How to Make Lion’s Mane Mushroom Compost

To begin making compost for Lion’s Mane mushrooms, you first need to understand what nutrients this mushroom requires. Like all mushrooms, Lion’s Mane needs two essential elements for growth: nitrogen and carbon.

Therefore, when preparing compost for Lion’s Mane, we must look for sources that provide these elements. For carbon, we use sawdust and wood Chips, and for nitrogen, we use soybean meal and soybean cake (after oil extraction).

The optimal composition for Lion’s Mane mushroom compost is:
– 40% sawdust
– 40% wood Chips
– 20% soybean meal

You can easily get sawdust and wood Chips from a carpentry shop.

The Importance of the Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratio
One crucial factor in making any medicinal mushroom compost is understanding the carbon-to-nitrogen (C:N) ratio. The ideal C:N ratio for Lion’s Mane compost falls between 30:1 and 50:1.

If you want to learn how to calculate the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio for any medicinal mushroom compost, I recommend reading my book.

After purchasing sawdust, wood Chips, and soybean meal, mix all the ingredients in a large tub. If you plan to produce on a larger scale, buy a blender and place all the materials inside it. Then, add an amount of water equal to the volume of the dry materials. For example, if you have 100 kg of sawdust, wood Chips, and soybean meal, add 100 liters of water and mix everything together. Stirring for 30 minutes is sufficient.

When you put some of the substrate in a fist and squeeze, the water should not drip from it, but it should wet your hand.

Next, insert a moisture meter into the mixture; it should read 75%. After that, you can pack the mixture into bags and place them in an autoclave at a temperature of 121°C for two hours. Once the compost has been sterilized, allow it to cool before adding mushroom spawn or mycelium. If the compost is still warm, it may damage the mushroom spawn. It is recommended to add the spawn under a laminar hood.

you can use simple bag or the filter bag.

After adding the spawn, transfer the compost to the growing rooms. It takes four weeks for the compost to become fully colonized and turn white. The optimal temperature for this stage is 25°C, and the environment should be completely dark for the first month.

After one month, when the compost has fully turned white, open the bags, lower the temperature to 16°C, and introduce light into the growing room. You can either use natural sunlight through windows or artificial lamps.

One week after opening the compost bags, the white areas will develop into pinheads, which will then grow into pea-sized mushrooms and later into small mushrooms. Within a few days, the mushrooms will be ready for harvest.