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I find it really heartening that you are asking these hard questions about sustainability for the planet vs ease and sustainability for a business

This channel will grow because it offers alternatives to people, education , and alternatives, show them ways to go

such quality content -- this is like a masterclass/presentation style which is refreshing for YT

Didn't expect to find such a guide! I was just thinking about searching how to see how to grow without plastic and this video appeared. Thanks a lot!

Near the end of your video you mention cleaning the buckets, It sounds like a tedious time consuming task. Some thirty years ago, I made beer using carboys, but I also tried to make my own wine in 5 gallon buckets like yours. There was a chemical readily available at the beer and wine equipment store used to cleaning the buckets. I think it was calcium chloride. I only needed a little, 1 tsp per 5 gallons of water. To my recollection, cleaning the buckets was quick work. Of course, this is better for small operations, and may not meet the needs of a mushroom farm with hundreds of buckets. Anyway, it might be worth looking into.

This is a really important conversation to have. I am also looking for what we can do with old substrate. I'd love to have a space just to discuss innovations in sustainable mushroom growing. Please do update is about your results growing buckets and bags side by side.

I think hemp plastics are the future once it starts getting used more and becomes readily available.

Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge for free and for caring about the environment. Getting my buckets tomorrow. Peace and love from Ghana

I worked at PALS Mushroom farm (Portland, OR) in 2020 and packed the buckets with the pasteurized substrate and spawn. We cleaned the buckets with a power sprayer and then soaked them in a bleach bath. Stored them in the incubator room and then wiped them down with a bleach cloth before packing. I found that they do become brittle over time and shatter, which can cause cuts to your hands if you are not careful. I am sure that by this time, you have come up with your own way to clean them. I enjoyed the work, even though it was very physical, and we grew beautiful oysters. :) We sold the old substrate as a garden amendment. I did, and we told other to, put the old, well-inoculated, mycelium-laden substrate into a bucket at home, but to replace the center of the mycelium block with fresh straw, cap with a wooden board weighted with a brick (high tech stuff, you know), place in the shade, under a ventilated plastic if needed, water and keep an eye on the humidity and then have another flush. In the summer it would be too hot to do this, but the fall, winter, and spring were great times for growing this way. I have thought about stainless steel, round with sealable holes (we always taped the grow holes on the buckets until we saw signs of growth and moved them to the growing chamber) and some sort of gasketed, sealable/locking top, almost like a pressure cooker lid, with a rubber patch to inoculate through. Pricey, but very durable. Really enjoying your videos. :)

Coming up with reusable containers and techniques are a step forward. A step that most othe you tubers are not providing content for. Bravo.

Amazing video!!! The plastic that's been saved because of this video makes a difference!!! You rock!!!

As always gents, another cracking look at mushroom growing. Great stuff!

I am going to make it with buckets. Because a friends restaurant normally uses quite a lot of those.. But have you thought about an restaurant dish washer for the bucket cleaning? You can just cycle 6-10 buckets every 2 minutes, and you are able to do stuff in the meantime. Thanks for the video!

what about glass jars (that can fit in a dishwasher) with hole/holes in the lid for the mushroom to grow out of?

precisely what i have been looking for(:

I love that you're going through your processes and trying to find ways of making them more sustainable! I'm curious, though, if you've considered that the reason for avoiding plastic isn't just because of single-use plastics. It's also that even (especially) in reusable plastic containers, there will be some microparticles that can't help but be absorbed into the soil or substrate -- depending on what's being planted -- and from there, directly into the food you're trying to grow. I've been looking into various alternatives myself, and I think I know what's needed. What I'm hoping to find, or commission, is a cylindrical container made of either ceramic or glass, perforated every 3 inches or so with quarter-inch to half-inch holes along its length. It probably wouldn't be viable for a large commercial concern, but for a home grower, a one-gallon or half-gallon container with a removable lid would be perfectly reasonable, both in terms of finding storage space and in terms of getting it into a dishwasher when it's time to clean it out. I have friends who are potters and I plan to commission such a growing container, once I've demonstrated to my wife that we CAN grow mushrooms in glass jars on our countertop (or in the wine fridge that some relative gave us, thinking that we drink wine). I think it'll work.

Enjoying all GrowCycle's videos----thank you for sharing your knowledge!! I will be following this comparison between bags and buckets closely 👍

Great video, very informative. Could you possibly make a follow up video on the results of buckets vs polybags? You mention trying it out to compare the yields and everything and I'd love to know th results. Thanks for sharing, and for actually talking about the downsides of mush cultivation. Cheers

Foldable box out of stainless steel :) Heavy front investment tough.

Amazing videos. The more I know your channel the more I find answers to question I do not even knew I had yet.

What I like about about bucket is that you can stack them vertically 👌

You guys are fantastic by the way! you cover the entire process with tips along the way, AND you aren't trying to sell me anything!! How about aluminum baking trays with lids? can stack and heat them, they're cheap disposable or maybe easier to clean. can poke holes on top too.

Well since margarine is one molecule from being plastic yet considered consumable as a butter substitute, lets try growing in that 🤔, I know jokingly...but really I know glass seems like a crazy solution, BUT it recycles and sustains cleaning, well forever. It’s formable to any shape/size, can withstand far more than any plastic! I really appreciate your efforts, all of us need to take these into consideration no matter what scale of farming.

You are not dumb , thanks to inspire me to do the bucket tek , keep us updated on your bucket setup!

This really summarises the whole eco genda: plastics are bad but having to put manual labour (or money into machinery) into cleaning of stuff is worse. No wonder we got nowhere in our fight against waste.

I know a grower who started with buckets but switched over to plastic bags because the labor required was just too much to scale up and become a more profitable business.

Many thanks. I hope someday you're approached for a TV show

Hello Adam! There are "real" biodegradable plastics available on the market but they have a much higher price than conventional plastics. The other point is the tensile strength of the material what you mentioned basically about starch bags. Here a small list of the material which are biodegradable and can be produced bio-based: PHAs (Polyhydroxyalkoates): group of plastics produced by some microorganisms as energy storage when the supply of nitrogen or phosphorus is not sufficient and the supply of carbon is in excess. Means the palstics is produced in the bacterial cells in fermentation tanks and has to be extracted from the cells mostly by destroying the cells. The main component is hydroxybutyrate in polymerized form (PolyHydroxyButyrate) and a lot of other molecules can be incoorparated, too. All depending on the bacterial strain, process conditions, substrate composition, additives and so on. A sustainable way to produce PHAs is the use of agricultural wastes as substrate. A lot of research is going on this field. PLA (Polylactic acid ) is a other biodegradable plastic which is produced by polimerization of lactic acid. It is probably most common biodegradable plastic but the properties are not very suitable for producing foil bags. It is used for production of biodegradle plastic trays and cultery. The material itself is known to be brittle what makes a lot of things very difficult. PBS (Polybutylene succinate) is a other biodegradbale plastic what can be produced bio-based means without the use of fossil raw material but the production from bio-based material is far too expensive for now. PCL (Polycaprolactone) is a fossil based palstics but it is biodegradable by microorganisms and without any additives. PBAT (Polybutylene adipate terephtlate) is also fossil based plastics what is biodegradable, too like PCL. But for all plastics there should be some microorganisms in the soil which have the appropriate enzymes and the overall conditions for degradation should be given. For example there are lot of reports that PLA needs 50-60°C for initiation of degradation what given in industrial composting plants.

Lovely courses, I’ve really enjoyed all your free intros and I’m planning to buy your course soon. Having used starch/maize based binliners before, I can totally understand your problem those being too soft. But buying fermented share plums the other day, I was really surprised about the rigidity of the plastic-like wrapping, and it was made of sugar cane syrup, maybe that is something you can look into and try again. Just a thought, maybe it helps. 💕

I used to work in a brewery and have grown mushrooms at home for a number of years. We used to clean casks with specially designed wash stations where you could essentially fill up a tank with cleaning solution (sodium hydroxide/peracetic acid) and cycle it through the casks via an arm fitted with a spray ball. Maybe you could use a similar system for your plastic grow buckets? Sodium hydroxide isn't the nicest chemical but was used to quickly clean off solid biofilm. Peracetic acid was used to sanitise afterwards, and eventually breaks down into non-toxic compounds (you can put beer straight into a peracetic cleaned tank without needing to rinse). Cycling the liquid cleaning chemicals within the system meant we could do tens of casks with only about 50-100L of each.

it inspire me , for spawn i wil use re-usable jars, and for fruiting stage, i will use re'usable buckets, thank you very mush

Great content only halfway in and it’s packed with information thank you 🙏🏽

To properly compare bags with buckets it’s worth calculating how many times you’d need to reuse each bucket to account for the extra plastic/energy used in its production. Like those cotton tote bags that produce ~150 times more emissions than the disposable plastic bags they were replacing.

Been so busy now back to a bit of normally. A year late but still valid. Excellent information lads. Many thanks 🙏🌹💯

My local ice cream shop just throws away their bins. They are happy to give them to me for free. They know me now.

What about a compostable liner in a bucket? Pull out the liner clean bucket🤔

Awesome videos mate. Really finding your way of explaining things easy to follow and interesting.

Very informative... Much appreciated. Am about to venture into mashrooom farming. Am from Kenya. Hope to get the opportunity to get gather more information from you and your team

Thank you

My new favorite channel Im a microgreens farmer Looking into combining mushroom ms in my farm too 🤪

Awesome. You guys are doing great work.

I’ve been glued to these videos for a while now and I’ve just brought my own kit (from you) so ready to get started on this, hobby now found.

Thank you! The info is excellent!

silicone tubes?

You mentioned cornstarch bags being too weak - have you attempted using them as liners with netting or buckets for support?

How about using hot steam to sterilize the buckets right before adding the new substrate? This way, the cleaning process after removing the spent substrate might not have to be as thorough.

Well done, thanks for the quick overview.

informative and well presented! thank you!

Thank you for the direct, informative style. The videos with the endless, boring personal preambles (tenable in some cultures?) have put me off KZfaq. Anyway, I liked this approach. One mushroom question (from a friend with an Italian restaurant) can one farm with porcini mushrooms? Is there a reliable source to put me on that track for a small farm?

Have you tried growing mushrooms in cardboard boxes? All retailers get weekly deliveries of products in cardboard boxes. These get broken down and recycled. May of them are the same size and shape. Even if it decomposes (which it would), it would give a season of harvest before returning to the earth. Your thoughts? One thing that hasn't been mentioned here or on any other gardening channel making use of plastic is that plastic breaks down over time into microplastic, which is taken up by plants and then into our bodies. Microplastics have been found in 100% of people whose blood has been tested for it. I don't know what it does to us, but I know we did not develop to have plastic coursing though our bodies. This is something new.

What about growing mushrooms in large bottle gourds and dipping them in beeswax to seal them?!

Really interested to know how the comparison between the buckets and disposal plastic went side by side

in portugal we have a big farm with no plastic , they plant shitakes in oak and eucalyptus logs

Excellent video - thanks!

Is plastic free mushroom farming possible.... you then detail two plastic containers. BRILLIANT!

Thank you for excellent content!!!!!from Stockholm Sweden 🌷🌸🌻

Great content and inspiring comments!

Hi, Why is it important to clean the container between uses? If you are growing the same mushroom again surely you want parts of the old substrate left in, which you can use as the inoculation for the new substrate. Or am I missing something fundamental?

Great thoughts brother. Way to go

you have such amazing content. wow. sorry my brain does not work well enough for me to have a better comment but i was really blown away by your content. impressive work👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Bit of a problem with hair continuity at 4:47, haha! Seriously, though, good info, thanks.

Concerning buckets, the fruiting holes appear to greatly restrict the possible yields. Is this impression incorrect?

Might want to look into plastics again. They are more green than paper for single use.

A commercial dishwasher would make maintaining a buck farm easy. The type with a conveyor belt that uses hot high power jets.

Micro plastics are a concern as well

I wonder if anyone's tried using a commercial restaurant style dishwasher. They're basically just a tunnel you pass things through. They use very hot water. It may work on bucket tek.

Thank you so much for this video! Any updat on how the second cycle went and how to clean the plastic containers? Love from India

What do you think of ceramic jars, like the terra cotta pots for large potted plants, for reusable containers? They're heat resistant so you can just heat them in a kiln to sterilise quickly & easily all at once.

This is the reason i went with mason jar grows. Unlimited uses... unless it breaks of course.

Thanks, inspiring, i was also not agree to by plastic bags tothrow it awy, its money u know.. yes very good idea to use re-usable items ! Thanks !

bpi certified plastics are good too, any plastic that breaks down in a compost pile (not an industrial composter) and doesn't have forever chemicals can be bpi certified

Dear Adam , after watching your video on the construction of , and growing mushroom in an outdoor situation , I copied you, bought some mycelium and have just harvested some tan and pearl oyster mushrooms ... my first success !! it is memorising to what these things grow , and they did quite quickly in 1 month . [It is winter here] But I am worried because where there is virtually no sterilisation process in that method, which I have gone with , yet in this particular video you emphases the need for sterilisation in the process of growing mushrooms . Does outdoor growing not require this and should I just let it runs its course ?

great video - the plastic film is the obvious downside of gourmet mushroom production. Alot of small scale production seems also to use substrates that come in single use plastics - eg wood pellets etc.

Hey I have a question about buckets... It seems that theres a couple problems. (1) Wouldnt contam be really bad, if it happened? Cause a whole bucket could be contaminated and you wouldn't know it? (2) What about on 2nd and 3rd flush... Wouldn't it shrink, and start fruiting inside the bucket? How would you prevent that? Thanks

What about having a sterilization chamber/part of your shipping container space where you have to wash your buckets first, but afterwards you put them in the chamber and pump in a mist of hydrogen peroxide? The kind of Hydrogen peroxide that is used for wound care is 3% and is used in some microbiology labs to kill pathogens. It's relatively cheap and environmentally friendly, doesn't need heat or electricity to work?

Interesting situation. So on a very large sale it is doable, and on a very small scale it is doable, but that intermediate size mushroom farm hasn't really figured it out. Maybe the solution is just manpower. hire a local high school student to come in for a few hours every weekend to clean the buckets.

to clean buckets, Brush on a drill. Then use dish detergent. at the end wipe them with thymol based solution or alcohol.

How about holding biodegradable bags at the bottom instead of hanging them at the top?

I enjoyed listening to your presentation very much. At the end I recalled having seen a footage about how they produce very stable bricks from processed mycelia, would that be a possible idea for growing mushrooms in such a material?

What about recycling old plastic soda bottles? I also thought on recycling used large pvc pipes. Would these ideas work?

Interested in the results!

Rất hữu ích

What about a compressed coconut fiber bucket? Something like the nursery pots. They may not be autoclavable but could work with low tech farming. Along the lines of 5gl buckets I've thought about large diameter pvc pipes in 6ft lengths to replace the number of buckets used at once. Or maybe a wax lined compressed large diameter cardboard shipping tubes... or stainless steel tubes/tanks to go completely plastic free.

Hi, what instrument do you use to measure the moisture content and PH level of the substrate? Thanks

Thanks bro..

Perhaps a soak in Lime Water and then using a 'Drill Toilet Brush' will reduce the time required for cleaning Buckets.

If you are still thinking about a good way for cleaning the buckets (not sterilizing them) u might design a pool where u pick water with a High pressure pump and provide the pool with filters that divide water from the dirty part coming from the buckets into the same pool. With this you might be able to reuse the same water again and again. By the way filters might be the solution as well as the problem, when they saturise with dirt. Have a think and enjoy!

The cheapest thing if ya got a hot water tap to just use a pressure washer. But the use of water in cleaning can also be viewed as bad for the earth. For instance in California they have a law that fines people for using to much water. People literally have to choose between doing laundry, dishes or a shower. The ground there in some places have lowered by fifty to a hundred feet or something because the aquifer is decreasing. So I don't think using tons of water in place of plastic is reasonable especially if people are avoiding plastic to save the earth. I know some people for instance avoid dairy saying it's bad for the earth cause cows use lots of water and produce methane, but most people don't know that it takes like a gallon of water to grow a single almond so tons of water was used to produce a glass of almond milk. It's good that you're comparing the pros and cons and actually looking at both sides. It lets people see that saving the earth isn't easy. Metal for instance instead of plastic pollutes a lot to mine it, and make it. And electric cars that use cobalt probably don't mention that most cobalt comes from the Congo where thousands die from pollution and there's child labor. Even green cars aren't green. That would cool though if one day there was an actual alternative to plastic since it's literally used in almost every business especially hospitals. One thing ya could check out is old plastic 8" tubes that were used for field irrigation with openings every so often. They could contain a lot of material if ya had the room cause they're long.

Could the cleaning buckets issue be achieved in a similar way to cleaning pint glasses in some pubs? - An upside down (pointing up) spinning brush with some kind of water/cleaner jets. Stick an upside-down bucket over the spinning brush and water jets, move it up and down, et voila. Just a thought 💭

How about 3D-printing containers explicitly designed for mushroom growing and easy cleaning?

this is probably one of the top things searched, simply because like-minded people who care for the environment look to grow their own food. for people who live in places that mushrooms cant grow on logs or gardens

When time comes will try bamboo sections and roasted banana leaves in baskets... If any of those work they'll be easy to compost or turn into biochar.

Does anyone know why the method of growing mushrooms in beds doesn't work for other varieties other than button-mushrooms? Why would an open bed of pasteurized/sterilized substrate inoculated with oystermushrooms or something similar not work?

what if i put a random dried mushroom in substrate for good luck

Love this 🔐🔓💎💎💎💎💎 glad I found this

If the buckets are already inoculated with the spores and substrate why do they need to be washed?

I happened too notice a small steam cleaner on TV once upon a time that seems like it would be economical in cleaning the buckets as far as sterilizing goes after hand clean or low pressure...pressure washing. I don't know in actuality it would be practical or not. The one on tv was used to clean surfaces in bathroom and kitchen. Inside is a must almost cause of insects.to grow shrooms...fire ants.....worms.....etc....love the substrate of shrooms . I bought 2 kits lately of which one I had luck with via instructions. The non producing log kit I buried outside....then it started to grow a few king oyster mushrooms and lo and behold ants and worms helped me to eat them. I've inoculated trees here or put the plugs or wood dowels, but it's a waiting game with that and hoping the chicken of the woods mushroom will work out and spraying with water twice a day in a shady spot so as to keep enough humidity going...might pay off in long run. . I did drill the holes slightly oversize..which I hope that don't make a big problem. The drill bit I wanted to use was too dull to drill a hole with...so I decided one a little bigger, which was all I had. I melted candle wax to apply over holes. Just hope the chicken of the woods type mushrooms will produce?

The things that make plastic so useful in this application (strength, temperature and contamination resistance, durability) are the same reasons is such a terrible pollutant. We want something strong, flexible and durable that breaks down easily :( Too bad we can't cleanly burn spent plastics for energy and return the carbon to the ground.

You could always use a cornstarch bag and wrap organic rope around it!