Pasteurized Straw

Hi Kristian,

Normally, wheat, barley or oat straw are used – mainly because they are most common types of straw available, but also because they are good sources of lignin and cellulose. I’ve not come accross straw with clover in before – are you sure it’s not Hay (cutt grasses) instead of Straw (stems from cereal crops)?

Yes, you can definitely add sawdust instead if it is sterile – you can buy it in pelletised format and it will be sterile from the heat pressure it undergoes in the pelletising machine. You would just add enough water to bring it to ‘field capacity’ – the point at which when you squeeze it, a couple drops of water come out. No more than this, or it will be too wet.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

best wishes,

Adam

Hi Karla,

Great to hear you experimenting! Yes this should be fine to pasteurise the wood shavings like this, especially if they are from kiln-dried wood that a carpenter would often be working with.

How are the bags now looking a few weeks later?

Adam

Hi Bex,

we have no direct experience with coir or paper pellets. It should work as I have heard of coir being used. We have had some success growing on paper hand towels and that was fun to see work.

Let us know how you get on!

Best wishes,

Eric

The amount to add to the mix is based upon a wet weight (after pasteurising). Wet straw us approximately 4 times heavier than when dry.

In recent experiments we’ve found that adding agricultural lime (as mentioend in module 3 at present) to the coffee/straw mix is uneccessary, and that you can have perfectly good results without it. We are due to update the course information in the weeks ahead, and the recipe we will recommend to people will simply be:

for every 1kg of fresh coffee grounds, add:

150g pasteurised straw (either lime bath or hot water pasteurised)
150g oyster mushroom spawn

Hi Phil,
In all honesty I’m not that familiar with growing mushrooms on hay – I have done it a couple of times a few years ago and it contaminated both times. From reading around I understand that one of the main problems with hay is the likelihood of seeds being amongst it which are nitrogen rich and tend to contaminate and foster mould easily, unless sterilised at high temperature.

Straw tends to be just the cut stalk and doesn’t usually have so many seeds in – if you have access to this then it’s probably your best option, but always good to experiment if you’re interested to know first hand.

Let us know how you get on.
Best wishes, Adam

Sounds like you’re off to a flying start Phil! Best of luck and let us know how it all goes once you’ve got your first bags growing.

Hi Josue,

you typically soak the straw for 14-18 hrs and then drain all the water. Once the water has been drained you leave it for another hour or so to further dry and this should work fine. How long did you soak it for?

Cheers,

Eric