Newbie needing some Oyster Mushroom advice

Hi All,

I've just discovered the joy of growing mushrooms through a couple of grow kits, specifically yellow oyster, grey oyster and king oyster. I had my first flush of the yellow oysters about a week ago, absolutely delicious. I'm looking forward to some further flushes.

Q: A second flush should be expected in 10-14 days?


The king oysters haven't started yet and after doing lots of reading I don't think I gave them enough water initially. I think this as they require the same temp as the grey oysters which have started fruiting. I've just dunked them for the last 5 hours and hoping that helps them out. I have attached a pic.

Q: Should I be concerned by the yellow/orange colouration on the mycelium though?


I have attached a picture of the grey oysters which have been fruiting for the last ~4 days.

Q: Can anyone give me some info on why they have grown individually rather than as a cluster?

Q: Are the fat stalks and small heads due to a lack of FAE?

Q: Why have the caps on some closed in on themselves?

Any help and advice is much appreciated, thanks!

Your mushrooms are suffering from a lack of fresh air and excessive moisture. You can tell the RH is to high by the "fuzzy feet". Since you are using a fruiting chamber you can remove  the plastic bag encasing the substrate before placement in the fruiting chamber. Ideally the substrate should be placed vertically rather than on its side to maximize surface fruiting area. Establishing and maintaing the correct RH and FAE (fresh air exchange) is a delicate balancing act learned from experiance and experimentation. If you have a lid on your fruiting chamber a small crack open may suffice.

You may have a touch of verticillium wilt or it may be just from the lack of fresh air. Cut rather than pluck all the mushrooms off of the substrate. Wait 2-4 days and the stem butts will fuzz up and be easily detached with your fingers and not disturb the substrate like plucking them will.  I can see hyphal knots present so you have plenty of mushrooms ready to grow when the conditions are right.

The yellowing you see in the bags is mushroom metabolites or mushroom "piss" if you want to put it that way caused by waiting to long to initiate fruiting.  Strip the bag off and place the substrate in your fruiting chamber.

I have never soaked substrate between flushes so I can't comment on the effectiveness. I use succesive VERY FINE MISTINGS until pin heads form. The time between flushes varies and is dependent on several factors. This is what makes growing them commercially difficult because its hard to know exactly how pounds you will have on any given week. Unlike growing something like chickens where x number of chicks started will yield x number of pounds in x number of weeks.

Please provide updates on your grow. Your doing very well for a beginner. You've managed to get them to the fruiting stage without contamination which is harder for some people than you may think. Cheers!

Hi Dean,

Thank you so much for your detailed reply, I really appreciate your advice!

I have removed the plastic bags from both the king and the grey and turned them on their side (see pics). Sadly I couldn't stand them the other way as they wouldn't stay in position. I've read these mushrooms need 15-18C for fruiting which is proving challenging as its quite warm here in Kent atm (~24C) but we'll see what happens.

I've just got my second flush of the yellow oysters coming so I've removed the bag and stood it on its side as best I could (see pic).

With all of them, I had a concern that they wouldn't have the required RH so I was overly generous with the misting, I'll calm down a bit with that! The fruiting chambers have 3 large holes at the top for air, but I'll try opening a crack as well. As the chambers are quite small, once the mushrooms start growing I need to extend the lids (DIY-style with chopsticks) which gives them more fresh air as well. I'll be doing lots of trial and error over the coming months, I have definitely caught the mushroom-growing bug!

I'll keep you updated on the grow and how they progress. I've also attached a pic of the first flush I got from the yellow oysters, they were delicious, can't wait for these next ones!

What happenet to the large chamber you had in the first set of pictures? That looked ideal. Do you have and  use a cheap humidistat to monitor the RH in the chamber?  Cooling is  harder than heating for sure. There are many varieties of oysters suitable for different enviroments. So you want to grow warm weather varieties in the summer and cool weather varieties in the winter. If I rememeber correctly yellow and pink are warm varieties.  You could try placing a reusable freezer pack in the chamber to lower the temperture. BTW the cluster of yellow mushrooms looks very good. It looks like you have some mycellium overlay on the new bags. If pins fail to form you can scratch the surface with a fork (don't overdo it) and new pins will form.  Your pictures are excellent making it a lot easier to trouble shoot any problems. Your doing well, I can see some nice clusters forming.

Place the ice pack under the substrate and use  a cheap probe thermometer to monitor the substrate temperture.  I always monitor the substrate temperture as well as the air temperture  during all phases of growing.  During the spawn run the mycellium generates heat making the the substrate temperture  up to 5 degrees F warmer than the ambient air temperture. Once the substate is fully colonized the substrate temperture will drop overnight and match the air temperture. This is the precise timing to iniate fruiting.

The large chamber was just a DIY extension with chopsticks in each corner and some clingfilm to cover the sides. I've literally just remade it for the yellow oyster flush that's now going.

I had a hygrometer delivered today but it doesn't really fit in the chamber(s) sadly. I need to build bigger ones really.

That's a good point about the seasonality of the mushrooms, something I'll definitely take into account going forward!

Re your comment about the mycelium overlay, are you referring to pic IMG_1245.jpg where it has protruding nodules?

I don't have a probe thermometer but I think I will invest in one now It drops temp at night so hopefully that will have an impact and I'll use the ice pack trick tomorrow to keep the temp down during the day and see what happens.

Yes 1245 and 1247 but I'd take a wait and see approach.

Yup, you need some fresh air in there, those oysters look like birds in a nest waiting for food Kings like cold temp (but depends on the strain and type)

Thanks both, I harvested the yellow oysters (wasn't a lot tbh) as they had some powder on them which I took for spores (see pics).

The Kings haven't started fruiting yet, I've kept them outside so temps have been between 15-20C and I've given them a lot of fresh air, from what I perceive anyway; I've left two sides open on the fruiting chamber but that also drops the humidity down to like ~75%.