertilizer mixture.
4. Lay on top layer manure.
5. Sprinkle with fertilizer again.
6. Repeat with 3 more layers.

Every 5 days, the compost heap will need to be mixed with a pitchfork, adding water so that it melts and decomposes evenly. In about a month, the mushroom substrate will be ready.

It should turn brown but remain moist and crumbly. If the compost smells like ammonia and is sticky, it's not ready yet.

Thus, from the specified number of components, about 150 kg of substrate for mushrooms will be obtained. And after the harvest has been harvested, compost will play another useful role in the form of fertilizer or mulch for garden beds.

Preparing compost for growing champignons - video