How We Grow Mushrooms
for extracts & Powders
At Volcano Mushrooms, we grow our mushrooms on Hawaiʻi Island using careful mycology practices, renewable island-based substrates, and small-farm attention to quality. Our cultivation process begins with clean mycelium cultures and continues through substrate preparation, inoculation, colonization, fruiting, harvesting, drying, and post-harvest processing for mushroom extracts and powders.
This page takes you inside our mushroom farm to show how species like Lion’s Mane, Reishi, and Oyster mushrooms move from living mycelium to mature fruiting bodies. By using agricultural byproducts such as macadamia and coffee materials, we reduce waste while creating nutrient-rich substrates for consistent mushroom growth.
Step 1: Clean Mycelium
On a nutrient-rich petri dish, mycelium grows as a network of branching hyphae that gradually forms a dense white colony. This controlled stage of mushroom cultivation helps ensure a clean, vigorous culture while preventing contamination before further expansion.
Step 2: Mushroom Substrate
Our substrate is made from macadamia and coffee byproducts, which are mixed, steamed, and bagged before inoculation. Steaming in a bulk pasteurizer helps reduce bacteria, mold, and other unwanted organisms, creating a cleaner environment for mycelium to colonize the substrate and grow with less competition.
Inoculating the bags introduces clean mycelium into a sterilized, nutrient-rich substrate. Performed under sterile lab conditions, this step gives the desired fungus the best chance to colonize the bag and produce strong fruiting bodies.
Step 3: Inoculating Grow Bags
Step 4 : Colonization
After inoculation, the mycelium begins colonizing the substrate. As it grows, it releases enzymes that break down organic material into nutrients the fungus can absorb. This stage prepares the block for fruiting once colonization is complete.
Step 5: Ready to Form Primordia
As the hyphae fuse together, they form a dense, interconnected white network throughout the substrate. Once the substrate is fully colonized, the fungus shifts from vegetative growth toward fruiting and becomes ready to form primordia when light, oxygen, and humidity are introduced.
Step 6: Pin Formation
Primordia, or “pins,” are tiny knots that form on the surface of the substrate as the first visible stage of mushroom development. Responding to light, humidity, oxygen, and temperature, these pins absorb water and nutrients as they begin growing into young mushrooms.
Step 7: Fruiting Wall
Fully colonized grow bags are moved into a controlled grow room and arranged vertically on fruiting walls. High humidity, fresh air exchange, and indirect light encourage the mycelium to produce mushrooms, while the vertical layout helps maximize space and makes harvesting more efficient.
Step 8: Mushroom Flushes
Mushroom cultivation can produce multiple flushes, or waves of growth, from the same colonized substrate. After each harvest, the mycelium rests before forming new primordia and another crop of mushrooms. With proper humidity, fresh air, and hydration, the bags can continue producing for several cycles before the substrate is spent.
Step 9: Extracts & Powders
Once the mushrooms have fully matured, they are carefully harvested by hand. From there, they are dehydrated, ground into powders, or processed into mushroom extracts for convenient use in food, drinks, and daily routines.