Mushroom Growing In Zambia

[Ping Weafer]

Adecomposer and a fungus, the mushroom must live on or in its feed supply. Once matured, it releases spores that germinate, branch and put out mycelium. These tiny, frond-like, structures take up nutrients from the organic substrate and grow to form mushrooms.

The aspiring mushroom grower needs to do the relevant research, have some patience, and put in the required amount of hard work to get reasonable results. A rewarding hobby, growing mushrooms for the family table provides nourishing and flavoursome food.

Kingsley Chipange, University of Zambia crop scientist, says mushrooms are a good alternative protein source and encourages growers. Small mushroom projects can grow from supplying family, and friends, to supplying local markets and generating profit for the grower. To get a feel for the market the mushroom farmer should investigate local demand before growing the mushrooms.

Experienced small- and medium-sized growers stress the value of the niche market for their mushrooms. The smaller grower can find a gap by supplying exotic oyster and shitake mushrooms, and stay relatively free of commercial grower competition. Oyster mushrooms are good to eat and have cheaper input costs than button mushrooms, but are said to be more difficult to grow.

To get started try the University of Zambia for mushroom spawn. Alternatively approach the Jihai Agriculture Company, a Chinese commercial mushroom operation that has pledged its support to the growth of small-scale farmers.

A beginner grower needs: a suitable substrate eg. straw; plastic bags; a spray bottle; water and mushroom spawn. Avoid contamination by working on clean surfaces and chop the straw into shortish lengths (thumb length). Sanitise the straw by boiling it and draining off the excess water.

Put the damp straw in a clean container, wait for it to get to room temperature, pack it into the plastic bags and put the mushroom spawn into the straw. Make holes in the plastic bag with a sterilised nail and put the bag indoors and out of direct sunlight. The ideal temperature is between 18C and 20C.

At about five weeks when mushrooms start forming keep them misted with the spray bottle. Harvest them by twisting so that the base remains attached for further mushroom growth. There should be 3 5-week cycles. After that the cycle must be restarted with fresh spawn and substrate.

Expert Chris & StphaneMr. Chris Holtslag & Stphane Poiri manage a mushroom farm in Helsinki, Finland. They help Bernadette with online support and advice. Have a look at their inspiriting web-site www.helsieni.fi

.About BernadetteGuiding dataWhy donate?PlansJacana's roleBernadette Phiri started her Mushroom growing business 8 years ago, after attending an extensive training on how to grow mushroom. This training was conducted by the Department of Agriculture, University of Zambia. Of all the people trained in the district she is the only one that has survived and continued in this business. Bernadette is a widow with 6 children and 2 grand children. Jacana believes Bernadette is an enthusiastic and motivated entrepreneur who is ready to grow and become a role model for many women in the area.

Bernadette was selected for one year guidance by Jacana and she was performing well. She created her own logo, business cards and label for her mushrooms. She was also guided by Chris Holtslag and she learned a lot more about oyster mushroom growing.

Jacana trained Bernadette in training skills. She trained a group of 7 people in oyster mushroom growing. The first morning she taught the group all the theory about growing mushrooms and in the afternoon they made substrate in a hygienic way and filled a 5kg bag with substrate and spawn. After the training Bernadette guided the mushroom growers at their mushroom houses.

Bernadette started growing mushrooms with smaller bags. With the help from Jacana she sealed bigger bags into smaller once. This means that she needs less substrate to grow the mushrooms and one bag needs less space in her mushroom house.

Jacana wants to guide her in expanding her business successfully and possibly provide a water pump at her premise. However, for Jacana to do this we need your financial help. Every small amount is more than welcome.

Fresh and good mushroom nicely packed and on constant supply year round.UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITIONVariety, organic and tasty mushroom always available.COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGESkill and experience in mushroom cultivationCUSTOMERSupermarkets

MOST CRITICAL ASSUMPTIONI assume that SPAR will like my variety and testy mushroom and that they cannot find it within chipata and they will pay for it in the future.TESTI will grow both varieties of take samples to SPAR. If one agrees to the terms then I proceed.COST STRUCTUREMaterials for the test needed K200+ transport =K220REVENUE STREAMSK per kgClick here to learn how to read a Lean Canvas Business model.

LUSAKA, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- The desire to ensure the growing and continuous supply of mushrooms prompted Stephanie Sakala, a resident of Lusaka, the Zambian capital, to undergo a mushroom training program financed by China.

Sakala, the Operations Manager at Maiwase Farm, a subsidiary of Kasalari Development Corporation, and two other workers decided to undergo oyster mushroom growing training at the China-Zambia Agricultural Technologies Demonstration Center (ATDC) in March this year.

She said the training was worthwhile and the knowledge acquired will go a long way in ensuring all-round production of mushroom unlike the traditional way of waiting for the rainy season before seeing mushrooms.

While acknowledging that the market for oyster mushrooms in Zambia was still a challenge, Sakala expressed confidence that with more sensitizations, Zambians will be able to appreciate it because of the benefits it has compared to traditionally grown mushrooms.

On future plans, she said the farms intend to venture into the growing of other mushrooms such as Button mushrooms as well as the production of seeds as currently there is a challenge in accessing the seeds.

Sydro Simantombwe, another beneficiary of the training program and a worker at Maiwase Farm, expressed gratitude for the training provided, saying he has been empowered with a skill he can use to empower himself.

He said he will use the knowledge acquired to train other people, adding that it was important that the growing of mushrooms throughout the year was encouraged in the country unlike depending on traditional mushrooms.

Theresa Sakala, who participated in the training in 2021, said the training has benefited her because apart from providing her a source of income, it has helped her employ some young people who were helping her.

She was, however, grateful that the demonstration center was working with some civil society organizations that send their people for training so that they could train others in different parts of the country.

Termitomyces, the termite mushrooms, is a genus of basidiomycete fungi belonging to the family Lyophyllaceae.[3] All of which are completely dependent on fungus-growing termites, the Macrotermitinae, to survive, and vice versa.[4] They are the food source for these termites, who enjoy an obligate symbiosis with the genus[5] similar to that between Atta ants and Attamyces mushrooms. Termitomyces mushrooms are edible, and are highly regarded for their flavor.[6]

Termitomyces includes the largest edible mushroom in the world, Termitomyces titanicus of West Africa and Zambia, whose cap reaches 1 metre (3.28 ft) in diameter.[7] It also includes Termitomyces microcarpus that grows caps of a few centimeters in diameter.

From 1955 to 1969 Arthur French [9] worked in Uganda (as a hobby) on the subject of fungi and termites. Some scientific literature about these fungal species existed previously, but these texts failed to adequately discuss the relationship between termites and their fungal symbiotes, while the various edible varieties were merely termed "termite mushrooms." French conducted some investigations with the help of the elderly Baganda women who gathered termite mushrooms, and published his findings.

Some chamber(s) of the nest each contains a structure, called comb or fungus garden, where the fungus dwells.[10] The termites collect and chew up dead wood, leaf litter and other vegetable debris, depositing their primary faeces as new portions of the fungus garden.[11] The fungus grow through the comb. The termites eat spherules[note 1] and old combs.[12]

The fungus forms mushrooms for spreading spores. For most species, the fungus grows long pseudorhizas to the surface of the ground, where mushrooms are formed.[13] For T. microcarpus, the mushrooms grow from fragments of fungus garden that are carried outside the nest by worker termites.[14]

Fungi of Pseudoxylaria, a subgenus of Xylaria, are found in fungus-growing termite combs.[20] Being weedy and controlled by fungus-growing termites,[21] they flourish when the termite nest is deteriorating or deserted.[20]

See Tobias Frslev's Termitomyces page [1]And an academic review of the relationship in Patterns of interaction specificity of fungus-growing termites and Termitomyces symbionts in South Africa Aanenet DK al BMC Evol Biol. 2007; 7: 115. [2]

JCB Gourmet Mushrooms was never a dream concept for either John or Cathie. In many ways it was a combination of a couple things falling in line at the correct time. It was largely the push from a friend that got me to thinking about growing mushrooms. I had experienced the taste and versatility of mushrooms in my diet from many years earlier when I was working in school teaching and managing a kitchen for the staff in Zambia which is located in Central Africa.

Moving over 35 years later I was experiencing a series of health issues and the business concept was presented to me. At first I was very skeptical but it was when I discovered the medicinal aspects of the mushrooms that made me take a more serious look. In the beginning we started by building 2 greenhouses in our back yard. Very quickly we discovered that this was not a great idea, our temperature and humidity levels were too difficult to control. The first months was a time where we failed forward and failure was a large part of my learning curve.

3a8082e126