Boosting Your Mushroom Substrate with Supplements

Using mushroom substrate supplements can help you produce faster, bigger and healthier mushrooms.

In today’s article at the Garden Bench Top, we are going to be taking a deep dive into the different types of natural supplements that can take your mushroom growing to a whole new level.

So, if you have been struggling to grow a healthy flush of mushrooms OR you want to increase the chances of success as a mushroom hobby farmer, keep on reading.

You can expect to learn:

• the different types of mushroom substrate supplements,
• how they benefit mushroom growth, and
• things to watch out for when including supplements in your mushroom grow kit.

Why you Should be Adding Fertilizer to Your Mushroom Grow Kit

Adding mushroom substrate supplements to your growing kits is just like adding vitamins and minerals to your diet to improve your body’s health and function.

Supplements assist mushrooms to gain the necessary essential elements for a strong production of white mushroom mycelium, and ultimately a full flush of delicious mushrooms for you to enjoy.

Let’s take a closer look at how supplements assist mushrooms to grow.

Be in Control of your Mushroom Substrate

Supplements can help you to create a favorable environment that promotes healthy mushroom mycelium growth from your mushroom spawn.

For example, mushrooms prefer a slightly more acidic environment to thrive. So, by adding lime as a supplement to your mushroom substrate, you can naturally create higher acid conditions on almost any type of substrate. This affords you more control and an increased likelihood of a successful flush of mushrooms.

Natural Temperature Control

For those that live in colder climates, mixing supplements into your bulk substrate can help you to control the internal temperature of your mushroom grow kit.

A study by the Horticulture Department of Raparin University on using supplements in the growth of oyster mushrooms, found that by adding lime into the substrate helped to increase temperatures in the bags of oyster mushrooms. This helped to maintain a favorable environment, that allowed the mushrooms to grow quicker.

Gypsum and Mushroom Substrate – What is it?

Gypsum is a popular supplement that can often be found added to the mushroom grain spawn (the spores that you purchase to seed your growth medium).

You can also add gypsum directly to the mushroom bulk substrate to help with the inoculation phase of the mushroom growth cycle.

The chemical compounds of gypsum for mushrooms is dihydrate of calcium sulfate (chemical formula CaSO4 2H2O).

Benefits of Add Gypsum to your Mushroom Substrate

The reason why many hobby farmers inclu