Dec 6: Mushrooms are strange beings. They cannot be characterised as plants as they convert starch to carbohydrates and proteins without the benefit of chlorophyll or solar energy; for the mystically oriented they run on moon energy. Nor can we put them in the animal kingdom – they need a substrate to ‘grow’ and you need seeds or more precisely spawn to grow them. For our purposes – sustainable integrated agriculture – they are a key ingredient. They supplement farmers’ incomes and nutrition and they can be grown with little effort using easily available farm ‘waste’ like straw and chicken manure. Mushroom cultivation is also economical of space; a 50 kg per day unit could be set up in about 250 sqms. And they are a great way to involve women in agriculture.

In India three varieties are mushrooms are grown commercially – button mushrooms, milky mushrooms and oyster mushrooms or dhingri. Medicinal mushrooms such as the rishi mushroom are grown on a smaller scale and the gourmet mushrooms available in Japan, Europe and North America – the meaty Portobello or Shiitake for example – are rarely found.

At our Model Farm we have decided to concentrate on growing the Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus). Our logic is that this does not require an elaborate method for preparing the compost base. Our institutional partner in this is the National Research Centre for Mushroom in Solan in the foothills of Himachal Pradesh. We buy spawn from them in one Kg bags at Rupees 60 a kilo. The starting material is paddy straw, sourced free of cost from a neighbouring farm and chopped coarsely in our chaff cutter. It is soaked overnight and then pasteurised in a drum over a traditional wood stove. Here are some images from a training session on November 15, 2009 with our self help group. Vish, Vidya and their daughter Laxmi from our consumer group chipped in. Nanya was at hand with the cameras.

We spread it out over corrugated sheets and pack it in plastic bags about 24 cms in diameter and about 36 cm in height with three layers of spawn in between. The top of the bag is closed with rubber bands or string and a few holes made at the bottom and along the sides for the excess water to come out. The bags are then placed in a room whose temperature and moisture is roughly monitored. The room is disinfected first using smoke from neem leaves. In ten days the bags turn white and after about three weeks the mushrooms start to get ready to harvest once you cut the top of the bag. It is important to keep the room safe from mice and flies. he yield improves if you spray the bags with water twice a day. Oyster mushrooms can be cultivated without fuss most of the year (you will need a shaded room with a desert cooler in summer).

Oyster mushrooms are a great source of protein and Vitamin B. They are a boost for vegetarian menus - witness the venerable Indian dish – dhingri mutter(http://www.tarladalal.com/Recipe.asp?id=203) .

Here's a happy family photo at the end of the training. Kuldeep, the lead trainer is at the centre in a black tee. Our first harvest today (Dec 6) was about two pounds.