Mushroom Farming

[ray23]

"Posted Yesterday, 14:09

We know the type of mushrooms you grow but unfortunately there is no market for them here or we'd be growing these instead of straw mushrooms. For straw mushrooms, the spore bag is about 12 baht and only lasts about 15 to 18 days. On top of this, we have to steam the mushroom houses every time. We have 3 mushroom houses measuring 8 metres long by 4 metres wide. We use 40 bags of spores in each room. Every ' batch ' of mushrooms costs us about 8000 baht to start and we reckon to earn between 25000 and 30000 baht per batch. All our mushrooms are collected by an agent who then delivers them to Bangkok. The price of our mushrooms varies between 45 and 70 baht per kilo but if you check the price on the supermarket shelves, it's nearer 200 baht per kilo"

We sale everyhting within 3 klms of the farm and can't keep up with demand. Our houses are just a bit smaller then yours, room for 2000 plants. As you recall we pay nine baht, there production cycle is even months.

we are building our second house now and plenty of room to double that if need be. This is our first year so profits remain to be seen. Weather conditions are right have enough now to produce 10 kilos a day. The most we have gotten thus far is seven.

I guess demand of certian types changes in different areas. We happened to hit a little nitch where no one else is selling.

Have you ever gave anythought to growing the spores yourself?

It's been suggested to us, I have no idea what that involves. We will contact th local University and the local Government. To see if it;s somethign I want to tinker with our not.

[loong]

Have you started a new topic by mistake, it appears that you may be replying to another thread?

And 3 topics started with the same post. Maybe you could ask a mod to tidy it up.

[ray23]

Have you started a new topic by mistake, it appears that you may be replying to another thread?

And 3 topics started with the same post. Maybe you could ask a mod to tidy it up.

Yes and no, the other thread was about/ The mushroom cpversatopn took is into an off topic area, so I started this thread. People who are doing fish farms probably care very little about mushrooms

[ShopBoy]

Hey ray23 can you post some pictures of your mushroom house.

where did you get the spore bags ?

[David48]

Have you started a new topic by mistake, it appears that you may be replying to another thread?

And 3 topics started with the same post. Maybe you could ask a mod to tidy it up.

Yes and no, the other thread was about/ The mushroom cpversatopn took is into an off topic area, so I started this thread. People who are doing fish farms probably care very little about mushrooms

Actually MissFarmGirl has become quite the lover of mushrooms recently.

She came for a visit recently to Australia and was really happy when wanted to try new foods even though her mind was thinking ... I'm not going to like this ...

So, come shopping time, it was going to be her first real steak. Lingering in the vege section, I thought, humm, button mushrooms sautéed in butter ... bet she's never had that before.

Should have seen the contorted face when I suggested that ...

A few hours later ... 'what's that nice smell honey' ?

With the next trip to Wollies, she dragged me over there to the mushroom section and busied herself choosing the choicest mushrooms.

So now the wee Fish Farmer cares a lot about mushrooms ...

Edited May 8, 2012 by David48

[ray23]

Well here she be, nothing fancy about it, we are building a secomnd which is a bit wider

Mushrooms stacked 1150 of them and we still have one empty shelve in the building

My wife doing her thing

The product note the dirt floor

There are several spore suppliers arounf Udon.

[sparebox2]

Nice pics.

Good luck.

You have done well.

[plopmeister]

Well here she be, nothing fancy about it, we are building a secomnd which is a bit wider

Mushrooms stacked 1150 of them and we still have one empty shelve in the building

My wife doing her thing

The product note the dirt floor

There are several spore suppliers arounf Udon.

Hi fellow Farang Het!!

We have 6 huts on the go each with two entrances as per your pic. We make our growing bottles from scratch, buying in all ingredients, including the spores. We also have 6 shelves, which represents 2 huts, of bottles recently steamed..

It is my job to keep the fire going under the oven..1 to 2 hours to get it to 100 degrees and 5 hours at a constant 100 degrees and in the recent heat wave it was exhausting work..Well it exhausted my supply of Chang Export anyway!!

Edited May 9, 2012 by plopmeister

[finnomick1]

Interesting pics Ray. I'd be interested in the result of who's mushrooms actually nett more over a given period. Your whole set-up is very different to ours and your costs are one heck of a lot less. Having said that, our yield would appear to be far greater -- the most mushrooms produced and sold in one single day was 131kg but I can assure you this was a one-off. We are on day 16 of the current batch and so far we have sold 25,000 baht's worth which is about average. The misses reckons we've got maybe 2 or 3 days left before the growing medium ( I call it rocket fuel ) runs out of power then we have to start the whole process again. We'd love to find our own ' market ' because at the moment, we sell to the agent. They sell to the driver who delivers them to Bangkok EVERY night of the year. She sells them to the market, they sell them etc., etc so we are about 5th or 6th in the chain. yesterday the price dropped 5 baht to 55 baht per kilo, but I noticed in Big C Buriram today that our mushrooms would cost you 193 baht per kilo on the shelf. A big difference, but then I really don't want the hassle of driving to Bangkok every night. Sorry, I don't have any info about producing the spores but I know it involves steaming etc

[plopmeister]

Interesting pics Ray. I'd be interested in the result of who's mushrooms actually nett more over a given period. Your whole set-up is very different to ours and your costs are one heck of a lot less. Having said that, our yield would appear to be far greater -- the most mushrooms produced and sold in one single day was 131kg but I can assure you this was a one-off. We are on day 16 of the current batch and so far we have sold 25,000 baht's worth which is about average. The misses reckons we've got maybe 2 or 3 days left before the growing medium ( I call it rocket fuel ) runs out of power then we have to start the whole process again. We'd love to find our own ' market ' because at the moment, we sell to the agent. They sell to the driver who delivers them to Bangkok EVERY night of the year. She sells them to the market, they sell them etc., etc so we are about 5th or 6th in the chain. yesterday the price dropped 5 baht to 55 baht per kilo, but I noticed in Big C Buriram today that our mushrooms would cost you 193 baht per kilo on the shelf. A big difference, but then I really don't want the hassle of driving to Bangkok every night. Sorry, I don't have any info about producing the spores but I know it involves steaming etc

We sell at 50 baht a kilo locally..60 or 65 if it is just a "casual" sale.......We do about 30 or 40 Kilo a day so not in your league....But growths in the 6 huts are stagerred so that it is a pretty consistent income....Depending on the weather ...as always with mushrooms..

I forgot to add..Keepis!

Edited May 9, 2012 by plopmeister

[ray23]

Well here she be, nothing fancy about it, we are building a secomnd which is a bit wider

Mushrooms stacked 1150 of them and we still have one empty shelve in the building

My wife doing her thing

The product note the dirt floor

There are several spore suppliers arounf Udon.

Hi fellow Farang Het!!

We have 6 huts on the go each with two entrances as per your pic. We make our growing bottles from scratch, buying in all ingredients, including the spores. We also have 6 shelves, which represents 2 huts, of bottles recently steamed..

It is my job to keep the fire going under the oven..1 to 2 hours to get it to 100 degrees and 5 hours at a constant 100 degrees and in the recent heat wave it was exhausting work..Well it exhausted my supply of Chang Export anyway!!

actually at this point the brest day we have had is seven kilos, one day when the weather wa just right. So we are not big time by anymeans. This is opur first year and selling locally is good for us.

I would really like to know more about making yuor own spores. Could elaorate please.

Does it cut cost dramatically we are paying nine baht. We still have lots of room to work with so additional huts are possible.

[plopmeister]

Well here she be, nothing fancy about it, we are building a secomnd which is a bit wider

Mushrooms stacked 1150 of them and we still have one empty shelve in the building

My wife doing her thing

The product note the dirt floor

There are several spore suppliers arounf Udon.

Hi fellow Farang Het!!

We have 6 huts on the go each with two entrances as per your pic. We make our growing bottles from scratch, buying in all ingredients, including the spores. We also have 6 shelves, which represents 2 huts, of bottles recently steamed..

It is my job to keep the fire going under the oven..1 to 2 hours to get it to 100 degrees and 5 hours at a constant 100 degrees and in the recent heat wave it was exhausting work..Well it exhausted my supply of Chang Export anyway!!

actually at this point the brest day we have had is seven kilos, one day when the weather wa just right. So we are not big time by anymeans. This is opur first year and selling locally is good for us.

I would really like to know more about making yuor own spores. Could elaorate please.

Does it cut cost dramatically we are paying nine baht. We still have lots of room to work with so additional huts are possible.

Are you talking about making your own bottles i.e. the dirt in the bags...or the mushroom spores??

[ray23]

Can you buy just spores?

Then do the packaging?

We will have 2000 bottles after our next order, can they be used again.

What kind of dirt do you use?

Lets wait on the spores let my feble mind absorb this first

[plopmeister]

Can you buy just spores?

Then do the packaging?

We will have 2000 bottles after our next order, can they be used again.

What kind of dirt do you use?

Lets wait on the spores let my feble mind absorb this first

The dirt is a mixture of a chickenshit mixture you get by the lorry load plus 2 or 3 ingredients you get in sacks ( I am too lazy to go outside and look at the labels) and a sugar mixture. You can reuse the dirt in the old bottles but they have to be mixed in with the other ingredients. The missus does the mixing in a big cement mixer type machine and the old bottles are broken up and the dirt seperated from the plastic bags by another machine.

The mixture is then put into the bags and compressed by another machine. They are then passed to me and I stack about 1,100 of them into a big wood fired oven for sterilisation.

After they come out they are stood up to cool then the spore is added. The bottles are then stacked on shelves and monitored. When the bottles turn white they are ready to move to the sheds..That is the stage that you buy at..

[finnomick1]

We've thought about doing our own spores but to be honest ( again ) having steamed each of the three mushroom sheds for 4 hours at over 60 degrees C and done all the mucking about involved, we'd just rather buy in our spores which cost us 12 baht per bag ( bottle ). Interesting that you can re-use the old bottles though, but of course, ours are spread over the growing medium. What we do is sell the growing medium once it's worn out usually for 1000baht and they buyer has to empty the shelves and load up themselves. Last lot we spread in our field of sugarcane -- real good manure/compost. Ray, it's been raining heavy today, so the picture of the shrimp trap has been postponed.

[ray23]

Thanks I appreciate that, nine baht doesn't seem like so much now.

We had three cool days ina row came up seven kilos agian. I thing weather is the key for us right now.

We shoud be putting anothe 1000 plants in the new house next week.

I could go up to three thousand but, I really don't want to exceed the local demand. Nor do I want to step on a Thai's toes with what we do.

My goal is small 500 baht a week on a average in profit.

Thanks again.

No hurry on the photo don't even have the shrimp in yet

Edited May 10, 2012 by ray23

[David48]

Thanks for this thread ray23 ... reading with much interest ...

[ray23]

Your welcome for me it's graat hobby along with motorcycle touring bad weather for that right now. Gets me away for the computer.

Hope it will produce money for my wife when I check out

[plopmeister]

Hope it will produce money for my wife when I check out

Exactly my motive..

By the way you should spray your bottles 3 times a day to keep them cool....It should increase production...When you get bigger install a sprinkler system...

[Gary A]

My wife tried to grow mushrooms because she had an expert friend to help her set it up. She actually spent quite a bit of money and a lot of work setting it up. I don't think her friend was much of an expert. The crop was a failure and my wife decided it was cheaper to hunt wild mushrooms or buy them at the market.

My wife's mother is the wild mushroom expert. She tells the wife which ones are safe to eat. The first time she came home with a basket full, I told her to feed some to the dog first but then decided the dog didn't do anything so she should eat some herself first. She didn't die so I guess they were safe. She actually finds quite a few when they are in season.

[finnomick1]

Hello Ray, in the end I made a shrimp trap and photographed the proceedure for you and the misses. All you have to do then is put a few pieces of fish food in. I hope the pics upload OK. ( Nearly forgot because we've spent most of today at the local nick trying to sort out a fatal road accident where one of our nieces ( 11 years old ) was killed. Not the best of times I'm afraid ).

[ozzydom]

Coke bottle traps are commonly used to catch the tiny indiginous shrimp found in almost every Klong,lake and pond in Thailand.

These are the ones that Thais sprinkle chili on and eat live.

But these traps are of no use to catch the Giant freshwater shrimp (Macrobracium Rosenburgii) that Ray is introducing to his pond as these grow to 30 cm.

A simple trap can be made of heavy galvanised fence wire ,covered by 1/2 inch mesh netting with a rectangular or round funnel fitted into one end about 2 1nches up from the base .Entry funnel should be about 10 inches long with the outer part 6 inches diameter and the inner 2 1/2 inches.

Base of trap to be flat with an arched top.

Because Ray is a Yank,measurements are in inches.

[ray23]

Great photos thanks. Dom thanks for the Yank measuremetns you guys start talking grams and I'm lost

Coke bottle traps are commonly used to catch the tiny indiginous shrimp found in almost every Klong,lake and pond in Thailand.

These are the ones that Thais sprinkle chili on and eat live.

But these traps are of no use to catch the Giant freshwater shrimp (Macrobracium Rosenburgii) that Ray is introducing to his pond as these grow to 30 cm.

A simple trap can be made of heavy galvanised fence wire ,covered by 1/2 inch mesh netting with a rectangular or round funnel fitted into one end about 2 1nches up from the base .Entry funnel should be about 10 inches long with the outer part 6 inches diameter and the inner 2 1/2 inches.

Base of trap to be flat with an arched top.

Because Ray is a Yank,measurements are in inches.

[loong]

Have you started a new topic by mistake, it appears that you may be replying to another thread?

And 3 topics started with the same post. Maybe you could ask a mod to tidy it up.

Yes and no, the other thread was about/ The mushroom cpversatopn took is into an off topic area, so I started this thread. People who are doing fish farms probably care very little about mushrooms

Hmmm interesting,

you started this thread because you didn't want to hijack a topic about fish farming and now this topic has been hijacked by shrimp farmers

[ray23]

Such are life LOL

[ozzydom]

Have you started a new topic by mistake, it appears that you may be replying to another thread?

And 3 topics started with the same post. Maybe you could ask a mod to tidy it up.

Yes and no, the other thread was about/ The mushroom cpversatopn took is into an off topic area, so I started this thread. People who are doing fish farms probably care very little about mushrooms

Hmmm interesting,

you started this thread because you didn't want to hijack a topic about fish farming and now this topic has been hijacked by shrimp farmers

Its called diversification .

[anton01972]

Have you started a new topic by mistake, it appears that you may be replying to another thread?

And 3 topics started with the same post. Maybe you could ask a mod to tidy it up.

Yes and no, the other thread was about/ The mushroom cpversatopn took is into an off topic area, so I started this thread. People who are doing fish farms probably care very little about mushrooms

Hmmm interesting,

you started this thread because you didn't want to hijack a topic about fish farming and now this topic has been hijacked by shrimp farmers

i cant agree more!!!!!!

[finnomick1]

So what do us fish, shrimp, mushroom AND FROG farmers do ? By the way, we also breed and sell tropical fish, have a fishing tackle shop, I dabble with classic motorbikes, we sell ' sweet water ' etc., etc. And that's not to mention the crops -- so busy, so little time.....

[David48]

A simple trap can be made of ...

ozzydom, when you have a spare 5 minutes, please pop over to my thread and show photos and talk about this trap that you describe.

We well know that there are few 'serious' Fish or Prawn Farmers here, but I am sure a lot of enthusiastic amateurs who would benefit from your wisdom.

Hmmm interesting,

you started this thread because you didn't want to hijack a topic about fish farming and now this topic has been hijacked by shrimp farmers

Mr loong ... and your point is ...

[ray23]

What is mansampalang,

Is there a source to buy spores etc ?

Our second house is finished now, so I took some photos to show how simple they really are, before they are wrapped with the black mesh.

I will try to post them this afternoon.

Edited May 12, 2012 by ray23