‘Alan’, the Block B grower.
especially the street traders- ask for it. Our packaging lines are almost ready, and then we want to start supplying supermarkets too. China is changing. At the moment, many people still buy their fruit and vegetables on street markets, but the expectation, and the trend, is that we will see a shift to supermarket shopping, similar to the west. Young Chinese adults love western foods like pizza, which use a lot of mushrooms. And remember, here in China agaricus is considered exotic! With the rise of modern farms like this we can also produce fresh mushrooms in summer months, which will really boost the potential. Tradition, seasonal growing in winter will gradually vanish.”
Composting and growing The farm consists of six blocks comprising 24 growing rooms, each with a growing surface area of 1075 square metres. Each block oper- ates like a separate unit, with a designated grower and assistant, and a picking manager and assistant. Each block has its own staff contingent. The team responsible for filling the growing rooms fills all the blocks on the site. There are currently three blocks in production with a fourth block in the pipeline for produc- tion this year. The composting plant equipped with Hoving machines is now made up of nine bunkers and 31 tunnels, enough capacity to produce incubated compost for four blocks of 24 rooms. According to Qi there this capacity is scheduled for expansion. “The plant will be doubled, so we can supply our own farm entirely with incubated compost, and are able to sell compost. In the future we intend to establish
a satellite system in cooperation with small- er-scale growers.”
It now takes about two weeks to make phase I compost using wheat straw, chicken manure and gypsum sourced from local suppliers. The peat for the casing soil comes from the north of China, and is of good quality. This peat is used to produce casing soil on the plant. The rooms are filled in a six-week cycle with three flushes, and all the spawn is supplied by Sylvan USA in the form of A15. No supplement is added at the moment. Cultivation follows the Dutch system, without ruffling in the growing rooms. The Fancom computers are set so that certain processes run automatically, but obviously with some adjustments being made. All the growers and picking managers are coached by the Dutch consultants, who oversee and monitor the entire process. One grower is Richard, the Chinese grower in block A, which has been in production the longest time. He already has quite some experience in mushroom growing. “First of all I worked on a farm that was built by the Dutch company Panbo, but it was no way as large as this one. I was taken on as a grower here three years ago, but I initially worked as a supervisor during construction. We started actual growing in November 2014.” The first period was chiefly a learning curve for Richard. “I have taken so much knowledge on board, from the Dutch consultants but also about the company. How does the growing pro- cess respond, how well does our own compost perform, everything is all new. I see it as a huge challenge, but I really love mushroom growing!”
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 17
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