If you’re looking to grow mushrooms, you must use the appropriate substrate. The mushroom substrate includes the medium and nutritional supplements mushrooms use to grow.
It’s specifically for housing and offering a food source to the mycelial tissue—the filaments of the mushroom body. There are many different kinds of mushroom substrates available, some with greater usefulness and a higher nutritional profile than others. Let’s learn more about the different kinds of growing mediums for mushrooms below.
Coffee grounds
Coffee grounds are easy to work with and are a low-tech, low-cost substrate choice. Coffee grounds don’t need sterilization or pasteurization if you handle them with care and proper hygiene and quickly use them. If you’re a hobbyist who wants to try something different, you can consider them a fun alternative. A huge advantage of coffee grounds is that the brewing process pasteurizes grounds, which allows you to skip this step. Otherwise, you’ll have to implement these steps with other substrates. Additionally, it’s easy to get. Just head to your local coffee shop and store your coffee grounds.
Rye grain
Rye grain is a great mushroom substrate for several reasons. Most beginning mushroom growers start their growing journey by using a grain-based substrate. Rye is incredibly popular since mushrooms thrive in the environment. It’s absorbent, making it much harder to drench it in water. This gives the beginner a far larger margin for error, making it perfect for beginners. That said, rye grain requires you to go through more steps, especially regarding sterilization and pasteurization, to ensure your mushrooms are free from contaminants. This is one of the best kinds of growing mediums for mushrooms.
Sawdust
Sawdust is another great choice for your mushroom substrate. You’ll have to do more research since you can’t just use sawdust from any tree, but it’s not as complicated as you think. Most hardwoods are appropriate, and you can use material from several species. Additionally, you might find it for free or incredibly cheap. Suitable sawdusts are nitrogen rich and relatively quick to prepare, so you won’t need to waste any time. Some mushrooms that work well with sawdust-based substrates are the king oyster mushroom, lion’s mane, shiitake, and maitake.If you use any of the mediums we’ve discussed, you’ll be well on your way to a well-colonized yield.
