Off-season cultivation of edible fungi is highly profitable, with broad market prospects

So-called off-season cultivation refers to cultivation carried out in seasons when normal growth is not possible. In edible fungi production, this is essentially a matter of timing, that is, cultivation carried out in natural seasons when normal production is not possible through improved facilities and equipment, artificial regulation of conditions and other auxiliary means, and it can also achieve production results similar to those of normal-season production; for example, the relatively typical summer cultivation of enoki mushroom (Flammulina velutipes) and winter cultivation of straw mushroom, and so on. For example, the low-temperature variety enoki mushroom should fruit from November to February, but with facility-based automatic controlled cultivation, it can be produced in summer; another example is straw mushroom, which generally fruits only from June to August. By regulating conditions so that it comes to market in other seasons, according to the market rule that "goods are few and prices rise," high profitability is only natural; in fact, this is precisely the inevitable reflection of the idea of "having what others do not have" in a market economy.

Knowledge related to the nutrition and health benefits of edible fungi has also taken root in people's minds, making edible fungi products highly favored by the market. This is a fact obvious to all. Precisely because of this, consumption of edible fungi products has already changed from seasonal to year-round. When fresh mushrooms, dried mushrooms and salted mushrooms and other products all face the market together, unless there are special circumstances, people still prefer to consume fresh products, which suggests to those of us in the industry an issue of off-season cultivation. Just like off-season vegetables and melons coming to market, when fresh goods are available, who still prefers to eat dried products or canned goods? The reasoning is completely the same. It should be said that at present, off-season edible fungi are coming to market in various parts of the country. Although there are still too few varieties, the quality grade is still somewhat poor, and the quantity cannot meet demand, after all, supplies are already available, which reflects a trend in edible fungi production and consumption. From a large amount of on-the-ground research, it is known that quite a number of mushroom farmers have the awareness of off-season production, but due to limitations in technology and other conditions, they have delayed or not dared to rush into implementing it. The reason, in the final analysis, is still a problem of overall thinking and planning, or in other words, although they have already recognized the benefits and development prospects of off-season cultivation and have identified the reasons why they cannot carry out production, they have not proposed solutions to the problems and put them into practice, so the entire "chain" of thinking comes to an abrupt halt; one should continue to seek solutions to the problems so that one's "thinking on off-season production" can become a circulatory system, able to operate and generate ideal economic benefits. In the concept of "having what others do not have," there is also a tendentious issue worth paying attention to with a development perspective. For example, after China's off-season greenhouse vegetable technology matured, it has now formed a certain sense of "conventional production" in various places, and conventional planting, apart from large-volume varieties such as Chinese cabbage, includes a considerable number of minor vegetable varieties that are becoming increasingly scarce in normal seasons because of low planting volumes. This is a highly tendentious reality: everyone rushes to do off-season production, yet off-season products become conventional products because of the wide scope and large volume of production. As a result, the original conventional production, because it is neglected, becomes "off-season" on another level, and it is only reasonable that its products are in short supply and prices rise. Whether this phenomenon will occur in the future on the development path of the edible fungi industry is worth our common attention.