Small mushrooms in Hengshui, Hebei, support farmers on the road to prosperity

The Spring Festival has just passed, and the land of Yan and Zhao is frozen cold, yet inside the greenhouse of Fang Hongjie and Zhang Xiujuan, a couple from Nanfang Village, Jizhou District, Hengshui City, Hebei Province, it is as warm as spring. Bags of mushroom sticks are neatly arranged, and clusters of large-leaf oyster mushrooms bloom like flowers, fresh and tender.

After the winter slack season in Nanfang Village, Jizhou District, Hengshui City, most villagers go out to work to earn some extra income. Zhang Xiujuan heard that growing oyster mushrooms requires little investment, carries low risk, is easy to learn, and does not delay farming. Moreover, oyster mushrooms are pollution-free green food, contain substances such as selenium and polysaccharides, can enhance human immunity, and have high nutritional value. Fang Hongjie and Zhang Xiujuan then had the idea of growing greenhouse oyster mushrooms. After careful consideration, in September last year, Fang Hongjie's family discussed it with two other families and decided that each family would invest 7800 yuan to build a greenhouse and try growing oyster mushrooms.

Practical and hardworking farming people act as soon as they decide. To save money, they relied on themselves and worked hard. From building the greenhouse to loading the mushroom spawn and so on, they did everything they could do themselves. "When we were welding the frame, it was snowing and cold, and our hands got frostbitten," Zhang Xiujuan said.

The hardest part was encountering technical problems. To make the oyster mushrooms grow better, they asked experienced people again and again, and also bought many books on growing oyster mushrooms, teaching themselves cultivation techniques such as mixing the substrate, inoculation, and temperature and humidity control.

While exploring, they also practiced. Through their careful tending, one greenhouse of oyster mushrooms yielded a bumper harvest that same year. Since November last year, they have harvested three flushes so far, with a total of nearly 6500 jin. "Because this is the first year of growing them, our techniques are not yet up to standard. This year's yield will definitely be higher than last year's," her husband Fang Hongjie said confidently.