Does mushroom substrates need to be pasteurized?

You must pasteurize or sterilize your mushroom substrate in order to improve your chances of growing mushrooms successfully.

As previously indicated, the environments you create for your mushrooms are perfect for competitor organisms like mold and bacteria.

Many of these competitors outgrow mushroom mycelium more quickly, and if they are not taken care of, they will seize possession of the substrate before the mycelium has a chance to establish itself.

What is the Difference Between Pasteurization and Sterilization?

The key difference between the two is that pasteurization decreases the quantity of living organisms whereas sterilization seeks to completely eradicate them.

The process of pasteurizing mushroom substrate is similar to clearing your garden of all weeds before planting vegetables.

Sterilization, on the other hand, is more forceful and is comparable to burning the earth and eliminating all living things before planting crops.

Pasteurization has the advantage of preserving helpful heat-tolerant bacteria that can ‘guard’ the substrate from invading species during colonization.

It is possible to inoculate a substrate without sterile conditions if the substrate contains advantageous bacteria.

Everything in the substrate is destroyed during sterilization, leaving a barren surface on which anything may grow.

In order to prevent introducing contaminants, sterilized substrates require extremely sterile conditions during inoculation.