Home · Guides
🍄 Grower guidesMushroom growing guides
Clear, practical writeups for people who sell what they grow — the numbers and decisions that actually move yield, cost, and reliability on a small gourmet mushroom farm. No fluff, no sign-up.
These guides cover the numbers a small gourmet mushroom farm actually runs on: biological efficiency, spawn ratio, substrate hydration, fruiting conditions, pinning triggers, contamination, growing times and business economics, for oyster, lion's mane and shiitake. Written for growers who sell what they grow. Nothing is gated and there is no sign-up.
Oyster mushroom growing: complete guide
The best place to start — choose a variety and substrate, spawn, colonize, fruit, harvest your flushes, troubleshoot, and know what yield to expect. Links every tool and guide you'll need.
Read the guide →
Lion's mane growing: complete guide
The premium gourmet & functional crop — substrate, spawning, the high-humidity/high-fresh-air fruiting it needs, how to fix branchy "coral" growth, harvest, and the yield to expect.
Read the guide →
Shiitake growing: complete guide
The blue-chip gourmet crop — sawdust blocks vs logs, the long colonization, the browning the block must do before it fruits, the cold-water soak that triggers each flush, harvest, and the high yield to expect.
Read the guide →
How long does it take to grow mushrooms?
The full timeline, stage by stage — inoculation, colonization, pinning, fruiting — with real day counts for oyster, lion's mane, shiitake and 14 species, and what makes a grow fast or slow.
Read the guide →
How to get mushrooms to pin
The 4 triggers that cause pinning (CO₂ drop, humidity, FAE, temperature), species-by-species conditions, and a troubleshooting table for blocks that won't fruit. Includes a free pin diagnostic: tell it your species, days waiting and conditions and it names the one thing to change first — or that nothing is wrong yet and the day to come back.
Read the guide →
When to harvest mushrooms
The signal that says "pick now" for each species — cap margin, spine length, cap opening — why spore drop is the point of no return, and why the ripest mushroom in a cluster sets the clock for all of them. Includes a free ripeness checker: tell it what you can see and it answers pick now, within a day, or not yet.
Read the guide →
How to start a mushroom farming business
The realistic, numbers-first version — startup costs, the production cycle, whether it's profitable, how to find buyers, and the mistakes that quietly sink new farms. Includes a free mushroom farm profit calculator: monthly profit, real cost per pound, break-even block count and how long your startup spend takes to come back.
Read the guide →
Biological efficiency, explained
The single most useful number on a mushroom farm — what BE means, how to calculate it, target ranges by species, and seven ways to push it higher. Includes a free biological efficiency calculator that works out your own number.
Read the guide →
Spawn ratio, explained
How much grain spawn to mix into your substrate — 10% vs 20% vs 30%+, the trade-offs for speed, contamination, and yield, with a worked example.
Read the guide →
Master's Mix substrate recipe
The workhorse gourmet block substrate — the exact 50/50 hardwood sawdust & soy hull recipe, real batch weights, why it fruits so well, and the two mistakes that contaminate it.
Read the guide →
How much water to add (field capacity)
What field capacity means, the squeeze test, how much water per substrate type, and how to rescue a batch that's too wet or too dry — the moisture level that decides yield and rot.
Read the guide →
Contamination: identify & prevent
Recognize green mold, cobweb, black mold, and bacterial blotch at a glance, understand what each is telling you, and the prevention checklist that stops the biggest drain on a small farm. Includes a free contaminant identifier: answer what you can see and it names the likely culprit and tells you whether to bin the block or whether it can be saved.
Read the guide →
Run the whole farm on more than a notebook
Mycro turns these ideas into a working system: log every batch from spawn to flush and get your real BE, yield, and cost per pound — per strain and substrate.
Try the free Grow Log → Become a Founding Grower — $99 →$99 once · opens a sign-in account today · lifetime founder pricing · a direct say in what we build first · fully refundable any time.