Mushroom Farming

[ray23]

Mick, are those straw mushrroms?

If I can get me wife to understand if we are the only ones providing muchroom's in the heat, we wouid a have winner business here. As I would happily sit up to grow a second variety.

Our production yesterday 1/2 kilo today 1 kilo. I think I'm pretty much stuck till the rainy season really startes. You know carrying that sprayer on my bback wa killing me. So I took the entire end of it off attached to a garden hose. Now I can spray three times a day, with no strian. I'll try to get photo maybe io it would be easier. Since we pump from our fish pond it gets clogges up, but easy to clear it.

We have a had a few of our packets turn black. Thai's say they are no good when that happens is that accurate?

If that is the case would they make good compost now?

Now then Ray,

yes, we only grow straw mushrooms. They're growing but not as fast as we would want this time. Today is day 6 in this cycle and we harvested 18.5kg which equates to just over 1000 baht. Today's price is 58 baht per kilo.

Not sure what to advise you about the bag going black because we open our bags and spread it all out. I've heard that with your type of mushrooms, once the bag stops producing you can re-cycle the contents and mix it with your next lot of spores. Once our mushrooms stop growing, we sell our redundant growing medium because it's ace fertiliser. Sometimes we use it ourselves on the sugarcane, sometimes we sell. This time round, we have 3 people all wanting it !

Mick when yuo get a cahnce can you get a photot of one the tents. we hit 2/5 kilos today. But this id s really off season for what we are growing. Rainy season should next month and things should be looking up. We are thinking about adding 2,000 more. So far we are not evne close to keeping up with demand in our little sales area.

Spreading it out on the grond seems reasonable to me not going to hurt a thing. We are spraying three times a day now.

Edited June 16, 2012 by ray23

[finnomick1]

Hello Ray, this cold, hot then cold weather is affecting the growth of our mushrooms. We're producing about 20kg per day at the moment which is way down from what we expect normally. I've taken a couple of pictures of our mushroom ' tents '. They're showing a few signs of wear and tear caused mainly by the sun. I've parked the motorbike there so you can get some idea of scale. The backs of the tents are the same as the front with doors at the centre, and we can fully open the corners too. Some people put fine blue netting over the vents and openings to keep the flies at bay -- there are a LOT of flies around when the mushrooms are growing. The bottom of the tents is held down by sand or earth.

[ray23]

Looks like we are starting into rainy season, so I think we are through the worst of it now, Doing about 4 kilos a day now. Still have four months left on these guys, The wife is adding 3K next month. That should easily take us through March.

I think next year I will plan on Straw Mushrooms from March through the heat.

At least that is what I'm thinking about. Never know what the boss will decide.

Building up fire wood now so if she decides we can try to do our own.

From the sounds of it we will need a third house for straw muchrooms.

This is learning year, so I'm not expecting much from it.

We should start selling fish in about three months, that should add to the bottom line a bit.

Mick in looking at your sit up, Looks like thick plastic with vents at the top. Is that pretty close. The roof looks about like our sit up.

Do you have the plastic in the ceiling and on the floor?

Edited June 26, 2012 by ray23

[ray23]

Boy, thank goodness for Jeff and his wife, they told us about a supplier here in Udon. 6.5 baht each we ordered 2,000 of Khon Kao. These are supposed to produce well this tiem of year while you have hot and cold days.

To be honest I doubt we could make then for that.

Wife may actually end up making a bit of cash on this deal yet. Once the learning curve is over. Rigth now we are at a loss of 10K, being chipped away at everyday. In about three months we will start selling Talapia, at 85 baht a kilo.

We have put together a preorder system with individuals as they order them. I would think we will have a long time selling out 2,000 fish.

If the wife break even in her first year that would be pretty darn good, since it's all a learning curve now.

Man this mind blowing to me right now, people order from this guy 10,000 at a time.

In some areas out of Udon, people have wholesellers they can sale to, there are mushroom associations. But, I haven't found anything like that around Udon

[Penkoprod]

^_____^_____^

Aren't freeland dot org doing a lot of work with mushroom growers in the region?

Penkoprod

[Penkoprod]

Thought so !!

Penkoprod

[Penkoprod]

Double post

Edited July 9, 2012 by Penkoprod

[ray23]

Man that first house was really fancy, each packet had it's own little cubby hole. Nice operations.

I didn't know that we had bear here.

Jewing the fat and puttong packets together really doesn't look bad.

Wonder how much information they would give the wife. We certainly not poachers. But, you don't know if you don't ask.

[finnomick1]

Looks like we are starting into rainy season, so I think we are through the worst of it now, Doing about 4 kilos a day now. Still have four months left on these guys, The wife is adding 3K next month. That should easily take us through March.

I think next year I will plan on Straw Mushrooms from March through the heat.

At least that is what I'm thinking about. Never know what the boss will decide.

Building up fire wood now so if she decides we can try to do our own.

From the sounds of it we will need a third house for straw muchrooms.

This is learning year, so I'm not expecting much from it.

We should start selling fish in about three months, that should add to the bottom line a bit.

Mick in looking at your sit up, Looks like thick plastic with vents at the top. Is that pretty close. The roof looks about like our sit up.

Do you have the plastic in the ceiling and on the floor?

Hello Ray, the plastic sheet is reasonably thick. The tent is only roof and sides, no floor. The sides and doors are held down with sand or dirt. To give you some idea of cost, the people that made our tents came out to measure up which was about an 80km round trip. They made up the tents then came back and fitted them all for 4,500 baht which is unbelievable value -- that's 4,500 baht for ALL 3 tents. Unfortunately due to the sun, the plastic has started to crack so we just buy another sheet of plastic and glue it over any holes. We've had these tents now for 22 months and may replace them after another couple of batches. We've also had to start replacing the bamboo shelf supports. Quite an easy job and we are told that our shelves have lasted a lot longer than is normal. Luckily there is an abundance of bamboo wherever you look in Thailand and it's very cheap.

[ray23]

Have you tried Khon Kao?

We are told they will do well in the heat or the cold.

We are not to far away from having the tents now. We have a plastic sheet ceiliing and the same for the sides. Just haven't had the seems joined. They are under the black mesh, so thye donlt get direct sunlijhgt. We are lucky have free access to all the bamboo we will need.

[David48]

Thought so !!

Penkoprod

Mate ... I rarely give one of these but ... Penkoprod ... ... that was an excellent YouTube.

[sjefrie]

At this Thai website http://www.kasetvirul.com/%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%A0%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%9E

ypu can find all your supplies that you need to start a mushroomfarm

I post this website just as a price indicator !!!

I don't know if this is allowed (if not please remove my post)

[ray23]

A friend suggested we try something and so far it's working well. That was to completly cut the tops out of the packages. I did about 100 to see what would happen. Squezzed them to lossen everything up and they are going gang busters.

If continues then I will probably do about a 100 a week.

We got our 2,000 Khon Kao in the i week. Guys is coming back to make sure we open them properly

Hopefully we will get some better production now.

[mozzieslapper]

finnomick, What province are you in?

[finnomick1]

finnomick, What province are you in?

Buriram province, about 12kms due south of Prakhon Chai.

[storm1fishing]

Could you get spores for button mushrooms here ?

[finnomick1]

Could you get spores for button mushrooms here ?

Yes you can because there is a mushroom farm in Surin that supplies BigC in Surin and Buriram --I've bought them before. Macro in Jomtien also gets a very regular supply of button mushrooms. Trouble is, I've no idea if they buy the spores in or make their own ( the mushroom farms that is ). I also know a mushroom factory in Bawtry, South Yorkshire GB who supply button mushroom spores worldwide but with airfreight I think they'd be quite expensive.

[Monkeypants]

Bawtry, South Yorkshire

Blooody Hell, another Donny lad

[Ceesdu]

Hi,

We will make oyster mushrooms for that we looking for 3 ton of rubbertree sawdust. We live in Roi-et who knows wher I can buy that.

Kind regards Cees

[finnomick1]

Bawtry, South Yorkshire

Blooody Hell, another Donny lad

Only ' sort of ', lived in Finno for 23 years before I moved here...

[pigeonjake]

used to be a bloody good airday

[benkenobi]

Does anyone know of any suppliers in or around Surat Thani?

[Joshuathewhiteguy]

I have been a reader of ThaiVisa for almost 10 years and this thread is the one that got me to finally register! My wife has been wanting to do mushroom farming for almost 3 years now. In fact, I would say about 25% of the English she has learned is from various youtube videos on aqua/agriculture. She has become very fluent in the English names of most food products and can describe in detail most agricultural processes because of the internet.

Mick would you say your mushroom barns cost about the same as Ray's? I completely understand and agree with the lying low and not trying to take Thai business from the kon Thai, but I would like to make sure when we do this we do it large enough to allow room for big mistakes. So I am thinking initially starting with 3-4 mushroom houses of about the same dimension as what you and Ray are doing.

Ray I am certain what your wife read or heard about not using fans has more to do with the idea of mushrooms being protected from wind and little to do with misting or cooling applications. Obviously we don't want the spores under a breeze, but occasionally being misted is required. Just a misunderstanding I am sure.

On the topic of misting there are some very high tech ways of doing this on the cheap. Having a small reservoir of water (a few 200l drums) a 12v pump, some pex tubing and aquaponics misting heads one could easily run a misting system similar to what you might see in a grocery store over top the salad greens. The entire system could be setup for multiple mushroom houses for a cost of $200-300USD. Here is where the tech part comes in.... Arduino computer boards are small cheap microprocessors that can be relatively easy to program. they cost around $30 for the computer itself, many free software apps for gardening have been written and are available already. Sensors are pretty cheap too, around $2USD for some. I plan to to put various sensors throughout the mushroom houses to monitor humidity, temperature and soil moisture levels all in various zones. The computer will (based on the set conditions) automatically mist when needed, to the various zones when needed.

For example building temperature is climbing too high but the bags have plenty of moisture content the misters on the ceiling would come on to bring temps down but not directly over the bags/bottles. Or building temps are low enough but "soil" moisture is getting low the zones over the affected bags would enable the misters directly over the mushrooms until the sensors trigger that the "soil" has enough moisture. This is 100% run on a 12V system with a small aquarium pump providing all water. This aquarium pump is plenty to do this as it worked flawlessly for the aquaponics system I had in the USA. The pumps are cheap throw away pumps from China that cost about $8USD on ebay/amazon.

I know many of you might say it is too complex and a hassle, but I would prefer to have the free time to take off for a day or two when I want and know the system will be cared for as well as if I were at home babysitting it. Imagine not having to go out and spray 2-3 times per day! It sounds expensive by Thai standards (about the cost of a whole mushroom house) but it is an automated system. Just document the weather, your temperatures, humidity and soil moisture levels then your productions, tweak your settings week by week based on the production levels as scientifically as you can. Soon theoretically you would be able to maximize your production in an automated manner. Of course I am not selling anything, I am merely trying to show you guys some options to increase production quantities.

Hope to meet up with some of you one day!

Joshua

[ray23]

Anyone having good Nong Faa production now?

[wdrk7]

Hi ray ,

Doing some Hed Pu Than myself back in Chiangrai . They are almost the same as nang fa but the colour is darker and the mushroom are thicker . Had almost 2400 pcs all year round . Could only carry 600 pcs every trip down to my friend's factory . Now is the end of the lifetime of my bags which i got them in june and is getting a new batch in by mid of this month . Not making much money but enought for daily expenses . Top of 30kg/day and lowest 0.5kg/day . Do not take in more then you could sell in a day as the prices drop to 3kg/100bt last year and you will lost money if you are buying your bags at higher than 8bt/bag . Could do it all year round and try not to stack it to much into one place as they produce a lot of heat between them . That where you will have the green fungus coming in . As for the flying bugs , use a propane touch to kill them . Just a small puff will do the trick . Good luck .

[wdrk7]

Hi guys ,

How is the mushroom going ? Not much in the market right now . As we grower are suffering from low production in the north . Weather is good but the bag are not .

[nihil30]

Hello,

can somebody post where i can buy bottles with good quality around Udon Thani?

[Petey]

Just wonder if anyone has tried to compost the material in the spent mushroom bags for use in vegetable gardens. I have a large pile of the stuff, about 35 m3 and would like to use it as a base for making some good quality compost/potting soil. The original material when we packed the bags was about 85% sawdust and the rest was rice bran, gypsum, lime, sugar and epsom salt. It was sterilised to rid it of all micro-organisms and then inoculated with mushroom spore. After six months of producing oyster mushrooms the bags were emptied into a big pile and the material has been weathering for about 8 months. It is only partly composted and is still brown and crumbly. It needs further composting and I've been making new heaps mixing in chicken and duck manure and various brown and green materials from around our property. Its looking more like compost but still lacks something. There is a man in Chiang Mai, Dr. Pornchai, who makes and sells "mushroom compost" which is lovely stuff, rich, black and spongy and it makes great potting soil. Mine looks nothing like his. I suppose I could incorporate the mushroom soil into my regular compost heaps in very small amounts, like 10% of the total volume but it would take forever to use up this 35 m3 pile. Looking for suggestions/shortcuts and/or if anyone has a similar experience.

[peterb0576]

where are you getting the spourse from,when i started looking at this was about 10bht each and the more you got the cheaper it was i found on average you get a growth from each spoure every 10 days

[sjefrie]

Hello,

can somebody post where i can buy bottles with good quality around Udon Thani?

Maybe here ???

http://www.udonmushroom.com/