Traditionally, shiitake mushrooms in China and Japan are grown on one-metre long oak logs with holes drilled into the four inch girth. The growing stage, from inoculation to harvest, takes approximately one year.

In contrast, using Everbloom Mushroom’s patented method, the mushrooms are ready for harvesting in just 6-8 weeks. Based on the principles of lignocellulosic decomposition, the technique consists of four principle stages – substrate preparation, spawning, cropping and packing.

For substrate preparation, the mushroom are grown on sawdust ‘logs’ – plastic bags filled with sawdust, wood waste and organic supplements/nutrients, which are autoclaved (heat sterilised) to remove micro-organisms that may interfere with the mushroom growth. Under normal growth conditions, the fungus secretes enzymes to break down the wood fibres. Dr Tan’s method uses as a substrate growth sawdust, which is in a sense broken down wood. Fungal growth is hence accelerated, as the fungus no longer needs to produce extensive amounts of enzymes for cellulose degradation.

Spawn – basically fungal culture – is produced from a mixture of cereal grains and mushroom culture under aseptic conditions. The sterile sawdust logs are inoculated with the appropriate spawn and transferred to growing sheds. The mushrooms grown by Everbloom are temperate varieties, so the shed temperature is maintained at 15-18º.

A network of fungal fibres, known as mycelial mass, forms throughout the sawdust log during this ‘spawn-run’. Once they have spread throughout the log, budding (emergence of the actual ‘mushroom’) occurs.

Each mushroom bud is allowed to grow to the required size before cropping. Every log is allowed to produce an average of five ‘flushes’ – a ‘flush’ referring to a single harvest of fruiting bodies. Once harvested, the mushrooms are graded and transported to distribution centers where they are packed and sold.