JPH07327487A - Automatic inoculator for spawn of mushroom - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an automatic inoculator for spawns of mushrooms capable of automating the inoculation of the spawns of the mushrooms into a culture medium consisting essentially of sawdust housed in a culture bag made of a plastics, reducing labors and shortening the operating time. CONSTITUTION:This inoculator for spawns of mushrooms is capable of vacuum sucking both upper sides of a culture bag 3 and opening the upper part thereof with a pair of attraction plates 16 and 16 constituting a vacuum suction mechanism 15 at a prescribed stopping position while conveying the culture bag 3 housing a culture medium 2 with a conveyor 4, then scraping the spawns in a spawn container 9 with an inoculating rod 10, dropping the resultant spawns into a spawn feeder 11, measuring a fixed amount of the spawns with rotating blades 12, feeding the fixed amount of the spawns through a hopper 14 onto the culture medium 2 in the culture bag 3, inoculating the spawns thereinto, subsequently releasing the vacuum suction, temporarily closing the opening of the culture bag 3, conveying the culture bag in this state and heat-sealing the opening of the culture bag 3 with a heat-sealing mechanism 17 at the next stopping position.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention is to inoculate mushroom culture inoculated with a culture medium obtained by sterilizing a culture medium made by mixing a culture medium such as sawdust with a nutrient source into a plastic culture bag and sterilizing the culture medium together with the culture medium. The present invention relates to an automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In cultivating mushrooms such as shiitake mushrooms, nameko mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms, a medium culture medium consisting of sawdust is filled into a plastic culture bag and pressed into blocks, and the culture bag is sterilized and sterilized. The method of artificially cultivating mushrooms by inoculating the obtained culture medium with mushrooms and culturing has been widely put into practical use. In artificial cultivation of such edible mushrooms, a culture medium obtained by mixing a nutrient source with a medium mainly composed of sawdust is generally disclosed in JP-A-55-85.
No. 331, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 57-42287, and Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 57-22518, etc., a ventilation hole of 30 to 40 mm is formed in a part of a tube made of a plastic film. A culture bag is used in which a porous film that allows air to pass through the pores but does not allow microorganisms to pass through is heat-bonded.

[0003]

In many of the plastic culture bags disclosed in the above publication, it is necessary to provide a space for forming an air layer for the purpose of moisturizing or the like after filling the culture medium with the culture medium. Length of about 300-500m
m is used, and the ventilation holes are about 1/2 to 1 / from the bottom.
It is formed at a height of 3. Therefore, even if the culture bag is filled with the medium and formed into a block shape, a play occurs in about half of the upper part of the culture bag, and as a result, the upper part of the culture bag is always in contact with the front and back surfaces to be closed. for that reason,
In order to inoculate the culture medium after sterilization with the inoculum of mushrooms, the upper part of the closed culture bag is manually opened to inoculate the culture medium with mushroom fungi. However, the work of opening the upper part of the culture bag by hand is extremely troublesome, and the labor and labor required for the opening work are large, the work takes a long time, and the contamination of bacteria during the inoculation is unavoidable. However, there is a problem that the quality of mushrooms is deteriorated and the yield of cultivation is deteriorated. In addition, such manual inoculation is a major obstacle to systematizing a series of mushroom cultivation processes for mass production.

In view of the above circumstances, the present invention automates the inoculation of mushroom fungi when inoculating mushrooms into a culture medium filled in a culture bag and sterilized in artificial cultivation of mushrooms. It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum that can reduce labor, work man-hours and work time, and can obtain high quality mushrooms.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum of the present invention is arranged such that the culture medium filled and sterilized in a plastic culture bag is placed and moved together with the bag. Conveyor, and at the predetermined stop position of the conveyor vacuum suction the opposite side of the culture bag filled with culture medium to open the culture bag, and after inoculating the culture medium with the inoculum, release vacuum suction and culture Vacuum suction mechanism to close the opening of the bag, inoculation mechanism of inoculum to inoculate the culture medium of the culture bag opened a certain amount of this inoculum has been arranged above the conveyor, of the conveyor to move from the stop position It is characterized by comprising a sealing mechanism which is provided at a predetermined stop position and seals the opening of the culture bag after inoculation of the inoculum.

More specifically, an automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum of the present invention comprises a conveyor for placing and moving a sterilized culture medium filled in a plastic culture bag, and a predetermined stop of the conveyor. At the position, the opposite sides of the culture bag filled with the culture medium are vacuum sucked to retreat to open the culture bag, and the culture medium is inoculated with the inoculum and then moved forward to release the vacuum suction. A vacuum suction mechanism consisting of a pair of suction plates that close the opening of the bag, and an inoculation mechanism of an inoculum that inoculates the culture medium in the opened culture bag with a certain amount of this inoculum that has been arranged above the conveyor, and It is composed of a seal mechanism that moves from the stop position and seals the opening of the culture bag after inoculation of the inoculum provided at the predetermined stop position of the conveyor. While holding the mouth downward and rotating it, insert the scraping blade of the inoculation rod having a scraping blade at the tip from the opening of the seed container to rotate the seed container and move the inoculating rod up and down. The seed germ scraping means that scrapes the seed germ from the opening through the opening, and the seed germ that receives the scraped seed germ and stirs the seed germ evenly by the built-in rotary blade, and the seed germ feeder that discharges a fixed amount from the outlet, and the seed germ. The present invention is characterized by comprising a vertically movable hopper for inoculating the culture medium stopped on the conveyor with the inoculum discharged from the feeder.

In the present invention, the culture bag for filling the culture medium is made of a heat-sealable plastic film, and the bag is obtained by gusset-folding a film of polyethylene, polypropylene, or the like, and is placed at a predetermined position on the side surface of the bag. Pores are formed, and a porous film that allows air to pass through but does not allow microorganisms to pass through is thermally bonded to the vents.

The culture medium to be used was sawdust mainly composed of broad-leaved trees such as beech, horse chestnut and oak, and rice bran and bran were mixed at a predetermined ratio, and other necessary nutrient sources were added thereto to adjust the water content with water. Fill the culture bag and pressurize it into a block shape together with the bag at a temperature of about 120 ° C for about 9 minutes.
Sterilize by autoclaving for 0 minutes.

The inoculation mechanism of the inoculum is that the inoculum container containing the mushroom inoculum, the scraping means for scraping out the inoculum in the inoculum container, the inoculum feeder for receiving the scraped inoculum, and the inoculum feeder ejected. It is composed of a hopper for supplying a fixed amount of inoculum to the culture medium in the culture bag.

The inoculum container is held above the conveyor with the opening downward and inclined at a predetermined angle, and is rotatably provided. The scraping means is composed of an inoculating rod whose tip is bent at a predetermined angle, and a scraping blade is integrally attached to the bent portion. The inoculating rod is inclined according to the inclination angle of the inoculum container. In addition, the scraping blade is provided so as to be movable up and down so that it can be retracted into and out of the inoculum container through the opening.

The inoculum feeder is installed below the inoculum container, and a pair of rotating blades are rotatably mounted in a tray-shaped bottomed cylindrical body with an open top, and the inoculum is discharged to a part of the peripheral wall in contact with the bottom. It has a discharge port formed therein.

The hopper is vertically movable below the discharge port of the inoculum feeder, and is lowered by the opening of the culture bag by vacuum suction so that the lower opening enters the culture bag and the inoculum feeder The amount of the inoculum inside is dropped into the culture bag and then rises. In addition, the whole mechanism of supplying the seed bacteria comprising these members is covered with a cover in order to prevent invasion of various bacteria.

The conveyer on which the sterilized culture medium is placed and moved together with the bag conveys and stops the culture medium at regular intervals, so that the culture bag can be smoothly opened by the vacuum suction mechanism. Therefore, it is desirable to hold the upper portion of the culture bag in a vertical state, and at the same time, to provide a guide member for accurately conveying the culture bag to the vacuum suction mechanism.

[0014]

In the automatic inoculator of mushroom seeds of the present invention, the culture bag containing the culture medium is placed on the conveyor and moved, and the opening of the culture bag is opened by the vacuum suction mechanism at a predetermined stop position during the movement. However, a predetermined amount of inoculum is inoculated into the inner culture medium by an inoculum mechanism of inoculum. For inoculation with mushroom inoculum, take out the inoculum in the inoculum container by a scraping means, adjust the amount of the inoculated mushroom inoculum to the prescribed amount of inoculum to be inoculated in the inoculum feeder, and introduce it into the culture bag at the stop position through the hopper. The culture bag after completion of inoculation is finally sealed by the sealing mechanism provided at the rear of the conveyor with the opening of the culture bag temporarily closed by the vacuum suction mechanism. The thus obtained culture medium after inoculation with the mushroom seeds is used for inoculation and aging of the seeds by known methods to generate mushrooms, and by growing the mushrooms thus generated, mushrooms of excellent quality can be obtained.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the automatic inoculating device for mushroom seeds of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The mushroom inoculum automatic inoculation device 1 of the present invention comprises a conveyor 4 for conveying the culture medium 2 stored in a plastic culture bag 3 and a seed culture in the culture bag 2 at a predetermined position of the conveyor 4 to inoculate the culture medium 2. A seed inoculation mechanism 7, a vacuum suction mechanism 15 that holds the culture bag 3 in an open state when the seed bacteria are charged into the culture bag 3, and temporarily closes the opening after the seed bacteria are charged; and a closed opening. And a sealing mechanism 17 for sealing.

The culture medium 2 was prepared by adding nutrients necessary for mushroom growth to a medium, such as beech, horse chestnut, Japanese oak, hardwood sawdust, rice bran, bran, etc., at a predetermined ratio to adjust the water content with water. It is filled in a plastic bag 3 made of gusset-folded plastic such as polyethylene and pressed to form a block.
It was autoclaved for 0 minutes under high pressure. The culture bag 3 for containing the culture medium 2 varies depending on the weight of the culture medium to be filled, but the height is usually 300 to 500 m.
m, a ventilation hole having a diameter of about 25 to 40 mm is formed in at least a central portion of at least one side surface, and the ventilation hole is covered with a porous plastic film or the like that allows air to pass therethrough and does not allow microorganisms to pass therethrough. .

The conveyor 4 supported by the conveyor rollers 5 and 6 mounts the culture substrate 2 stored in the culture bag 3 and moves to the left in the drawing. At that time, the opening of the culture bag 3 is supported by the pair of guides 20, 20 so as not to fall down.

The seed germ inoculation mechanism 7 is installed above a predetermined position of the conveyer 4, and is used for finely crushing the mushroom seeds in the seed germ container 9 with the scraping blade 10a at the tip of the inoculation rod 10 and scraping them out. The seed germ scraping means 8 and the scraped mushroom seed germ are made uniform in thickness from the discharge hole 13 to the hopper 14.
Inoculum Fider 11 to be discharged to the
And a hopper 14 for supplying the fixed amount of mushroom inoculum obtained in 1 to the culture bag 3.

The inoculum scraping means 8 constituting the inoculum mechanism 7 for inoculum comprises a wide-mouthed inoculum container 9 having a capacity of 900 cc or 1200 cc and an inoculation rod 10, and the inoculum container 9 has a wide-mouth opening downward. It is held at a predetermined inclination angle toward and is rotated in the direction of the arrow around the axis x passing through the center of the opening and the bottom. The mechanism for holding and rotating the inoculum container 9 is not shown. One inoculation stick 10
A rod-shaped body is bent at an appropriate angle and a scraping blade 10a is formed on the bent tip. The vertically moving mechanism (not shown) raises and lowers the inoculation rod 10 within an appropriate range. The portion of the scraping blade 10a at the tip of the inoculation rod 10 is inserted into the inside of the seed germ container 9 held at a predetermined angle, and the seed germ container 9 is rotated to crush the seed germ through the opening finely. And scrape. By this scraping, the mushroom inoculum is finely crushed and falls into the inoculum feeder 11.

The inoculum feeder 11 is installed between the inoculum container 9 and the conveyor 4 and has a pair of rotary blades 12, 12 in a tray-shaped bottomed cylindrical body having an open top.
Is rotatably attached, and a discharge port 13 for discharging inoculum is formed on a part of the peripheral wall which is in contact with the bottom. By rotating the rotary blades 12 and 12 in the direction of the arrow, the mushroom seeds that have fallen have a uniform thickness in the bottomed cylindrical body, and at the same time,
The bent tip portion of 12 has a structure for discharging a certain amount of mushroom inoculum from the discharge port 13 to the hopper 14. The amount of mushroom inoculum discharged from the discharge port 13 can be adjusted by automatically controlling the rotation speed of the rotary blade.

The hopper 14 is vertically movably installed so that the opening of the upper wide mouth is below the discharge port 13 of the inoculum feeder 11 and above the conveyor 4.
When the lower end opening enters the inside from the upper opening of the culture bag 3 accommodating the culture medium 2 at the lower position due to the vertical movement,
A certain amount of mushroom inoculum discharged from the inoculum feeder 11 is supplied to the upper part of the culture medium 2, and after the supply, the lower end opening that automatically rises and moves in is operated so as to come out from the culture bag 3. The whole inoculation mechanism 7 including these members is covered with a cover so as not to be affected by falling bacteria from the outside.

The vacuum suction mechanism 15 is composed of a pair of suction plates 16 and 16 arranged on both sides of the conveyor 4 directly below the hopper 14 constituting the inoculation mechanism 7.
16 approach each side of the culture bag 3 by mutual advancement,
It is configured to separate from each other by retreating. Adsorption plate 1
When 6 and 16 move forward and come into contact with the side surface of the culture bag 3, a vacuum pump (not shown) operates to retreat while adsorbing the film surface of the culture bag 3 to open the upper portion of the culture bag 3, After the mushroom inoculum is supplied onto the culture medium 2, the hopper 14 moves up and the lower end opening is automatically pulled out from the culture bag 3 to advance forward to bring both sides of the culture bag 3 closer to each other and temporarily close the opening. After that, the vacuum generator is stopped, the suction of the film surface is stopped, and the apparatus is configured to retreat.

The seal mechanism 17 is composed of a pair of heat generating elements 18, 18 having a heat generating portion on the opposite surface side. The seal mechanism 17 is arranged on both sides of the conveyor 4 after the vacuum suction mechanism 15 and is operated by the vacuum suction mechanism 15. When the culture bag 3 whose opening is temporarily closed is conveyed by the conveyor 4 and stopped at the position of the sealing mechanism 17, the heating elements 18, 18 approach each other to heat seal the opening. In the figure, 20a is a guide for guiding the culture bag 3.

The method of using the automatic inoculating device 1 for mushroom fungus having such a constitution will be specifically described by dividing into the preparation preparation operation of the mushroom fungus and the method of supplying it to the culture medium. [Preparation Operation for Inoculating Mushroom Inoculum] a) Cover for Covering Inoculation Mechanism 7 of Mushroom Inoculum (not shown)
Open the door, set the inoculum container 9 in the inoculation mechanism 7, and set the amount of mushroom inoculum input by the control device (not shown). Then, when the switch is turned on, the inoculum container 9 is in the direction of the arrow. Rotate to.

B) Simultaneous rotation of the inoculum container 9 and inoculation rod 10
Rises and the scraping blade 10a at the tip enters into the inside from the opening of the seed germ container 9, so that the seed germ in the seed germ container 9 is finely crushed by the scraping blade 10a by the rotating action of the seed germ container 9, and its own weight causes It falls into the inoculum feeder 11 below.

C) Inoculum dropped on the inoculum feeder 11 is
By rotating the rotary blades 12, 12, the powder is further finely pulverized and uniformly mixed, and at the same time flattened to have a constant thickness, and an appropriate amount is stocked.

[Supply to Culture Medium] d) The culture bag 3 sterilized with the culture medium 2 filled therein is placed on the conveyor 4 at the right end of FIG. 1 using a position guide (not shown) or the like. At that time, the outside of the culture bag 3 may be sterilized by operating a chemical spray valve (not shown) as needed. The block-shaped culture bag 3 placed on the conveyor 4 has its upper end opening guided by the guides 20, 2.
Moved to the left while being supported by 0, the hopper 14
Stop at a fixed position just below.

E) When the conveyor 4 is stopped and the culture bag 3 is stopped at a predetermined position below the hopper 14, the conveyor 4 is stopped.
The suction plates 16 and 16 of the vacuum suction mechanism 15 provided on both sides of the disk move forward and stop at a predetermined position. When the adsorption plates 16 and 16 stop at a predetermined position, a vacuum pump (not shown) is activated to suck the outside air from a large number of through holes provided on the entire surface of the adsorption plate 16 so that the upper side surface of the culture bag 3 is removed. The state of being sucked by the suction plate 16 is maintained.

F) At the same time that the upper side surface of the culture bag 3 is adsorbed by the adsorbing plate 16, the adsorbing plates 16 and 16 move backward, so that the upper part of the culture bag 3 is opened leftward and rightward. A filter is set on the vacuum hose (not shown) so that dust or the like sucked from the suction plate 16 during vacuum suction does not enter the valve (not shown).

G) When the upper portions of the culture bag 3 are opened by retracting the adsorption plates 16 and 16, and the state is maintained, the hopper 14 descends and the lower end opening is positioned inside the opening of the culture bag 3.

H) The lower end opening of the hopper 14 is the culture bag 3
When located inside, the rotary blades 12, 1 of the inoculum Fider 11
2 operates to feed a fixed amount of the mushroom seed bacteria in the seed feeder 11 into the hopper 14 through the outlet 13, and is supplied (inoculated) to the upper part of the culture medium 2 via the hopper 14. At that time, the inoculation amount of the mushroom inoculum is adjusted to a predetermined amount by controlling the number of rotations of the rotary blades 12, 12 of the inoculum feeder 11.

I) When the inoculation of the culture medium 2 is completed, the hopper 14 rises and the suction plates 16, 16 of the vacuum suction mechanism 15
Advances to close the opening of the culture bag 3. When the opening of the culture bag 3 abuts and is temporarily closed, the suction of the suction plates 16 and 16 is released, and the suction plates 16 and 16 retreat and return to the start position.

J) When the retraction of the adsorption plate 16 is completed, the conveyor 4 is activated, the culture bag 3 inoculated with the mushroom inoculum and temporarily closed at the upper opening is guided by the guides 20a, 20a, and the position of the sealing mechanism 17 is reached. Move to and stop.

K) When the culture bag 3 is stopped at the position of the sealing mechanism 17, the sealing mechanism 17 starts from the left and right of the conveyor 4.
The pair of heating elements 18, 18 forming the
Heat seal the temporarily closed top of the. When the heat sealing is completed, the heating elements 18, 18 move back and return to the predetermined positions to prepare for the next operation.

L) When heat sealing is completed, the conveyor 4
Is activated to guide the culture bag 3 along the guides 20a and 20a, and the table 19 provided at the end of the conveyor 4
Be transferred to. The culture bag 3 inoculated with the mushroom inoculum and having the heat-sealed opening is moved from this table 19 to the next step using another conveyor (not shown) or the like, if necessary, and all steps are completed. To do. At that time, table 1
By providing a retention sensor in 9, the operation of the entire apparatus can be stopped when the culture bag 3 is delayed in transportation to the next step.

[0036]

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION The automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum of the present invention is an operation of opening a culture bag containing a culture medium at a predetermined position while transferring the culture bag containing the culture medium by a conveyor, and an opened culture bag. The operation of inoculating the culture medium inside with mushroom seeds and the operation of heat-sealing the opening of the culture bag after inoculating the mushroom seeds can all be carried out automatically without manual labor.

In addition, the inoculation mechanism of the mushroom inoculum of the present invention is such that the inoculum container containing the mushroom inoculum is directly incorporated into a part of the apparatus, and the inoculum of the inoculated seed bacteria is a scraping means for removing the inoculum from the inoculum container. It is composed of an inoculum feeder that adjusts the amount of inoculum to a predetermined amount and a hopper for supplying it to the culture medium in the culture bag, and by organically linking these, the mushroom inoculum can be reliably added to the culture medium without human labor. It is said that it is possible to completely eliminate the conventional manual inoculation such as vaccination and save labor of inoculation work, shorten the inoculation time and ensure the inoculation, and prevent the quality deterioration of mushrooms due to harmful bacteria. It is possible to produce many merits and make a great contribution to the mass production of mushrooms.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing an example of an automatic inoculation device for inoculum of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Mushroom inoculum automatic inoculator 2 Culture medium 3 Culture bag 4 Conveyor 7 Inoculation mechanism 8 Inoculum scraping means 9 Inoculum container 10 Inoculation rod 10a Scraping blade 11 Inoculum feeder 12 Rotating blade 13 Discharge port 14 Hopper 15 Vacuum suction mechanism 16 Adsorption Plate 17 Sealing mechanism 18 Heating element 19 Table x axis core

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A conveyor for placing and moving a sterilized culture medium filled in a plastic culture bag together with the bag, and a vacuum is applied to opposite sides of the culture bag filled with the culture medium at a predetermined stop position of the conveyor. A vacuum suction mechanism that opens the culture bag by suction and releases the vacuum suction after the seed culture has been inoculated with the seed culture and closes the opening of the culture bag, and a fixed amount of the strain seed that has been arranged above the conveyor. From an inoculation mechanism of inoculum to inoculate the culture medium of the culture bag having an opened amount, and a seal mechanism that moves from the stop position and seals the opening of the culture bag after inoculation of the seed provided at the predetermined stop position of the conveyor An automatic inoculation device for mushroom fungus characterized by being 2. A conveyor in which a culture medium filled in a plastic culture bag and sterilized is placed and moved together with the bag, and a vacuum is applied to opposite sides of the culture bag filled with the culture medium at a predetermined stop position of the conveyor. A vacuum suction mechanism consisting of a pair of suction plates that open the culture bag by sucking and retreating, and then move forward after inoculating the culture medium with inoculum to close the opening of the culture bag by releasing vacuum suction. And an inoculum mechanism of an inoculum that inoculates a fixed amount of this inoculum into the culture medium in the opened culture bag above the conveyor, and is provided at a predetermined stop position of the conveyor that moves from the stop position. It is composed of a sealing mechanism that seals the opening of the culture bag after inoculation of the inoculum, and the inoculation mechanism of the inoculum is held with the opening of the inoculum container facing downward and rotated to scrape the tip of the inoculum. Inserting the scraping blade of the inoculum having a blade from the opening of the seed container, and rotating the seed container and moving the inoculation rod up and down to scrape out the seed from the opening, The inoculum is uniformly stirred by a rotating blade that receives the inoculum, and the inoculum feeder discharges a fixed amount from the outlet, and the inoculum of the inoculum inoculated with the inoculum inoculated with the inoculum from the inoculum feeder moves up and down. An automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum characterized by being configured with a possible hopper. 3. The holding and rotating of the inoculum container in the inoculum scraping means is configured such that the inoculum container is inclined and held and rotated with the opening of the inoculum container facing downward. Item 2. An automatic inoculation device for mushroom fungi according to Item 2. 4. The hopper descends due to the opening of the culture bag by vacuum suction, and the amount of the inoculum in the inoculum feeder is fed into the culture bag through the hopper and then rises. The automatic inoculation device for inoculum according to 2. 5. The automatic inoculation device for mushroom inoculum according to claim 1, wherein the mechanism for supplying the inoculum is covered with a cover for preventing invasion of various bacteria.