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Forest Crop Mushrooming for Small Holdings
By
Carol
Spence
 LEXINGTON,
Ky., (March 14, 2007) – It’s exotic in origin but becoming more
and more popular domestically. Some might consider its looks to
be lackluster, except when perfect conditions produce
eye-catching sunburst patterns. It’s full-bodied, meaty, with a
garlicky taste. And it lives for only one thing in life – to
devour wood.
It’s a shiitake and it’s a mushroom with attitude, according to
University of Kentucky Forestry professor Deborah Hill, who
promotes the growth of the gourmet mushroom as both an ideal
cottage industry and a recipe for healthy forestland.
Most shiitake growers in the state are doing it for
“recreational use,” Hill said, which means they’ve put just a
few logs into production, providing mushrooms for their own use.
There are also a handful of people growing shiitakes on
thousands of logs and selling on a regular basis. Hill, who
conducts workshops around the state in late winter and early
spring, wants to get enough commercial production going in the
state to make the mushroom a commodity.
“What I’m interested in is lots and lots of people who might be
interested in doing 500 to 1,000 logs, which sounds like an
awful lot, but it isn’t,” she said. Considering the amount of
money it requires for start up (approximately $2.50 to $3.00 per
log) and the fact that it requires less labor than growing
grains or vegetables, it’s not a bad return on an investment,
Hill said. She consistently gets $8 a pound for them. Some
people sell them for $8 a pound, but ask $5 for a half pound and
$3 for a quarter pound. Because most people want to buy a
quarter pound, the grower is actually making closer to $12 a
pound with that type of pricing.
Shiitake production has some appealing aspects to it, according
to Hill. As a supplemental income, there is less day-to-day
labor, relative to other crops.
 “Maintain
the moisture. Keep the critters off as much as possible. Keep
the logs relatively clean and keep them off the ground,” she
said.
There is some start-up time to take into consideration. Because
the logs must be freshly cut from healthy trees, they must be
acquired at the appropriate time of year. That means cutting the
trees in late winter or early spring when the sap is rising and
they are coming out of dormancy. The logs should be inoculated
with spawn, containing mushroom spore, within two weeks of being
cut. Spawn also must be ordered from suppliers, so ordering and
delivery must be figured into the timeline. Then it can take
anywhere from six to 18 months for the first mushrooms to
appear. After the first flush of mushrooms appear, the logs can
be put into a nine-week production cycle.
The growing market for the mushroom can be an enticement to
potential growers. Since the shiitake was introduced to the
United States from Japan in the 1970s, the market has increased
steadily, as consumers became more interested in supporting
local farmers and in trying healthy alternatives in the kitchen.
“On a cottage industry basis, I think it can be very effective,”
Hill said. “Now we’ve got farmers’ markets everywhere. Talk
about mushrooming, these things have grown like crazy over the
past five years …. Any place that does natural food and has
produce would probably be willing to buy shiitake mushrooms. A
surprising range of restaurants will buy them.”
 Hill
also said that the crop is a good addition to a farm sustained
by Community Supported Agriculture. With a CSA enterprise, the
farmer sells shares of the farm to consumers, who then receive a
proportionate amount of produce every week. Adding an exotic
crop, such as shiitake mushrooms, to a CSA enterprise means a
farmer could increase the price of a share, while not adding
disproportionately to the labor.
“That makes all the sense in the world,” she said. “And it’s a
whole different marketing thing than trying to deal with
supermarkets or restaurants or even the farmers’ market.”
Hill advises interested growers that marketing will be a big
part of their success.
“You have to establish your own markets. They (shiitakes) are
marketable, but it’s not soybeans. It’s not corn. It’s not
tobacco. You can’t just plug it in and somebody else is going to
take care of it,” she said. “The producer has to be the
responsible party for finding a market and taking care of the
market.”
Because shiitake mushrooms thrive on healthy wood from freshly
cut live trees, or “fresh meat,” as Hill says, their production
goes hand in hand with timber stand improvement.
“As a forester, I was looking at small woodlot management, and,
I thought, we have so many small ownerships in this state,” she
said, adding, “You can’t do timber production on 10 acres of
forest. But you can do other things, shiitake being one of
them.”
Hill explained that timber stand improvement is basically
another term for weeding, taking out undesirable species or
smaller trees that might be crowding large trees. That type of
weeding can produce the fresh-cut logs from healthy trees that
the mushrooms require.
“You’re improving the quality and the health of the forest that
you have,” she said, “and then, figuring out ways to get income
from that, too.”
If you are interested in learning more about growing shiitake
mushrooms, contact your local county Extension agent or Deborah
Hill at dbhill@uky.edu. |
Contact: Deborah Hill, 859-257-7610 |
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of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
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