The 'spoiled' son and the dream of cotton mushrooms

(Baonghean) - The first day of June. It was almost 3 pm but the sun was still scorching hot. The road leading from National Highway 1A to Nghi Kim commune (Vinh city) was deserted. Therefore, we had to wait for a long time before we could "catch" someone passing by to ask for directions to Hamlet 5. "There, the big iron-framed house in the middle of the field belongs to Uncle Thuan!..." - a woman wearing a mask pointed at us and said.

“Uncle Thuan” is Pham Hung Thuan. The youthfulness of this young man who had just turned 28 surprised me. Thuan led us into the house. When he saw the guests, Mr. Pham Hong Son, Thuan’s father, ran back and forth, pouring water, getting ice, and wanting to get beer to offer the guests. He thought we were his son’s business partners who had come to do business. When he realized the guests were reporters, he proudly took us to visit his son’s “property”.

"Prodigal son"

Pham Hung Thuan (left) introduces the cotton mushroom growing model. Photo: Dao Tuan

Born into a family of 8 siblings, Thuan is the youngest. Thuan's father, Mr. Pham Hong Son, was an accountant of Nghi Loc District Party Committee. When Thuan's brothers and sisters were basically settled, he was still wandering around and playing around. After graduating from high school, while his friends went to the East and West, some went to university, some studied a trade or went abroad, Thuan played around for a long time. Later, thanks to an acquaintance, he applied to study cargo control at Noi Bai airport. But after a short time, Thuan dropped out. In fact, Thuan was very "crazy" about getting rich, especially after getting married at the age of 25. He started to realize his dream by taking on interior design and decoration for civil housing projects. Being a natural craftsman, Thuan always thought he had the qualities of a sculptor, so he took on jobs like making reliefs, painting murals, assembling pictures with pebbles, stones, making wooden and plaster ceilings, etc. But after less than 2 years, Thuan left this job.

Mr. Pham Hong Son - Thuan's father (right) is the one who stood by and supported his son during the most difficult times. Photo: Dao Tuan

To earn money, Thuan turned to the profession of... writing calligraphy. "There were times when he earned 12 million VND from writing calligraphy in just one week" - Mr. Pham Hong Son boasted. However, Thuan changed his profession. This time he raised ornamental birds and made money trees. From dry branches and lifeless steel wires, through Thuan's hands, they became money trees used to decorate family altars and shelves. "My money tree products are actually "handmade". People not only buy them for decoration but also use them as feng shui plants in their homes" - Pham Hung Thuan said.

The product was selling well and at a good price, but Thuan decided to quit to open a coffee shop. Mr. Son had to borrow 300 million VND for Thuan to invest in opening a coffee shop on Phong Dinh Cang Street (Vinh City). Everything seemed to be going well when Thuan had a wife and a cute son. But the coffee shop failed.

Mushroom Dream

Bored, Thuan stayed at home surfing the web, occasionally doing whatever he was hired to do. And during those days, Thuan came up with the idea of ​​growing mushrooms. What made Thuan confident before starting this job was that he had successfully grown straw mushrooms when he was a middle school student. At that time, Thuan had scored 10 points in his biology practice subject. Somehow, during the days he stayed at home pondering over his series of failures, his passion for growing mushrooms from his student days returned and urged Thuan. He started to search online and realized that most of the models grew straw mushrooms in the traditional way, while the product value and productivity were not high.

Pham Hung Thuan (left) introduces his cotton mushroom. Photo: Dao Tuan

Thuan's wife, Pham Thi Thuy, was impatient when she did not understand what her husband did that he turned on the computer day after day and night, and then saw Thuan carrying bags of books and documents for research. Then Thuan became a member of mushroom growing associations in the South and the North. He constantly improved his knowledge and skills in mushroom growing through communicating and exchanging experiences with his seniors through social networks. That process helped Thuan make a decision: not to grow traditional straw mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms, but to grow mushrooms using cotton fibers (cotton) that have been stripped. "Extremely difficult" or "extremely harsh" - are what Pham Hung Thuan said about growing mushrooms using cotton fibers.

Mushrooms grown from cotton materials are in the process of growing by Pham Hung Thuan. Photo: Nhat Lan

To make his dream come true, Thuan had to find every way to convince his family to support him. Mr. Pham Hong Son was determined to support his son to the end. "Every cow and pig he could raise, he would give to him," Mr. Son said emotionally. At first, Thuan and his father built a house to grow mushrooms using bamboo and reed. To get raw materials, Thuan went to Hoang Thi Loan Textile Joint Stock Company (Vinh City) to buy cotton with stripped husks, the price of 1 ton of cotton was 3 million VND. Then he contacted the Hanoi Genetics Institute to buy tissue culture.

According to the process, the cotton fibers after being brought back are ground and treated with lime powder, then checked for pH, inoculated, and incubated... Thuan said that in the first days of mushroom growing, he never slept before 2am. And what's even more special is that Thuan grows mushrooms in winter - the most difficult time for mushrooms to grow and develop. Because the method of growing mushrooms with cotton always requires maintaining a temperature of 30 - 32 degrees Celsius, higher or lower will kill the mushrooms. However, on the first try, Thuan succeeded beyond expectations. 1 ton of raw materials yielded 200 kilograms of mushrooms, achieving a rate equivalent to 20%, which is what professional mushroom growers dream of. According to market prices, 1kg of cotton mushrooms costs an average of 100,000 VND, so after deducting all costs, Thuan earned about 16 million VND from a batch of mushrooms grown within 20 days.

Mr. Pham Hong Son and his son introduce newly built mushroom farms. Photo: Dao Tuan

The initial success was the motivation for Thuan to expand his investment in this model. After demolishing the bamboo mushroom house, Thuan built four mushroom houses with steel frames. The roofs of these houses are covered with foam, the top is covered with heat-resistant corrugated iron and covered with sun-blocking nets; the walls are covered with many layers of different materials, such as silver, nylon, nets, etc. Thuan said that even the tap water used for ultrasonic misting must be dried before use. All stages and processes are strictly followed, leaving no element "untouched". All of these things are learned by Thuan and his own experience. The investment value of each such "mushroom house" is about 80 million VND.

After the first success in November 2016, Thuan has now made more than 10 crops with dozens of different batches of mushrooms, one batch after another. According to Thuan, there were also 5 batches of mushrooms that failed, "but now it is certain to be successful" - Thuan said - "Many people still ask why I don't grow straw mushrooms using the traditional method, in fact, the current source of straw is not rich in nutrients and is not very safe because people use a lot of plant protection chemicals during the cultivation process. Meanwhile, the yield, nutritional value and safety of mushrooms using cotton materials are 3 - 4 times higher".

After mushrooms are agricultural products according to international standards.

In order not to waste organic microorganisms from cotton after use, Pham Hung Thuan decided to build a greenhouse to grow clean food. With an investment value of over 500 million VND, on his family's land (according to Decree 64), Thuan signed a contract with ATESO Industrial Solutions Co., Ltd. to build a greenhouse using Israeli technology. Here, Thuan will grow melons, strawberries and clean agricultural products... all according to international standards. Thuan said that from the mushroom trellis to the clean agricultural garden is a closed process to create high value for his special products.

Pham Hung Thuan's greenhouse model for growing clean agricultural products with a total cost of 500 million VND. Photo: Dao Tuan

According to Mr. Tran Quang Lam - Head of Vinh City Economic Department, Pham Hung Thuan is the first person in Nghe An to successfully implement the mushroom growing model using cotton shell material. "We fully support Thuan. I also advised Thuan to establish a private enterprise or LLC to have legal status in transactions, bringing his special products to the market. Personally, I really admire his talent and passion" - Mr. Tran Quang Lam said.

Before parting, Thuan said that his family's products have long been mainly supplied to the markets of Da Nang, Hue, and Quang Binh provinces and are not enough to supply. Furthermore, almost every day, people call, inbox, and come to his house to ask to learn the craft of growing cotton mushrooms, but according to Thuan, "I think I'm not capable enough yet, being a worker is fine, but being a teacher is too difficult...".

Dao Tuan - Nhat Lan