Courses 2023: Students counting particles in a cleanroom. The courses combine theory and practice on site.
Making a comparison of those two mushroom worlds is not so easy. Countries such as Japan, Korea and China have a long tradition of mushroom consumption with huge demand and production levels. They can invest in and work with highly automated production systems, which cannot be copied to Western countries, where growing and substrate production are organised very differently. In Asia, in particular, there is extensive knowledge of machines and growers work under extremely hygienic conditions with standardised bottle systems, for example. But that knowledge is not really applicable here in Europe. You often also see that projects based on Asian systems that are launched in Europe, fail here because the market situation is totally different, or the lack of the best raw materials needed, or technical support for, and quality of the machines. Western, relatively small scale producers, and especially growers, often have greater flexibility because they had to invent and improvise a lot themselves on a much tighter budget. However, having said that, the exotic mushroom sector in Europe certainly needs to increase its levels of professionalism. That is an aim we can and want to contribute to in the same way as the ESSMI (see page 20).
Substrate and Wood Fungi Production course. 13-17 November. A solid introduction to substrate production, the importance of spawn quality, building techniques, fundamentals of biology, production stages and more. Mycelium Production course. 20-23 November. This course (for students who have taken the Substrate course), teaches participants the essentials of mycelium production; how to prepare a good carrier, the entire production of mycelium from components to incubation, strain maintenance and more.
Which courses can you register for? “We are currently offering courses in ‘Substrate and Wood Fungi Production’ and ‘Mycelium Production’. We should be able to organise four or five on site courses a year with the Academy, for groups of up to 18 participants. In 2024 we will also be offering a ‘Mycomaterials’ course, which will be set up in cooperation with Mitchell Peter Jones of the Research Group for Structural Polymers at the Technical University of Vienna. This is a very topical subject thanks to the emer- gence of various companies that are developing alternative applications of mycelium other than mushroom growing, ranging from building materials to alternative food applications. Exam- ples include the recent acquisition of Lambert Spawn by Ecovative and the launch of Mycelium Materials Europe. This is obviously a positive trend, but at the same time there are many myths and misconceptions circulating, and Mitchell will explain the sense and nonsense of mycomaterials from an objective and scientific perspective. It promises to be very interesting.”
Interaction between the students of the Academy is an essential, integral part of the trainings. Magda Verfaillie second from right.
32 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
Kasper Moreaux, one of the founders of the Academy, explains LAF construction at Nevele.
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