Dear mushroom growers, experienced and beginners, amateurs and professionals!My name is Larisa Teslenkova and I welcome you to my personal website.
Here you will find reliable information presented in a simple and understandable language.
All articles are written by me.
I am a teacher by education and vocation and an oyster mushroom technologist by life experience.
For 8 years I have been gaining experience at my own enterprise:
Since 2014, I have been advising mushroom growers on mushroom production and troubleshooting in households and large enterprises.
I train mushroom technologists, calculate the climate systems of growing chambers and incubators.
I have video channels on YouTube.
When I started my business, I had two corps of the old tractor brigade. These rooms were empty.
I thought that you can grow oyster mushrooms in them - I wanted to make a growing chamber and buy ready-made blocks - to grow only mushrooms, not to make a substrate.
I was advised to use the services of an experienced and well-known technologist, who, unfortunately, deceived me. He said that my room was not suitable for a growth chamber.
And he proposed to build a pasteurization tunnel for 10 tons of substrate in this room and sell mushroom substrate blocks. I had no experience in growing mushrooms and did not know that making a tunnel would be much more expensive than making a growing chamber.
The technologist did not tell me about this - when compiling a list of the necessary equipment, he “forgot” to write down many important and expensive components.
After we made the walls of the tunnel and started buying the ventilation system for the tunnel and the inoculation room, I found out the true cost of all the equipment. I did not have so much money, I had to take out a loan to complete the construction. I paid off the loan for a very long time.
In the photo on the right you see my enterprise and below - my pasteurization tunnel for 10 tons of substrate
Now I write a lot about the fact that equipment for growing oyster mushrooms and investments for a start are very large sums.
I tell my clients about this, we carefully consider how much money is needed in order to start a mushroom business, depending on the volume of oyster mushroom cultivation.
In my articles, I write about the difficulties and problems faced by mushroom growers. Because a lot has been written on the Internet about what an “easy” mushroom business is, very few technologists write the truth.
My enterprise produced about 100 tons of substrate per month.
At first, we only sold blocks, then we built growing rooms (400 sq.m) and since 2009 we grew 3.5-4 tons of oyster mushrooms per month.
In 2014, I sold the company. For two reasons: firstly, my business partner, my sister, got married and moved to live in Europe. Secondly, the enterprise was located in the Kherson region, Ukraine, and the situation was unstable.
Now I have a lot of experience:In addition to 8 years of work in my own business, I have seen many enterprises of my clients.
I have helped fix many bugs at the lowest cost for clients. I know what to do in difficult situations.
All the photos that I use in my articles are photos of problems that my clients needed my help with.
I use photos with their permission. You can take into account other people's mistakes by reading my articles.
Good luck with your business and good harvests.
