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  • From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer AT gmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Mushroom Farming
  • Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:24:11 -0500

Wyatt,
Good you are asking questions and thinking about mushrooms at length.
We've been eating mushrooms for years, then added to our foraging with log cultivation 7 years ago.
Just reviewed our market sales for the year.  Confirmed that we need more mushrooms for customer demand.  We always sell out what we bring.  And often, the mushrooms make up 1/4-1/3 of our fresh food sales.  Not in table space, but in total sales.  For the time spent in harvest and packing for market, at $10-15/#, may be our most profitable fresh crop.  And any of my six children can harvest them, while I'm picking salad mix, edible flowers, etc.  Oysters easily keep a week, esp. the cool weather strains.  And shiitakes keep longer if you store them well.

Last Sat, last market of the year, I harvested a cool weather strain of oysters, through several inches of snow.  We have Zone 6 winters here in SW VA, and I grow cool season strains of both shiitakes and oysters, to have mushrooms to fill out my offerings in spring and fall.  And we've harvested through the winter, esp since last one was so mild.

They dry easily, and we get the same money fresh or dried, as most of our customers know how to use them dried. 

For my time and money (and I ran a college micro lab for yrs), it makes sense to buy >5 lbs of spawn for $22-23 several times a year.  I easily recover that cost the first time they fruit.

At my market, mushrooms sell themselves.  I try to use contrasting display.  (Bright yellow oysters on a black background were a hit this summer.)   As with many foods, customers want to meet the person who grows it.  Mushrooms are a food adventure for they can and do kill.  So we regularly eat mushrooms we take to  market, and a smiling kid at my booth is witness to their safety.

As for competition, and to identify market opportunities, I'd talk with market managers and chefs, to identify demand.  The chefs I work with appreciate fresh mushrooms, as what they ship in often arrive poorly.  Don't set your price with a chef on mushrooms until they see what you can deliver, compared to the price and quality they now have available.  You don't know their cull rate.  But don't base the enterprise on 1-2 enthusiastic chefs, for they might be gone before your first harvest.

Just filled out the paperwork for Certified Organic mushrooms, during our inspection last week.  I need to go there because more vendors at my market are seeing the unmet mushroom demand.  Some of my customers would never buy a mushroom, but some of them would never buy my squash blossoms, favas or bok choi either.  I want my market to meet ever more of various customer demands.  I want we vendors to hear more and more "We didn't realize those were here, too!"

I like oysters because they are so robust, and because many customers have foraged their own, or know others who do.  I'd be careful over-relying on less familiar ones, until you've built a customer base.  Then they can trust you to try new species.  Samples are important to expand the customer base, and mushrooms are easily cooked at market.  Though I've never had the need because at my level of production, they sell out.

We don't soak logs because I don't have contracts for delivery.  Also, I'd rather rely on natural rains, and allow my market customers to share in that seasonal cycle.

As for advice, all the mushroom spawn suppliers I've dealt with have the best customer service of any hort/ag supplier.  Mushrooms folks are passionate.  There are teachers out there to meet you however you learn best.

Feel free to contact me offline with more Qs.
Richard
Fresh 'Melissa' savoy cabbage for slaw tonight.  Came through 15F very well, with single layer row cover.

Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:50:38 -0500
From: "Wyatt Jones \(netzero\)" <wyatt_jones AT netzero.com>
Subject: [Market-farming] Mushroom farming
To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <09D3FAD732FD4B6EA7B716B9D81B48A2@WJONESXP>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

I've been thinking about growing mushrooms, I have most of the equipment from brewing and culturing beer yeast and bacteria and have a small building I can turn into a clean room/lab, though I'd have to invest in a laminar flow hood, though I'm thinking about building one actually.  I'm not sure about marketability and profitability though, probably have to peddle them up in Columbus where it seems to be more affluent.  I do have some woods and I've been thinking about doing some growing outside and some indoors to get a more even crop over the year.  You can buy spawn but it seems to me to be more economical to culture it yourself and I do have some experience with that and can produce a lot of wood chips and can get grain suitable for cultivation.  If it starts to pan out I'll grow my own grain for the purpose.  Some people are cultivating morels but that seems to be a trickier proposition than most the other mushrooms, you can culture the mycelium pretty easy and it grows
 fast but he mycelium strands are also more delicate in transfers to new medium.  I did see some at Kroger's over in Kettering but their stock seems to be somewhat variable and I notice they don't carry as much as they used to.  Still I don't think button or oyster mushrooms are a good bet, not much profit in buttons and oysters are too perishable, though I'd probably do some of them (oysters) anyway for variety since its easy to grow them, even outdoors. I was thinking more along the lines of shitakes lions manes, maitake, chicken of the woods, maybe reishi, turkey tails, Nameko's, pioppino's etc.  Anyway just checking to see if anybody has any experience with the viability of doing this as a business, or side business.  I imagine doing it in someplace like California or the east coast might make it easier to market, Ohio might be a different story.

Wyatt


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