According to mushroom quotation provided by Guangdong Haijixing Agricultural Products Market, on February 13, Superior Shiitake mushroom, Black fungus, King oyster mushroom, Button mushroom, Agrocybe cylindracea, White beech mushroom, Brown Shimeji mushroom, Pleurotus geesteranus are 8 varieties that show price rise.

1.Price of Superior Shiitake mushroom has risen from 17 to 18 CNY per kg, indicating 6% of increase range.

2.Price of Black fungus has risen from 5.6 to 6 CNY per kg, indicating 7% of increase range.

3.Price of King oyster mushroom has risen from 6.8 to 7 CNY per kg, indicating 3% of increase range.

4.Price of Button mushroom has risen from 12 to 13 CNY per kg, indicating 8% of increase range.

5.Price of Agrocybe cylindracea has risen from 10 to 12 CNY per kg, indicating 20% of increase range.

6.Price of White beech mushroom has risen from 18.3 to 19.2 CNY per kg, indicating 5% of increase range.

7.Price of Brown Shimeji mushroom has risen from 19.2 to 20 CNY per kg, indicating 4% of increase range.

8.Price of Pleurotus geesteranus has risen from 12 to 16 CNY per kg, indicating 33% of increase range.

On the contrary, by February 13, Shiitake mushroom, Straw mushroom and Enoki mushroom are 3 varieties that show price fall.

1.Price of Shiitake mushroom has dropped from 16 to 14 CNY per kg, indicating 13% of decline range.

2.Price of Straw mushroom has dropped from 28 to 26 CNY per kg, indicating 7% of decline range.

3.Price of Enoki mushroom has dropped from 9.5 to 7 CNY per kg, indicating 26% of decline range.

“Price of Oyster mushroom and Seafood mushroom is respectively at 10 CNY and 11 CNY per kg,” introduces manager of Guangdong Haijixing Agricultural Products Market passionately.

With “Doubleganger and Zwam” sausage rolls, grower Mariëlle van Lieshout from Liessel in the Netherlands wants to encourage consumers to eat more oyster mushrooms. "There are many opportunities, but you have to see them and you have to be patient."

Van Lieshout from Liessel is a busy bee: she has her own oyster mushroom farm, develops innovative ideas for mushroom cultivation with Mobichamp and is a board member of the oyster mushroom association. For the latter, her main motivation is that she wants consumers to eat more oyster mushrooms. The association has a study club to learn from each other in the field of cultivation.

We are trying to develop new products, because only betting on the consumption of fresh oyster mushrooms is not enough. There are many opportunities, but you have to see them and you have to be patient.

RIJP
The entrepreneur has recently joined the RIJP platform developed by farmers, ZLTO and Geodan. The aim is that farm shops, caterers and retail can purchase a diverse package of regional products from farmers from the platform. Such a regional product is the “Doubleganger”, which Van Lieshout came up with together with regional product store 't Streeckhuys in Deurne the Netherlands. It is a hamburger in which half of the meat has been replaced by oyster mushrooms.

“With the Doubleganger belongs the slogan: the only male hamburger that your wife also wants to eat”
Mariëlle van Lieshout, Oyster Mushroom grower in Liessel in the Netherlands

The Doubleganger contains less fat, salt and calories and more fiber and taste than a regular hamburger and is a sustainable and healthy choice without consciously eating less meat," says Van Lieshout. 'We use the following slogan: the only male hamburger that your wife also wants to eat. That fits in nicely with that.

Wider range
All breeders who are members of the oyster mushroom association may market the Doubleganger. "We hope that we can reach a larger audience with a limited marketing budget," says the entrepreneur.

Van Lieshout also stood at the basis of the Zwam sausage roll, with a filling of half oyster mushrooms and half pork. 'An additional advantage is that you can store such products in the freezer for six months, while you can only sell oyster mushrooms fresh. With this, we hope to somewhat offset the peaks and troughs in sales in the future. "

Van Lieshout has also found a new destination for the stalk of oyster mushrooms, normally a residual product. The Eindhoven designer Doreen Westphal from Botanic Bites has been pioneering with tapas, saté and sausage from the stalk since 2016. In 2019 she came up with a variant on shoarma meat: Zwarma.

The grower also implements sustainability in other areas: the straw from the cultivation packages goes back on land as a soil improver and the nursery has 343 solar panels, good for a capacity of 100,000 watt-peak.

PlanetProof
The nursery is PlanetProof certified, but Van Lieshout is not interested in organic certification. 'The demand for organic oyster mushrooms is lower than the supply, so that makes little sense. But if that demand grows and I can get a biological substrate, I want to make the switch. " Most oyster mushrooms end up at retail companies in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and can be kept for around a week after purchase.

Companies sometimes offer the entrepreneur their coffee grounds to be processed into the substrate for oyster mushrooms. 'I want to think along with that, but then I also expect something in exchange , for example, that they will sell the Doubleganger or the Zwam sausage roll in their canteens. It must be beneficial for both parties. "

As a daughter of mushroom growers, Van Lieshout had a dream: the mushroom farm of the future. 'A mushroom can grow up to 4 percent per hour and therefore a picker has to make many decisions. With smart software I wanted to make harvesting easier and more automated. " It was not possible to get the financing for the own nursery, but the idea did not let her go.

Harvest guide
Together with two partners, Van Lieshout founded software company Advanced Mushroom Research in 2011. The Harvest Guide, developed by them, measures properties such as diameter, bulging of the hat and structure of the mushrooms above a growing bed. Colored lights on selected mushrooms then give picking advice to the picker.

At Koolen Champignons in Slootdorp there is a test setup of the Harvest Guide. With this the initiators hope to interest mushroom farms all over the world. 'The next step is robotization of the picking process. That is desperately needed, because it becomes more difficult to find and retain harvesting staff, "says Van Lieshout.

Source: Nieuwe Oogst
Picture: © Maartje van Berkel

The increasing demand for packaged food backed by increasing number of departmental store is likely to contribute towards the global mushroom market. Fortune Business Insights has announced a report, titled "Mushroom Market Size, Share and Global Trend by Cultivar Type (Button, Shiitake, Oyster, Milky, Straw, Reishi), Product Type (Fresh Mushroom, Dried Mushroom, Frozen Mushroom), Geography Forecast till 2026." Mushroom offers various health benefits such as prevention from diseases such as cancer and others. This is anticipated to increase the demand.

Some of the key companies that are present in the Global Mushroom Market are

o Phillips Mushroom Farms Inc.
o Bounduelle Fresh Europe
o Agro Dutch Industries Ltd.
o Ecolink Baltic
o Monterey Mushrooms Inc
o Hughes Mushroom
o California Mushroom Farms Inc., and The Mushroom Company.

The report classifies the global market in terms of various segments. In terms of region, Asia Pacific held a considerable share in the global market in 2018. The region is further anticipated to expand at an impressive rate. Owing to the increasing population in India and China, the demand for mushroom is likely to increase over the forecast period. Besides this, these nations are witnessing high deemed for nutritional food, which is anticipated to increase the growth rate in global market.

For the full article, click here

A new automatic picking lorrie was developed by Mush Comb with the focus on being absolutely picker friendly. Being friendly in use but for example also in maintenance. Each user confirms that the picking lorrie is remarkable easy made so no worries about for example hydraulic hoses breaking.

This started three years ago with Jasper Kanters from Kanters Paddestoelen. According to Jasper so far there was no picking lorries on the market which was friendly to work with. The practical growing and harvesting experience from a Dutch grower like Kanters was combined with the technology minded people from Mush Comb. A testing phase started which in the summer of 2017 resulted in 16 new automatic picking lorries.

It was the start of a new choice in picking lorries. First focus has been on automatic up/down picking lorries because growers saw most advantages in this function and often automatic forward/backward was not being used so why bother this extra investment.

In 2019 the product range was still expanded with full automatic up/down and driving to meet the requirements of each potential grower.

According to Bob Holtermans not only the high picking efficiency, high safety standard, practical use and low maintenance are the reason for the high demand of these picking lorries. It is in combination with the flexibility of Mush Comb. Because although the automatic picking lorries are made from the same basic principle each mushroom grower gets their own unique picking lorries. Customers have the possibility to consult with the engineers of Mush Comb with regard to packaging sizes, door spaces, etc. This to create the optimal working tool when it comes to assisting in the harvest.

The proof is given by all the growers which were convinced and have bought this new harvesting tool. Growers like:

• Kanters Paddestoelen, Netherlands
• Pleunis Mushrooms, Belgium
• Jacobs Champignons, Netherlands
• Peeters-Luyten, Netherlands
• Lesage Champignons, Belgium
• Van Nieuwenhoven-Steijvers, Netherlands
• Vandechamp, Belgium
• Agarica, Netherlands
• Champignonkwekerij Dingemans, Netherlands
• AK Champignons, Netherlands

Meaning the top of the manual harvesting industry in Netherlands and Belgium are convinced. This part of the world is still seen as great example for the rest of the world. Reason enough for growers worldwide to step in the footsteps of these great Dutch and Belgium mushroom growers.

Contact info from Mush Comb can be found on www.mushcomb.com

Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery...

In the eerie environment inside the abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, researchers remotely piloting robots spotted pitch black fungi growing on the walls of the decimated No. 4 nuclear reactor and even apparently breaking down radioactive graphite from the core itself. What's more, the fungi seemed to be growing towards sources of radiation, as if the microbes were attracted to them!

More than a decade later, University of Saskatchewan Professor Ekaterina Dadachova (then at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) and her colleagues acquired some of the fungi and found that they grew faster in the presence of radiation compared to other fungi. The three species tested, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, all had large amounts of the pigment melanin, which is found – among many places – in the skin of humans. People with a darker skin tone have much more of it. Melanin is known to absorb light and dissipate ultraviolet radiation, but in the fungi, it seemed to also be absorbing radiation and converting it into chemical energy for growth, perhaps in a similar fashion to how plants utilize the green pigment chlorophyll to attain energy from photosynthesis.

Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery...

In the eerie environment inside the abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, researchers remotely piloting robots spotted pitch black fungi growing on the walls of the decimated No. 4 nuclear reactor and even apparently breaking down radioactive graphite from the core itself. What's more, the fungi seemed to be growing towards sources of radiation, as if the microbes were attracted to them!

More than a decade later, University of Saskatchewan Professor Ekaterina Dadachova (then at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) and her colleagues acquired some of the fungi and found that they grew faster in the presence of radiation compared to other fungi. The three species tested, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, all had large amounts of the pigment melanin, which is found – among many places – in the skin of humans. People with a darker skin tone have much more of it. Melanin is known to absorb light and dissipate ultraviolet radiation, but in the fungi, it seemed to also be absorbing radiation and converting it into chemical energy for growth, perhaps in a similar fashion to how plants utilize the green pigment chlorophyll to attain energy from photosynthesis.

Click here for the full article

Source: RealClear Science By Ross Pomeroy - RCP Staff

How mushrooms grow and the yields are determined at filling. Assessing the compost and casing soil determines the final quality of the mushrooms. After this assessment, the settings are made on the filling machine. Any mistakes made at filling, will haunt you for the rest of the cropping cycle. On larger farms “growers" focus increasingly less on filling. Just a quick look at the compost and casing soil at the start, set the machine… and that's about it.

Why is filling so important?

Compost quality
Compost quality is influenced by: colour, texture, smell, temperature, hard or soft structure. How much water can the compost absorb and should you water at filling? How well will the CAC material grow? Only paying attention during the first 15 minutes of filling is not enough to get these details right. The least you can do as a grower is to be physically present three or four times at filling, to check the compost, casing soil and the filling quality. And have a chat with the filling machine operator.

The operator also has to be almost a grower; not only with an understanding of the machine, but also understanding what compost and casing soil quality is and how to handle the raw materials correctly. And not what I keep on seeing more often: filling the growing room with compost and casing as quickly as possible and not paying enough attention to the actual filling process. Sometimes the result is a whole groove along the bed because, for example, there was a piece of wood lodged in the CAC axle. There won't be any mushrooms growing there....

The operator should therefore ALWAYS stand by the filling machine and watch the machine where the compost with casing enters the growing room. The operator should look at the CAC and levelling axles. From this position, you can see what you are doing and stop the machine immediately if anything goes wrong.

Filling is the foundation of further growth. It's not simply completing a task, but also thinking about the quality of compost and casing you are dealing with and how it should be handled during filling and afterwards during growing.

Master class
The next masterclass course will be organised from 9 – 14 March 2020. This course is fully booked!

NEW: Live Training Mushroom Signals Essentials
Mushroom Signals Essentials live training will be organised from 8-12 June 2020.
Live training combined with e-learning. E-learning offers the basics, leaving more time for individual questions and farm walks during live training!
Read more by click on this link

Mark den Ouden