Oyster mushrooms beginner

It's my first attempt at growing golden oyster mushrooms.  I got spawn from a good source and used feed wheat as a substrate ( wrong already?).  I followed the general directions for the bucket method and thus far this is what I have with some of the spawn having been on the top.  I'm sure I made mistakes, but is this normal ?  Contaminated?  Toss and start over?

Skot,

From the look of things you are off to a great start with your mushroom project.  Please don’t throw it out yet!  Just wait and see what develops.

Oyster mushrooms are so aggressive that they can out-compete just about any other fungi so I would not worry about contamination.  They might have troubles with wine caps but you didn’t introduce wine caps so I see no problem there.  The white fuzz you see is actually the main body of the oyster mushroom getting established in the substrate.  This is totally normal and in fact it looks like you are getting good progress!  The actual mushrooms will not appear until the fungal body has consumed the entire substrate.  Once the fungi runs out of food it panics and sends up mushrooms to disperse spores in order to start the process all over again.

So I think you actually are off to a great start and I would love to see more pictures of your project as it develops.  While I have not grown oyster mushrooms (I plan to soon) I have had great experiences with wine caps.  If you like I can send you a link to a long-running thread of mine detailing my personal development in growing wine caps.  I am not an expert, but getting some feedback can be helpful, especially at first.

https://permies.com/t/82798/composting-wood-chips-chicken-litter

I post this link simply to help other newbies learn some basic mushroom principles.  I am no expert but I have grown from a complete novice to having a degree of fungi competency today.  I hope the thread can help you as well.

Let me know if there is anything specific I can help you with.

Eric

Good news, and thanks for the response and the link.  Real interaction with someone with experience is so much better than trying to look up pics on Google in attempt to determine what I have. Thanks

Skot, you are so right about having real interaction as opposed to simple Google searches.  One of the facets that drove me to Permies in the first place was the high degree of actual interaction.  I stayed for the same reason and I keep that long-running thread alive precisely because textual information is so much better when you simply have a person bounce ideas off of.

I dont know man,  got some discoloration today.  No way to know what's going on in the layers beneath.  I understand the mycelium can " bruise "  and have discoloration,  or is this mold?  Should I spray it with hydrogen peroxide or something?

Other one

I would really just give it time and wait it out.  Peroxide will kill any mold—and the oyster fungus that you actually want.  If you feel brave you could poke inside the grain to see what grows beneath the surface.

But I still come back to giving more time.  Waiting gives you the possibility that oyster mushrooms will eventually develop.  Peroxide will eliminate that possibility and throwing everything out likewise gives zero possibility of success.

I found growing mushrooms to be a great lesson in learning patience.  I thought my first crop of Wine Caps was a dud when nothing appeared after 6 months of waiting.  A full year after sowing I had Wine Caps burst forth.  

And if you go quite some time with no fungal growth (and that means below the surface as well), you could always try again.

But even oyster mushrooms take some time to grow.

One of the simplest ways of growing oyster mushrooms is with paper.  My first attempt was with paper and cardboard in pill bottles with some blue oyster mushrooms that I bought at the grocery store.




I just boiled the paper, squeezed out the excess water and packed it into layers in the pill bottles with a thin slice of oyster mushroom between each layer of paper.  The more mushroom to substrate the quicker the mycelium can take over the substrate and the less likely you are to have issues with contamination.  I then drilled some small holes in the sides of the pill bottles and placed some medipore cloth tape over the holes.  Then I put them inside a coffee can with the lid on it and put on a shelf not far from the fireplace where it stay around 65 to 75F and just kept checking them regularly until the paper was all grown in white with mycelium.

I took them out of the can and put them under a suspended upside down bag near a window in my bedroom where it stays about 55F and just misted some water in there several times a day to keep the humidity up and voila..  My first mushroom growing success...  Was nice after so many failures and after buying materials so many times.  This was cheap and effective..

I then took my grown oyster mushrooms and tried doing a bag of substrate with them and all looked good for a bit then it was taken over by mold and it all just rotted...  

From everything I have studied it seems the easiest and most successful oysters grown by newbies seem to be on straw, paper and sawdust or wood pellets.  Paper, and wood pellets being the most free of contagions and not requiring pressure cooking the substrate.  The straw and sawdust may need to be either pressure cooked or cold pasteurized with lime and water before you use it as it may have mold spore in it.

I’ve grown oyster mushrooms (several varieties) in canning jars of millet, of wheat, in grow bags on masters mix (50 percent each hardwood sawdust and soy hulls hydrated to 60 percent) and in buckets filled with straw.  All methods work well.  

I now only grow blue oysters on barley straw in buckets.  I soak the straw overnight then spread it out on a tarp for an hour to remove excess water.   I don’t boil or treat the straw at all.  I’ve never had a problem with contamination using barley straw.   People put it in ponds and horse troughs to keep algae down.  Whatever chemical in it does that does not affect the oysters but may keep down contamination.

I can produce more oysters, in a shorter amount of time, with much less time and effort involved, using this method.

Keep in mind that the more nutritious your growing medium is, the higher your risk of contamination.