The ‘Second Chinese Mushroom Days and Asian Forum on Edible Mushroom Quality Standards and International Trade’ was held at Zhangzhou, Fujian, China, 19-23 November 2008.

The event was organised by the China Chamber of Commerce (CFNA), the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture, and Zhangzhou municipal government. Participating countries were China, India, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. Each country was represented by a three member official delegation, consisting of one mushroom specialist, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture, and one trader.

Some 500 mushroom growers and processors from China were participating, besides lots of foreign visitors. The conference venue was the Dongnan Huadu meeting centre in Zhangzhou.

King Oyster, research and canning

After the opening ceremony on the November 20^th, with fireworks, participants could visit the huge trade exhibition.

In the afternoon, company visits were organised. The first farm was a king oyster mushroom production unit near Zhangzhou city. It is growing Pleurotus eryngii on a large scale, using Chinese/Japanese technology for cultivation of lignicolous mushrooms. The farm is divided into different sections, substrates preparation yard and bottling area, sterilization area (using Arnold sterilization technique, where steam is used without pressure at 100ºC for longer period for sterilization of substrate), inoculation area with use of wooden boxes for inoculation of pp bags containing substrates, incubation rooms where spawn run is done on racks inside incubation room, cropping rooms where mushrooms grow out of spawn run pp bags (bottles) held in racks, waste disposal area and handling/packaging rooms. The entire operation is run with the use of primitive equipments, not termed as modern like laminar flow/pressure autoclaves/conveyer belts for filling and emptying etc. The farm is producing king oyster mushrooms for the domestic market and export to Japan and other neighbouring countries.

This was followed by the visit to the premises of Fujian Edible Fungi Research Institute for a short time.

Then we were shown a huge canning factory where button mushrooms are canned for export. We saw one large cemented tank with button mushrooms floating in water for processing/canning. There was nothing more to see at this factory at that time, as the seasonal growers were still at ‘spawn running stage’ at that time of the season in Zhangzhou area.

In the evening, an official reception by the Zhangzhau government awaited participants in Qianxi Restaurant. A fantastic 10- course luxurious meal was served.

Lectures

The opening plenary lecture on the 21^st was given by the President of CNFA. He talked in detail about the status of processed food export from China. 80-90% of Chinese mushroom production is exported. He declared that from the year 2006 the rates for processed mushroom export in the international market have become attractive as compared to earlier times. The rates are almost doubled and are at US$1300 per metric ton presently, and the primary importers are USA and the EU countries (Germany and The Netherlands being leading importers). He outlined the importance of the industry in China and spoke about the prospects of expanding trade with neighbouring countries.

Mr. Yang Yinghui, of the Ministry of Agriculture also spoke about the development of the Chinese mushroom industry, while Mr. Wang Yaoquan, the city mayor, spoke about mushroom promotion in Fujian.

Dr. Mark Wach of Sylvan presented a ‘Short History of Spawn Making’ with excellent slides and relevant details.

The last plenary lecture was ‘Edible Fungi Quality Standardizaiton System and Implementation Survey in China’ by Prof. Zhang Jinxia, Director of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

In Hall-A (Agaricus topics), Prof. Rinker from Canada gave a lecture on insect and disease management and food safety. Mr. Peter Chirstiaens (Christiaens Group) spoke on “Efficient Mushroom Farming” outlining the use of machines/moderns technology for mushroom production and pricing. Mr. Lam Janssen (Topterra) talked about casing soil technology, showing slides how casing can be prepared for application with chemical treatment. The next paper was on “Aerated composting systems for Phase-I” by Kees, VDK, also from The Netherlands.

Market and trade issues were dealt with in Hall-B. The first presentation was by Mr. Alexander Khrenov, on the Russian market. The main mushrooms grown in Russia are the button mushroom and the oyster mushroom, with some shiitake as well.

Mr. Ohashi, Editor-in-Chief of Japanese Fungi Magazine spoke on production trends in Japan. The third paper was by Ms. C.H. Hassan from Malaysia on “Market Entry Policy and Edible Mushroom Trade between Malaysia and China”. She said that oyster mushroom is the main mushroom grown in Malaysia, with some production of shiitake, black ear mushroom, and jelly mushrooms for example. She said that Malaysia imports most of its mushrooms from China in dried / processed form.

Dr. B.L. Dhar from India (myself) gave a lecture on the Indian industry and prospects of trading between India and China”. The last presentation in this session was by Ms. L.C. Lapitan from Philippines on its mushroom industry and the prospects of trading between Philippines and China. She said that straw mushroom is the main mushroom grown in Philippines, and production is low because of low priority of mushroom crop in the national production programme.

On the 22^nd, the topics were Mushroom Quality Standards, Safety and Certification in Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia and Mushroom Industrial Cultivation in South Korea, Japan and China.

Agaricus and Auricularia farms

On Sunday, the seasonal button mushroom farm of Mr. Xudong at Caidian village, Jiamer Country was visited, organized by the hosts on my request. This farmer grows button mushrooms on one location and the Black Ear (Auricularia) on a separate location nearby.

Agaricus farm

Infrastructure: Seasonal growing huts, made of polythene erected on bamboo structure. The racks are made of bamboo. The hut has small windows all over the lateral / longer sides of hut (closable by sliding card board sheet), with bamboo doors. There are no covered composting yards / platforms. The compost is prepared outdoors on ordinary ground / soil in a single phase by long method (single extended phase without phase 2). Outdoor composting is done for about 3 weeks with turnings after every week. The compost is then filled into the bamboo shelves and kept there for about a week for further fermentation.The steam is injected into the hut through a plastic pipe connected to a boiling water drum erected on a brick stove  and heated by coal / wood. The compost is then spawned on cooling and spawned compost allowed to spawn run in beds.

When I visited the farm, it was at composting and spawn running stage and the grower was waiting for temperature to fall for casing operation to begin. The spawn run beds are cased with ordinary plateau land casing soil, dug from 9” below top and used with or without treatment. The mushroom grower was using paddy straw as main substrate material for compositing and supplementing it with cow dung (to every 100 kg straw dry, he would add 90 kg cow dung). He said that he uses cow dung as it is easily available in his village. He does not use N-fertilizers but adds gypsum @ 3 kg per 100 kg base material at later stage of outdoor composting. He said that he harvests about 17 kg from one meter square bed area in 8-10 weeks of cropping in winter months (Nov-Dec.-Jan-Feb.). The spawn is purchased from a local govt. company nearby. He sells his produce to a local canning factory in Zhangzhau.

Auricularia farm 

The Black Ear mushroom farm was in full bloom, with luxurious mushroom growth on the shelves, in huge low cost polythene mushroom growing houses. The growing is done under seasonal growing conditions.The base material used is saw dust supplemented with rice bran. The operation is semi-automatic, with raw materials after mixing and wetting being fed into the bottling machine with small conveyers. The pp bottles are steamed for 12 hours inside a polythene tent (sealed) with injection of steam (without pressure). The substrate bags are inoculated with pure culture spawn and spawn run is  done seasonally at temperatures of 25-28ºC. After spawn run, the mouth of the bottle is opened and the bags are placed on racks like wine bottles in a cellar . With decrease in temperature outside, the fructification occurs. These mushrooms are exported to Japan and other neighbouring countries after dehydration (dried form). Large scale cultivation is the key to export of this mushroom with good profit by Chinese growers.

Photos by Dr. Dhar can soon be found in the photo section of this website.

By Dr. B.L. Dhar

Principal Scientist,

Division of Plant pathology

Indian Agricultural Research Institute

New Delhi, India