Mushroom Growbags Biodegradable

[Lung Ben]

Hi,

I'm interested in setting up a small mushroom growhouse in Chiang Mai. The aim is just to produce mushrooms for personal consumption for a small community of about 25 residents (no commercial intentions).

We'd like to start with ready to go growbags ideally, however i have concerns about the plastic growbags.

I'm not very happy about the idea of using so much single use plastic! Also seems a bit senseless in todays world where bio options are becoming increasingly available.

 

Please can anyone recommend anywhere that produces Oyster (or other varieties) mushroom growbags packaged in biodegradable / compostable materials?

 

Or a company that produces these bio bags that could make shroom bags to order, then i could contract a grower in CM to spawn these bio mushroom bags....

 

Any advice would be great! 

[CLW]

What exactly do you define as biodegradable? Some fabric would do?

For this you'd probably have to buy the fabric in bulk and sewing custom made bags.

After growing you'd probably can wash them and re-use.

[Lung Ben]

43 minutes ago, CLW said:

What exactly do you define as biodegradable? Some fabric would do?

For this you'd probably have to buy the fabric in bulk and sewing custom made bags.

After growing you'd probably can wash them and re-use.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have a feeling that it might be more challenging to prevent contamination of the bags from other indigenous types of fungi and bacteria in the mushroom house (i'm no expert, just guessing), and cleaning the bags might be tough because after use i guess the mycelium will totally embed itself into cloth bags. 

The idea of reusable bags is definitely appealing though, it would save a lot of money.

What i had in mind was something like this (see pic).

These are available in the US, want to see if i can get them here in Thailand...

[CLW]

1 hour ago, Lung Ben said:

Thanks for the suggestion. I have a feeling that it might be more challenging to prevent contamination of the bags from other indigenous types of fungi and bacteria in the mushroom house (i'm no expert, just guessing), and cleaning the bags might be tough because after use i guess the mycelium will totally embed itself into cloth bags. 

The idea of reusable bags is definitely appealing though, it would save a lot of money.

What i had in mind was something like this (see pic).

These are available in the US, want to see if i can get them here in Thailand...

You can contact SCG or PTT for biodegradable plastic

[Lung Ben]

18 hours ago, CLW said:

You can contact SCG or PTT for biodegradable plastic

Great, thanks a lot!

[impulse]

We were paying peanuts (in quantity) for complete, inoculated mushroom grow bags from vendors near Bangkok.  I'm not sure you'd want to save money on them by going to biodegradable plastic, since they're (by design) subjected to humidity and moisture.  Nor do I think you'll save much by re-using cloth bags, with the need to empty, sterilize, and refill the bags each use. 

 

The equipment to process the bags is big and expensive, very specialized and 50x faster than doing it by hand.  The equipment generally comes from China, and in spite of being effective, it's extremely ugly and takes up a lot of space.  Then you have to add dealing with big piles of sand and sawdust.  Unless you want to invest in that very Flintstone looking setup, including sterilizer, mixer, and bag filler, you're better off buying the pre-filled and inoculated bags.  Once you get into growing thousands of bags at a time, it may be worth investing in your own bag processing equipment.  But not on startup.

 

Here's a photo of our prototype grow room (in my apartment), showing 1 grow bag.  The tent fit appx 350-400 grow bags.  The other photo is the grow room working on my friend's back patio.  The black tarp reduced the temperature in the BKK sun.  My Thai friend (who I was helping) took some learning lumps on this smaller setup, then her family built one on the same design to grow over 1000 bags at a time.

 

Edit:  I'd add that we visited about a dozen grow bag vendors around BKK and Kanchanaburi, and they all sold bags of exactly the same size and design.  Unlike YouTube and around the world where there's a million different grow bag configurations, I'd suggest designing your grow room around the standard Thai design shown here in the bottom photo.  Similar (but not identical) in size and shape to a 1.5 liter soft drink bottle.

 

[peterdarby]

Impulse: could you tell me somewhere you found these inoculated mushroom bags? I found a small farm outside Bangkok where they sell them for 10 Baht, but the delivery into Bangkok was 400 Baht and I only want a few to grow in my apartment (I'll do that if I have to, but if I can get them delivered cheaper, or find somewhere easier to get to…). I also tried the plant shops around Chatuchak Market, but they said I should buy online or from a farm.