[ksbrooke]

I'm wondering what the organic market for mushrooms would be like and how big of an operation would one have to have to profit?
Thanks
Brooke

 

[Guest]

from what i know all comercial mushrooms are basicly organicly produced so it would just be a question of competing sucessfully with existing supplies or find markets with no supply. Mushrooms have some rather specific conditions required temp humidity and weil and staemans have written some good books on production. oyster may be a good one for an entry project suposed to be easier than the button. some like to keep ****ake logs.one or both are also active in mushroom people i think a company selling spawn and mushrooms as well as systems and advice they are pacific northwest either washington or oregon.

 

[Guest]

i got bleeped the missing letters made a swear word oh well an oriental mushroom made by mixing the shushing sound with it then adding the remaining letters. another slang term for dung

 

[jkillen]

There are a few different places selling both kits and dowels.
Kits are basically boxes with the mushrooms ready to grow. The problem
with the kits is according to what they expected for you to get, 4lbs, you're
paying twice the price compared to how much I pay at the store.

What seems like the better choice are towels with spore on them that you
put into recently felled tree trunks. The problem with dowels is I can't find
anyone that sells button or portabella dowels.

If someone knows of a place that sells them please let me know.

 

[countrygrrrl]

I've been looking at those kits for growing your own bad-wordake mushrooms for a very long time, and they just keep getting more and more expensive. About the only justification I can find for buying one is some of them are really quite pretty!

Now there is an old Countryside article which explains how to grow your own mushrooms, but it uses toilet paper things. I'm sire you could find something to replace that but, for now, the visual association is just a bit much for me.

Those other kits where you find a downed tree and inoculate your own stuff --- I've heard some pretty mixed reviews on that. the thing that troubles me the most is that somewhere, a couple of years ago, I read that the specifications for a suitable trunk were actually fairly restrictive. Sooo .... there's that.



However --- many states now have mushroom growers associations. If you're serious about becoming a commercial operation, I think I'd start there --- join the growers association.

I think it's a pretty admirable venture. I'm crazy about mushrooms and think someone who did their homework could make a nice living from it.

 

[ksbrooke]

Hmmm, interesting stuff, thanks all! I'm off to look for a mushroom growers badwordociation in Kansas. I think one could make a tidy profit off of them too...if'n I have enough left over after eating to sell, that is!
Brooke

 

[tallpines]

S-h-i-t-a-k-e

(There are ways to get around that censor)

 

[PonderosaQ]

Whatever happened to the days when you could buy spores from seeds co's like Stokes, no facncy kit and just put them under the dirt under a tree and eat mushrooms for months? I've been looking for plain button mushroom spores with no success.

PQ

 

[Guest]

the wood medium mushrooms can be grown from innoculated dowels those can be had fairly reasonably kits are hardly necessary and dowl peddlers on the net also supply reasonably good culture guides the dowels do need sealed the logs are a bit crucial as a matter of convienience as well as suitability recomended is hard wood oak elm in straight 4 ft or longer lengths diameter 4-5 inch i believe. culture sucess is partly dependant on care partly on climate. the hot dry wind of ks summers is not a good thing. doesn't mean you can't do it. the life span of logs is fairly long. Other mushrooms like oyster and button have entirely differant culture methods. button and cremini are the same just differant age. oyster is reported to be the fastest easiest to culture. button generally involves creating a sterile compost from wet horse droppings and wet srtraw turning several days and attaining internal heat to sterilize then inoculating and growing in quite specific environments temp and humidity wise.basicly in artificial caves. For personal experimenting and production you need look no further than the grocer for sources of the genetics then follow either tissue culture or spore culture from that source. for comercial production there may be some patents and liscensing involved. you should find several internet sites like mushroom people that give further instruction and information as well as mail order sales of supplies and equipment. A good manual is mushroom cultivator i think is the name but not really needed or well suited to the home gardenr aproach. better to search google for say growing oyster mushroom and you should find some simple home production pages using sterilized sawdust for the oyster. buttons will be more dificult but if you like i have seen plans for shelves to locate in a cellar but it would involve a rather maticulous and complex manufacture of compost. not sure if portabella is a log or compost mushroom but i bet you can do a google search on growing portabella and find some info. Comercial production of mushrooms IMO is a mature and developed industry at least in ks as i have no shortage of products on the shelves. that means the demand is being filled so you would have to compete with established producers and since they are all organic anyway an angle or unique product may not be possible. Comercial mushroom growing hit ks several years ago in a fairly major way in part due to pizza hut and demand for mushrooms to supply them. hope that helps a little. i also find most the kits to be novelty items and not really feasable at all. For even more supply than the fresh ones at your average grocer visit an asian food store to find reasonably priced large bags of dried mushrooms in several types. My father always promptly burned any ear of corn that got corn blight yet i understand it is a gourmet fungus or "mushroom" now sought by some chefs. A few mushrooms defy the experts in becoming cultivated such as the morel often hunted by fans and of course the famous truffle. both seem to require a living forest as habitat. i cam buy at least a 1/2 dozen varieties of fresh mushroom from most any local grocer. Dry mushrooms have a shelf life of somewhere this side of forever and make a great emrgency food storage item.