SHIITAKE
several weeks without any quality loss worth mentioning. By emphasising these positives, we hope to win the competitive battle against the cheaper shiitake imported from the Far East. Our shiitake look different and taste superior to the imported ones. We promote them under the market name ‘Wood Shiitake’ to highlight the natural character of our produce. No-one knows the exact figures, but at the moment there are many thousands of tonnes of logs being incubated, we truly hope they don’t all start to produce flushes of fruits.”
Shiitake pralines and shiitake jam from the Bio Invitro selection.
Sandra from Bio Invitro: “We believe that training would-be growers is vitally important. We try to convey our expertise and passion in the hope that as many growers as possible succeed with their projects. Many of them do not have a clue what they are getting into, and the fear is that they will give up once they discover the hard and demanding reality of a mushroom grower’s life. We recently started a growers’ network, which now has about ten affiliated growers. The aim is cooperation so that we all improve and feel the benefits. The first concern is commercialising harvesting: each member is expected to sell half of the crop locally, and we sell the rest. We are also experimenting with a whole range of shiitake-related products: we’ve created shiitake jam and pralines with a sweet shiitake filling, shiitake paté, shiitake flour and
The Gumelo team with oyster mushroom substrates for hobby growers (Rui Coelho is not in the photo).
even shiitake soap. We are not allowed to state any medicinal claims, but our public is well-read and buy consciously. We are already promoting our range outside Portugal at international food fairs, so that we are ready and prepared when the big harvest arrives.”
Floresta Viva: “Our website offers all types of equipment for professorial and hobby log-grown shiitake growers, from spawn to inoculation equipment right up to ready-spawned logs. We have the exclusive distributor rights for inoculation systems from Japan, that inoculate logs with spawn on a sawdust base. We also sell inoculated logs and provide advice on growing.”
Urban farming and spent coff ee grounds
Urban Farming is a new trend, whereby urbanites cultivate edible crops within the confi nes of the urban landscape. After a number of TED-talks and a fl ood of success stories on internet, a worldwide hype emerged of growing oyster mushrooms on fresh, pressed coff ee grounds – a waste pro- duct and an excellent nutrient medium for fungi. As coff ee is brewed at high temperatures by espresso makers, the spent grounds are supposed to be suffi ciently pasteurised to support successful colonisation by oyster mushroom mycelium. All over the world, growers are collecting fresh grounds from the coff ee chains, and storing it in disinfected containers. On condition that the material is inoculated with a copious amount of spawn at once, under meticulously hygienic conditions, you might be lucky. Unfor- tunately, applied microbiology cannot be summarised in a few, simple gui- delines and in general many seemed to be called, but few are chosen. Cogumelo (mushroom) is a Portuguese company that processes spent cof- fee grounds into ready-to-use substrates for the hobby market, with the promise of an abundant harvest in your own home. A second project is sup- plying schools with substrate packages that are already incubated, so they can be used as fun educational material. Lovely ideas, attractively packaged, and if the weed moulds keep away, then probably commercially feasible.
Rui Coelho from Gumelo: “Mushrooms are our passion. Our vision of mushrooms is motivated by our background as biologists, and our desire to protect the natural environment. There are five of us running the company that revolves completely around these fascinating products of nature. We promote ecologically responsible shiitake cultivation on eucalyptus wood, and we object strongly to the felling of oak trees. We organise excursions, give courses and write manuals. We produce limited amounts of myce- lium of about 20 mushroom varieties, including some mycorrhiza spores. The latter is still at the research stage, but we hope it will soon result in a commercial project.”
Patricio from Cogumelos Do Portugal: “In response to the huge demand for wooden dow- els, my husband and I started a small laboratory that produces dowel spawn. It has been such a success that we have recently expanded our team with a biologist. Each day we dispatch spawn throughout Portugal using a courier service that takes cares of our logistics. Our customers are professionals, but also hobby growers. It’s nice to see that once people have grown shiitake, they turn into the best users and promoters of this mushroom variety!”
16 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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