40
AUSTRALIA Business and pleasure in Cairns
The 40th Australian Mushroom Growers’ Conference was held in tropical Cairns and lasted from Wednesday September 11th till Saturday September 14th, and had 78 registered attendants. The program mixed business with pleasure in a typical Australian way.
By Johan Baars & Anton Sonnenberg, Wageningen UR
The conference started with an optional agribusiness farm walk day. Since there is no mushroom production near Cairns, a coffee plantation (Skybury), a papaya plantation (Gerard Kath Pawpaw farm) and a pineapple plantation (Pinata farm) were visited. It was very useful for mushroom growers to see how business is arranged in other sectors. The second day was designed to become an agribusi- ness networking day. To improve networking events, the whole conference was sent on a touristic trip, trave- ling with the Kuranda Heritage Train which took us up the mountains to Kuranda and a short trip was made through the rain forest in old army DUKW vessels. Furthermore, demonstrations were given of traditional aboriginal dances and AMGA Chairman David Tolson gave a good performance of such a dance! The Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, a scenic cableway spanning 7.5 km over Barron Gorge National Park, took us down- hill again. The beauty of the place made it virtually impossible not to engage in conversation with the other attendants of the conference.
International lecture programme The last two days of the conference were filled with a variety of lectures. Some provided information of
a more practical level, others described results of research projects. The conference was opened by Craig Perring of Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL). He explained the role of HAL as an investor in research and marketing (amongst others) for the benefit of the industry. Dr. Christine Smith (Lambert Spawn) gave an overview of the historical trends that have led to the development of modern day spawn type(s); from flake spawn in the 17th century to grain spawns and synthe- tic spawns. Next to this, she gave a lecture on the use of fungal species for bio-remediation of polluted soil. For this fungal species are used that have the capacity to degrade lignin. Spawn companies such as Lambert are in an excellent position to provide the necessary vo- lume of inoculum that is needed for such applications. Recently the Agaricus bisporus genome has been sequenced, and dr. Anton Sonnenberg (Wageningen UR) presented in his lecture what opportunities this information offers to research and what impact this can have on our industry. Availability of the genome allows researchers to dig into the past. It seems that the evolvement of fungi that can completely recycle plant materials, coincides with a sharp decrease in the deposition of organic carbon burial around 300 million years ago, resulting in the limits of our fossil fuels. This
Anton Sonnenberg receives a handpain- ted boomerang from
AMGA president Greg Seymour.
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