Mushroom production is light dependent. Some growers operate a 12 hour light cycle using fluorescent lamps. Pleurotus mushrooms are world-wide, China is the major producer. Volvariella volvacea is a high temperature mushroom grown largely in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia e.g. China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Madagascar. This mushroom can be grown on a variety of agricultural wastes e.g. paddy straw, water hyacinth, oil palm, banana, cotton or wood waste.
Mushroom production is encouraged by heavy watering, temperature reduction and light.
This fungus can be found growing wild in China, Siberia, Asia Minor, Europe, Africa, North America, Australia and Japan living on both dead and living wood of broad leaf trees such as aspens, willows and elms. Although this mushroom is gathered from the wild, it is also now cultivated particularly in Japan. The growth substrate is a mixture of sawdust and rice bran which are mixed, wetted, autoclaved and filled into polypropylene bottles. The growth temperature is manipulated to produce high quality mushrooms. A number of edible fungi are found in nature growing in association with living plants, usually trees.