Mushrooms

[toquark]

Does anyone have any experience growing them commercially? Pitfalls, opportunities etc. I’ve got the offer of some very cheap kit (which in itself may tell it’s own tale...)

 

[essexpete]

Used to be quite a lot of mushroom farms around this corner of Essex. To my knowledge they have all disappeared.

 

[delilah]

Neighbour grows the high end ones, Oyster, Lions mane etc. Veg box has organic mushrooms in it in the hungry gap, they are grown in the UK, chestnut the bog standard mushroom. So, there are markets out there.

 

[Bogweevil]

Largest branch of greenhouse or protected cropping industry - who would have guessed?

Depends what kind of mushrooms - standard supermarket mushrooms very competitive - all our local mushroom farms closed some years ago due to Polish and Irish competition. Modern mushroom farms are highly mechanised - the old ways of wooden trays or black plastic bags seem to be obsolete for supermarket production. Most mushroom farms are now very capital intensive and large concerns: https://www.walshmushrooms.com/Our_Business.html

All the same local, organic mushrooms ought to find a market I reckon, especially if growing less usual ones such as chestnut mushrumps: https://www.amycel.com/strains

Were you going to make the compost as well - crucial part, very skilled, most producers eventually bought in compost?

East Mallling are the main research site: https://www.emr.ac.uk/projects/mush...dustry annually,from which it gains nutrition

 

[toquark]

Largest branch of greenhouse or protected cropping industry - who would have guessed?

Depends what kind of mushrooms - standard supermarket mushrooms very competitive - all our local mushroom farms closed some years ago due to Polish and Irish competition. Modern mushroom farms are highly mechanised - the old ways of wooden trays or black plastic bags seem to be obsolete for supermarket production. Most mushroom farms are now very capital intensive and large concerns: https://www.walshmushrooms.com/Our_Business.html

All the same local, organic mushrooms ought to find a market I reckon, especially if growing less usual ones such as chestnut mushrumps: https://www.amycel.com/strains

Were you going to make the compost as well - crucial part, very skilled, most producers eventually bought in compost?

East Mallling are the main research site: https://www.emr.ac.uk/projects/mushroom-research-east-malling/#:~:text=The UK mushroom industry annually,from which it gains nutrition

Brilliant thanks. They used to be fairly common round here too but all gone now - hence the plentiful equipment. It seems they’ve gone the same way as most things, go big or specialise.

 

[Farmer 83563]

Brilliant thanks. They used to be fairly common round here too but all gone now - hence the plentiful equipment. It seems they’ve gone the same way as most things, go big or specialise.

Try http://snowdoniamushrooms.co.uk/about-us.html - really helpful guy