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.Hi Guys, I did the course some months ago, my knowledge was pretty good with the hundreds of free articles and you tube videos, but your course filled the gap of the last 10% or so, but a very important 10%, some things i’m still unclear on, but time will educate.
What I noticed even after punching about 4 holes in the sides of the first three bags is that the pinning started on mass all over the top of one of the bags! So i cut the top of the bag and just let it grow. I didn’t weigh any of the first crop but I estimate it to be between 300 and 400gm per 5kg bag.
The second flushes were all exactly 180gm, pictured below.
After the success of the first crop from 3 bags, (after about 4 Months and 4 failed crops totalling about 12 failed bags for various reasons (some my climate control system malfunctioned and baked the crop, but that’s all sorted now) I began to escalate, found a cafe with about 12KG of used grinds a day so I could innoculate about 3 bags a day, 4KG coffee, 200gm to 400gm Ag Lime, 0gm to 600gm Cold Pasteurized Straw or Cardboard and between 200gm and 500gm of Spawn, we have the following, I’m trying different mixes to to compare costs and yields as I go.
It’s exciting now as I have one whole foods retailer definitely signed on, two others considering it, 3 cafes keen as a been and 4 private customers all lined up. I’m estimating that 3 bags a day should yield about 6kg a week minimum, allowing for spoilage, infections and losses.
Hi Charlie,
great to hear of your trials, successes, and learnings. Thanks for sharing your photos too – really nice looking mushrooms!
The thing you mentioned about mushrooms growing in the top of the bags (instead of out of the holes you punched) sometimes happenas if humidity levels are slightly low outside the bag. The mushrooms choose to start fruiting in the more humid environment in the top of the bag.
If you fold the top of the bag over after punching the holes (so there is no space for them to grow inside the bag) you should find that they grow out of the holes you cut instead. This should give you a bigger yield and nice clusters which makes for easier picking.
Also, we’re about to update the course info in the next few weeks and one of the things that will be changed is to simplify the mix – so that there is no need to add the agricultural lime. We’ve found better results with just coffee, cold pasteurised straw and spawn.
When growing in those bigger bags you may also want to consider upping the straw to around 25% of coffee weight to reduce density and increase air exchange througout the bags.
Hoep this helps.
best wishes,
Adam
