Mushrooms can be grown all year round, and for this you will need to devote a minimum of time and effort if you initially correctly convert the greenhouse that was previously used to grow seedlings, or collect a greenhouse specially designed for this crop. What requirements should this design meet and how to construct it with your own hands, we will find out further.
Greenhouse requirements
Mushrooms can be grown in a greenhouse made of any material - polycarbonate, film or glass. However, it must necessarily meet the following requirements:
- Have a heating system. It is better to give preference to the water system, since it does not dry the air so much as other heating methods. As a rule, thanks to this installation, the air in the greenhouse is always fresh, which is important for the growth of mushrooms.
- Assume high-quality sealing and insulation. Without them, the room will not be able to maintain a stable microclimate, as well as an optimal level of temperature and humidity.
- Have a ventilation system or supply and exhaust ventilation. It provides mushrooms with fresh air, which they need for fast and proper development.
- Have an irrigation system. The mushroom picker needs regular watering, so it is important to take care of easy access to water. The optimal method is its spraying. If the greenhouse is small, all the manipulations can be performed manually, and if large, then it is better to take care of a special spray system.
- Assume protection against direct sunlight. For this purpose, the roof of the structure can be hung with curtains from a less transparent (matte) film or whitened with lime.
- Have the right equipment. The greenhouse for growing mushrooms also needs to be equipped with racks or tables for installing containers. For the same purposes, you can use special racks on which blocks or containers are suspended.
The basement of the living room should not be equipped for mushroom cultivation, as excessive moisture will lead to the destruction of the foundation and the collapse of the building.
Greenhouse organization
Mushrooms are usually grown in cold weather - from October to April, so often for this purpose they use an ordinary greenhouse from a film that has already been freed from vegetables. Meanwhile, in order to convert an ordinary polycarbonate greenhouse for growing mushrooms, a number of changes will be required in the design. In the future, the converted greenhouse can also be used for growing seedlings and vegetables.
Sealing and insulation
If the greenhouse design is installed efficiently, then it does not have gaps through which heat is released. In this case, no sealing is required. If the installation work was carried out incorrectly or as a result of careless operation in the shelter itself or between it and the frame formed damage, crevices and gaps, then you will need to seal the greenhouse. To do this, follow these steps:
- Detect all damage in the film or polycarbonate and glue them carefully with adhesive tape.
- If there are gaps between the frame and the base, they must be repaired with a quality sealant.
- Glue the door and vents with a rubber seal and install additional locks.
- Cover the ground with foamed polyethylene with a metallized layer to provide thermal insulation from cold soil.
To save money on heating, it is recommended to additionally insulate the interior of the greenhouse by making a second shelter circuit:
- Put inside the greenhouse arcs of PVC pipe or fiberglass reinforcement. Their height should be sufficient to accommodate shelves with mushrooms in the greenhouse and free movement of the farmer.
- Pull tight cover material over the installed materials.
It should be noted that the double greenhouse shelter has many advantages:
- improves thermal insulation;
- reduces exposure to mushrooms in direct sunlight and protects against additional burns;
- helps maintain a more even and stable microclimate, even in the event of a sudden change in temperature outside the greenhouse.
The double shelter greenhouse looks like this:
For additional insulation, it is also possible to fix a polycarbonate frame from the inside of the greenhouse. The resulting air gap between the outer and inner sheets will provide excellent thermal insulation.
To protect mushrooms from sunburn, it is recommended to use colored or translucent polycarbonate.
Blinds
If the greenhouse is insulated with colored polycarbonate or agrofibre, there is no need to curtain it, since these materials do an excellent job of diffusing sunlight and reducing light. Otherwise, a curtain is required, which can be done in two ways:
- install curtains made of thick fabric under the roof of the greenhouse;
- whiten the construction with lime mortar.
Experienced farmers recommend choosing the second method, as whitewashing with lime not only helps protect mushrooms from solar radiation, but also perfectly disinfects the walls of the structure.
Ventilation
Mushrooms constantly need an influx of fresh air, especially during the period of active growth, so the greenhouse needs to be equipped with a ventilation system. It can be organized in this way:
- Make a standard window above the doors or in the roof of the greenhouse. Making vents on the walls is undesirable, since in this case a draft will pass through the mycelium itself.
- Install ventilation equipment, because you can not keep the window open in any weather. In addition, access to it may be difficult in the case of using double shelter. So, in the greenhouse, you need to install pipes for supply and exhaust ventilation, passing them through the roof or end wall.
In order for the supply and exhaust ventilation to work in a natural mode, that is, according to the laws of air exchange and without ventilation, the bottom of the supply pipe must be located at a height of 15-30 cm from the floor. Thus, the exhaust pipe will draw warm air from the ceiling.
- Equip the fan, since it is impossible to exclude difficult outflow and air flow. It should also be borne in mind that some types of mushrooms (for example, oyster mushrooms) in certain periods of growth require a very high volume of incoming air, which is almost impossible to provide without a forced ventilation system.
The natural ventilation of the greenhouse can be organized as follows:
Water supply
To water the substrate and maintain the desired level of humidity, it is necessary to organize fine dispersion of water in the mushroom picker. For maximum cleaning, a filter should also be installed. This is a prerequisite if water is supplied from the sewer.
When choosing an irrigation system, you need to proceed from the size of the room:
- If the greenhouse is small, you can do with hand sprayers. To do this, it is enough to water the culture using a manual spray gun. In addition, with manual watering, experts recommend placing water tanks directly under the mycelium in order to maintain its reserves and a suitable temperature, as well as increase the level of humidity in the mycelium.
- If the greenhouse is large or there is no desire to spend time on watering, a full-fledged air humidification system should be carried out, which will also carry out irrigation in automatic mode. To water the mycelium with soft and melt water, it is necessary to mount a system of tubes connected to the pump into the soil. With a large farm, you can install a tube that automatically moves along the rails and creates the pressure necessary to evenly spray water on the shelves with mushrooms. So, at the same time humidity of the air and the substrate is maintained.
The best indicators of acidity (pH) and hardness (dGH) are melt, rain or river water, which should be used to spray the substrate and mycelium.
Heating system
To maintain the optimum temperature for mushrooms in the greenhouse in winter, it is necessary to conduct a heating system. It is easier to do this by connecting the greenhouse to the water heating of the house through a balancing valve, with which it is easy to regulate the temperature regime in the desired range.
If it is not possible to connect to water heating at home, you will have to install an independent heating device. In this case, the best option is an electric boiler, which is equipped with an automation and security system. If the size of the greenhouse is small, you can choose a device of low power and affordable cost. It has the following advantages:
- allows you to easily adjust the temperature as mushrooms develop;
- maintains the set air temperature in automatic mode;
- requires little space;
- easy to mount and connect in accordance with the attached diagram;
- does not require the installation of a chimney.
The heating circuit with an electric boiler is as follows:
It should be noted that modern boiler models are equipped with a built-in expansion tank and a circulation pump, which ensures safe operation and uniform heating of the entire greenhouse.
As for the shortcomings of electric boilers, only high costs of electricity can be distinguished. To minimize them, it will be necessary to warm and seal the room well, without leaving cracks and gaps. In this case, the costs will be moderate, especially since the mushrooms do not require too high air temperature.
Radiators or registers made of large-diameter pipes, which are placed around the perimeter of the room at a low height, are also well suited as heating devices.
To reduce heating costs, radiators and temperature sensors should be placed inside an additional shelter.
Lighting
This factor mainly depends on the variety of mushrooms. For example, oyster mushrooms do not require any kind of lighting, so you can do without placing lamps in the greenhouse for your own convenience. If you plan to grow mushrooms and some other types of mushrooms, this issue will need to be given due attention.
In the second case, it is better to place fluorescent lamps with a capacity of 100-180 lux / h in the greenhouse. At the same time, lamps that are marked with DRL and DRLF are more qualitative, since they emit a red-blue spectrum, ideal for mushrooms. Such rays are invisible to the human eye, but plants are especially sensitive to them.
The selected lamps must be evenly distributed throughout the greenhouse, and it is advisable to hang them on the ceiling. If this is not possible, lighting fixtures can be placed on the walls.
Use additional lighting is necessary on cloudy days and during the maturation of mushroom caps.
What racks to put in the greenhouse?
In the greenhouse, you need to install racks or racks depending on the technology of growing mycelium and the type of mushrooms. Furniture can be made of wood or metal, but the second option is preferable. The fact is that metal structures are easy to process and disinfect, and also do not rot in high humidity. In addition, racks can be easily made from metal residues, for example, using scraps of reinforcing bars.
Some types of mushrooms can settle on wood, causing its rapid destruction, therefore, it is likely that wooden racks will have a short life.
The design of the rack should be chosen depending on the method of growing mushrooms. So, if you plan to breed them on pallets, shelves with several wide shelves should be placed in the greenhouse. For more convenient operation, they can be installed under a slight slope.
If it is planned to plant mushrooms in briquettes with a substrate, it is better to place narrower racks or racks in the greenhouse where briquettes can be suspended. It should be noted that some prefer to place them directly on the floor of the greenhouse.
Stands for hanging bags with a substrate
How to make a greenhouse for mushroom cultivation all year round?
To harvest mushrooms all year, it is advisable to install a special greenhouse, in which there is practically no natural light, and a high level of thermal insulation is ensured by deepening in the ground and filling the roof with a biodegradable layer, for example, manure.
Meanwhile, the types of structures may differ depending on what materials are used to build the greenhouse - wood, film or polycarbonate. We will consider all three options in more detail.
Wooden structures
Wooden greenhouses are suitable for growing different types of mushrooms. They can be assembled from elements such as:
- wooden walls (board or blockhouse);
- rammed clay floor;
- bed;
- racks;
- roof;
- insulating layer of manure;
- stuffing box with a latch.
It should be noted that the wooden structure itself can be assembled according to various schemes. Such greenhouses are popular:
- 4-flank bunk. It is deepened by 500-600 mm into the ground, insulated with a mixture of manure and clay. The length of such a structure can be from 25 to 30 m. On average, it occupies an area of 200-230 square meters. m. Heating in such a greenhouse can be arranged electric, gas or stove. Inside the greenhouse, natural light is weak or absent altogether. How such a design looks can be seen in the diagram (Fig. A).
- Grachevskaya 7-flank model of 1861. Grachev design is recognized as the most convenient for the cultivation of mycelium. Its length can be 4, 8, 15 or 25.2 m, and the area is 100, 200 or 300 square meters. Such a greenhouse is similar to a two-tiered 4-flank design, but slightly modernized to accelerate the growth of mushrooms. How it looks can be seen in the diagram (Fig. B).
- Combined two-tier 4-flank. Its length is 20 m, and the working area is 123 square meters. Such a greenhouse differs from the usual 4-flank design only in size and internal configuration, as can be seen in the following diagram (Fig. B).
1 - wooden wall; 2 - flank or bed; 3 - compacted clay floor; 4 - a wooden rack with crossbeams; 5 - gable wooden roof; 6 - thermal protection in the form of a layer of horse manure, which is covered with snow in winter; 7 - vent or stuffing box in the form of a wooden box with a padded latch.
Interestingly, Moscow gardeners often use combined 4-flank greenhouses with heating for growing mushrooms from September to February. When their turnover is completed, they use a greenhouse to distill early vegetables, after replacing the wooden roof with greenhouse frames.
Film greenhouse
The basis of this design is a metal or wooden frame, which is tightly covered with a thick film. This option is great for year-round cultivation of forest mushrooms.
To ensure the greenhouse has the proper level of thermal insulation and prevent excessive sunlight from entering its walls, it is recommended that the design be double - with an air pocket and an empty airtight space.
Polycarbonate greenhouse
Like the previous design, such a greenhouse consists of a metal or wooden frame, but it is not covered with a film, but with sheets of translucent polycarbonate.The frame may have a rectangular shape or be made in the form of a half cylinder. To grow mushrooms in such a greenhouse for 12 consecutive months, it should also be built with a double wall and an air gap.
Useful Tips
In order to build a greenhouse and safely grow mushrooms in it, it is worth considering a number of recommendations from experts:
- For the structural frame, aluminum is the best material because it is lightweight and durable. In addition, such a material is not afraid of corrosion, and mold will not form on it even in high humidity conditions. For the same reasons, it is worth installing racks and racks made of aluminum in the mycelium.
- In order to improve thermal insulation, the floor should be covered with foamed polyethylene or other material that has similar properties. In addition, it is necessary to pay due attention to the sealing of the greenhouse, since any cracks and holes in the shelter lead to a decrease in the level of heat, and therefore to an increase in heating costs.
- The greenhouse in which it is planned to grow mushrooms cannot have a translucent or transparent roof. It needs to be built or refurbished so that the incoming light is dim. To do this, you can use several tricks:
- paint a translucent ceiling with chalk;
- tint the roof and walls with special adhesive tape or mesh;
- blind with synthetic translucent fabric.
- In any mycelium, it is always damp and wet, therefore, to prevent the appearance of mold and the multiplication of parasites, it is regularly worth disinfection.
If you want to organize additional lighting inside the greenhouse, you can install fluorescent lamps.
What mushrooms to grow in a greenhouse?
In a properly equipped greenhouse, you can grow almost any variety of mushrooms, however:
- oyster mushrooms;
- champignons;
- shiitake;
- White mushrooms.
To breed them in large quantities, you should divide the greenhouse into several isolated rooms, as well as install special equipment - a steam generator.
In a well-designed greenhouse, you can grow mushrooms in large volumes, even in the most severe frosts. To do this, it is important to ensure the proper level of humidity and lighting in the greenhouse, as well as take care of its sealing and warming.