Calcium chloride (CaCl2) is a harmless food additive.
It is added to the oyster mushroom substrate so that the fruiting bodies are not affected by bacteriosis.
There is no need to buy an expensive medical drug with this name. A technical purified preparation, without foreign impurities, is suitable for this purpose.
If you add this substance to the substrate, it gradually dissolves in water and enters the growing oyster mushroom along with other nutrients.
At the same time, the upper skin of the mushroom thickens and the bacteria that cause oyster mushroom bacteriosis cannot penetrate the fruiting body.
Such mushroom clusters can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 days longer without changing in appearance or cracking. The taste of oyster mushrooms does not suffer at all.
Calcium chloride is added directly during inoculation of the substrate at the rate of 3 kilograms of the substance per ton of steamed plant material.
Note! The calculation is made specifically for the wet substrate!
The drug must be added to the substrate on the inoculation table, along with the mycelium (grain spawn).
Mash the grain spawn, sprinkle it with CaCl2 powder, mix well.
Let's say you have a six-kilogram bag of mycelium and you add it at 3% of the weight of the substrate.
This means that you use this package for 200 kg of finished substrate.
We have 5 times less substrate than one ton. For this volume you need to add 3 kg/5 = 600 grams of calcium chloride.
Calcium chloride is not added to dry raw materials or water for steaming the substrate!
When dissolved in water, especially too hard, it enters into chemical reactions and the effect on thickening the skin may not appear.
You need to understand that such a supplement is not a panacea. After all, the appearance of spots on the cap and yellowing of the oyster mushroom is associated with incorrect processing technology for straw or sunflower husks.
Read more about this in the article “Bacteriosis on oyster mushrooms”.
