We made mushrooms! With help from the spawn produced by Gerald Mgaya in Mbeya, Osen, Michael and I all worked together to start producing oyster mushrooms.

Inputs: a steel oil drum, 2 meters of plastic sheeting, fire wood, 7 plastic shopping bags, a bushel of dry banana leaves, some twine, rubber cord, three jars of mycelium spawn incubated on wheat (from Gerald’s TANMUSH lab).

Total cost: about TZsh. 10000 (materials purchased)

(Osen supplied the steel drum, which can be TZsh. 30000-50000)

We used the steel drum to pasteurize the banana leaves after packing them into the plastic bags.

1. Heat about 10 liters of water in the drum
2. Lower the stuffed bags into the drum (note: the more chopped the leaves are, the more mass you can fit into each bag)
3. Cover the top of the drum with the plastic sheeting securing it with the rubber cord. Make sure to leave a small outlet for steam. This can be done by inserting a stick under the plastic and tying the rubber cord so that it holds the stick in place.
4. Boil for about one hour
5. Allow the water to cool and then remove the bags.
6. Inoculate with spawn
7. Place bags in a dark room or box for 1-2 weeks (dark period)
8. After the dark period, move the bags to a dimly lit room
9. We had our first fruiting bodies come out after only a month in one of the bags (Gerald says the mean time he experiences is 3 months)