Summer Oyster / Pleurotus - Organic Mushroom Spawn

Summer Oyster Organic Mushroom Plug Spawn

With a distinctive lilac-brown coloured cap – that intensifies in colour under stronger light conditions – and, like all oyster mushrooms, it is productive and capable of adapting to most common hardwood tree species and timber sizes.

Cap (pileus): 1 - 12 inches wide, 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches thick. Convex and semicircular to fan shaped, overlapping in large bunches. Either species usually has a strong anise-like aroma.  Older fruit bodies may develop some off aromas. Pleurotus ostreatus cap color is likely to be tan to brown but can be whitish, grayish or even gray-blue. The gray-blue color is more likely to be seen in cultivated P. ostreatus of European origin. Pleurotus populinus has a whitish ivory cap.

Gills (lamellae): Fairly close together running down the stem and white, light gray or tannish. Pleurotus populinus is likely to be whitish ivory. P. ostreatus will have more variation in color being usually tan to brown.

Stem (stipe) Usually nonexistent to stubby unless growing on top of a log and bunched together (cespitose).

Flesh Thick, white and non bruising.

Spores  P. ostreatus makes a whitish gray or lavender/lilac spore print. The thicker the spore print is, the more likely some color will show. P. populinus makes a white to very slightly grayish spore print.
 

Season

Produces bi-annually in late summer, from August to October.
 

Tree Species

All hardwoods are suitable. Preferred species: Alder, Beech, Birch, Chestnut, Oak, Poplar and Willow.
 

Timber Selection

Summer Oyster can be grown on all types of timber: from narrower boughs and limbs to larger diameter logs, trunk sections cut into discs or rounds and also stumps.