no smell. That wasn't exactly true, but, after a few days, the smell did subside considerably. When I

walked over to inspect the operation a week later, the smell, even in the basement, was tolerable.

The neighbor had mixed the manure with straw and piled the mixture on his basement floor

in long, narrow, parallel ridges. He must have known what he was doing, because in five to six

weeks' time the mushrooms started maturing in staggering numbers. I had ample opportunity to

watch the operation closely because my mother sent me over every few days to buy more fresh

mushroom for her cooking. Everyone in the neighborhood became frequent and enthusiastic

customers. The fresh-picked mushrooms were excellent in cooking and were inexpensive.

Fortunately, most kids liked mushrooms, too, because they appeared on the menu almost daily. The

harvesting went on for several months.

The next year, a wagon full of manure arrived again, and this time, anticipating the

wonderful fresh mushrooms to come, we ignored the smell. However, something went wrong. Even

though the neighbor did everything the same as the previous year, very few mushrooms grew. There

were just enough to supply a few neighbors. That was the end of the neighborhood’s mushroom

adventure.

Mushroom growing is a finely-tuned microbiological science and many of the growers,

particularly the small ones specializing in exotic species, have a microbiology background. Without

that knowledge and plenty of growing experience, mushroom cultivation is unpredictable.

The stages of mushroom growing

In a commercial operation, mushroom cultivation is in temperature and humidity-controlled

windowless greenhouses, tunnels or caves. There are five major steps to readying a mushroom for

your pot.

. Substrate preparation. Substrate is the organic material that the mushroom uses as its

food source. Carefully preparing this determines both the size and quantity of the crop. Different

cultivated species flourish in different substrate.

All substrates are high in cellulose, which the mushroom organism breaks down and uses as

food energy. Few other living organisms are able to break down cellulose. (Exceptions are wood-

eating termites and hay-eating mammals.)

Most substrate is inexpensive straw which the growers keep damp for about two weeks, then

add specific material that helps the straw compost, such as chicken manure, gypsum, cotton seed

hulls and other organic material. After a few weeks of composting they use steam to pasteurize the

substrate and to remove the ammonia. Some growers use huge pressure cookers at high temperature

to provide a sterile substrate before they introduce the spawn, so that no other organisms can take

over.

A successful mushroom farm is kept scrupulously clean and sterile, just like a microbiology

lab, so you need not worry about where a mushroom has been before it turns up in your kitchen.

Even if it is manure, it is a sterile manure. Contamination only comes in subsequent handling.

. Preparation of fungal culture and spawn. The fungal culture is the initial growth from

mushroom spores. They nurture spores in a petri dish under sterile laboratory conditions. Once the

fungal culture covers the dish, they transfer it to a larger food source, usually moist rye or millet

grains in a jar, to give the culture a good, healthy start.

Eventually the fungus colonizes the grain, penetrating it fully. This is called the spawn or

mycelium. Sometimes mushroom farms buy this already developed from spawn companies ready to

inject into their prepared substrate. But many farms develop their own, using spores from a

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