Anh Son farmers grow clean mushrooms

Ms. Le Thi Hoa's mushroom production facility in Linh Son commune (Anh Son) has a scale of 3,000 m2. Photo: Thanh Phuc

After decades of working hard in Long Khanh (Dong Nai), in 2004, due to family circumstances, Ms. Le Thi Hoa and her husband and children returned to their hometown. During their time in Dong Nai, both of them worked for large-scale mushroom farms, mastering the techniques and characteristics of each type of mushroom. With that knowledge and the money they had saved from years of working for hire, they began to experiment with growing the first mushroom spawn, but due to the limited market, and the fact that few people in their hometown knew about and used this food, they had to give up...

It was not until 2019, after stabilizing the family economy and researching the market potential of this clean vegetable, that they determined to build a business.mushroom production facilityscale, getting rich from mushrooms. Nearly 3,000 m2 of land was rented by the couple, building camps to grow mushrooms: raw material storage house, mushroom cultivation and disinfection house, silk nursery house, mushroom hanging house... with an investment cost of more than 1 billion VND.

Creating jobs for dozens of local workers with a stable income of 200,000 - 300,000 VND/day. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Although they have decades of experience in mushroom growing, when they started, they encountered many difficulties because the weather in their hometown was harsher than in Dong Nai. After a few trial plantings, they initially lost money, but after 3 months they broke even and started making a good profit. While growing and gaining experience from practice, their family's income increased day by day.

Currently, with a scale of 3,000 m2 of production workshop, nearly 100,000 mushroom spawns, every day Ms. Hoa's mushroom production facility supplies the market with about 100 kg of various types of mushrooms: gray abalone, chicken thighs, wood ear mushrooms, white clams, straw mushrooms, lingzhi..., creating regular jobs for 16 local workers with an income of 200,000 - 300,000 VND/day.

On average, 100 kg of mushrooms are supplied to the market each day, bringing in a revenue of 10 million VND/day. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Ms. Le Thi Hoa said: “The most convenient way to grow mushrooms is to take advantage of locally available agricultural waste: corn bran, rice bran, cassava stalks, straw, sawdust, etc. Mushrooms are an extremely clean vegetable because all ingredients to make mushrooms must be clean, completely natural and do not use any chemicals. The nutrients in mushrooms are many times higher than other foods. Therefore, the market is very popular, especially in temples, restaurants, and hotels.”

Many groups came to visit and learn about mushroom growing experience. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Growing mushrooms is not hard work but requires diligence. It takes a lot of time to monitor and check the temperature and humidity suitable for mushroom growth. The farm usually maintains the temperature at 25 - 30oC and the humidity is about 65 - 70%. If the technical part is done well, each mushroom spawn will yield 4 - 5 harvests. Currently, Ms. Hoa is continuing to invest in a sterilization system for raw materials and will conduct experiments on many different substrates such as: corn stalks, corn cobs, duckweed... waste products available locally. To take advantage of the waste products of harvested mushroom spawn, which is sawdust, she limes and disinfects them to mix and grow straw mushrooms on wooden trays and on soil for high productivity. This is a way to minimize the exploitation of resources and at the same time limit the release of polluting waste products into the environment.

Mushrooms are considered a clean food and are very popular in the market. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Sharing about her upcoming plans, Ms. Hoa said she will continue to perfect the closed model and expand the scale.mushroom spawn productionto meet the needs of people and farms, and at the same time research the use of waste from mushroom spawn to make organic fertilizer to provide to people in the area to serve agricultural production. She also wishes to convey and share experiences with households on mushroom growing techniques, helping people to change production, contributing to the development of the local economy.