Farmers in Xiyan Town, Shanxi, Grow Edible Mushrooms and Easily Earn Over 50,000 Yuan a Month

Hou Dongsheng, a Man Who Got Rich, Is Skilled in Every Aspect of Mushroom Cultivation. Hou Dongsheng of Xiyan Town, Yicheng County, Shanxi, is a diligent man. After returning home to start a business growing shiitake mushrooms, he heads to the shiitake base whenever he has free time, and he is thoroughly skilled in every technical task, from picking mushrooms to thinning them out. Hou Dongsheng's shiitake production base covers more than 20 mu, with 8 shiitake production greenhouses lined up in a row. After 5 months of careful management, the 30,000 shiitake sticks in the original spawn-running greenhouse have reached the standard for fruiting, and the shiitake mushrooms in the 8 fruiting greenhouses are growing vigorously with a rich aroma.

An Income of 50,000 Yuan a Month, with Wholesalers Competing to Buy. In May, Hou Dongsheng sold 10,000 mushroom sticks, earning 50,000 yuan. The shiitake market is currently doing well: grade-one mushrooms sell for 7 yuan, and last year they reached more than 9 yuan at their highest, so the prospects are quite promising. Now the mushrooms are fruiting gradually, with daily output of around 500 jin. Because shiitake supply is relatively tight in summer, wholesalers from places such as the county seat, Qinshui and Jincheng all come to buy directly on site, and at the mature stage daily output can reach around 1,500 jin.

Double Insurance for Getting Rich. Is there anything magical about Hou Dongsheng's shiitake growing? In Hou Dongsheng's own words, he has two magic weapons. The first magic weapon is introducing new varieties. To further increase shiitake yield and improve shiitake quality, Hou Dongsheng was the first to introduce capsule spawn——shiitake L808. This is a variety that other local farmers had never even heard of. Not only did Hou Dongsheng introduce it, he also used his professional knowledge and gave play to his professional strengths to make the spawn himself. All at once, the shiitake mushrooms grown by Hou Dongsheng's family stood out from the rest.

Founding a Company to Develop Together. Hou Dongsheng's success made the surrounding villagers deeply envious, and they all came to learn from him. Hou Dongsheng felt that rather than each fighting alone, it would be better for everyone to work together. Hou Dongsheng founded a company and adopted a company + base + farmer model, providing farmers with free technical guidance, equipment and sites, taking unified responsibility for sales, and driving surrounding farmers to develop high-quality, efficient, ecological and safe agriculture.

Building a Cold Storage Facility, No Longer Afraid of Market Fluctuations. As the number of people grew, the scale expanded and output rose, unsold seasonal products became a worry for Hou Dongsheng. This time, Hou Dongsheng came up with yet another magic weapon for getting rich——building a cold storage facility. Hou Dongsheng invested more than 40,000 yuan to build a 40-cubic-meter cold storage facility, which can hold more than 7,000 jin of shiitake mushrooms at one time. The cold storage was built to chill and preserve the shiitake mushrooms. Business at the door is not easy to do now. Without cold storage, if you take the shiitake mushrooms out to the market, people will press the price down, but if you have cold storage, you can chill the mushrooms harvested in advance, which prevents the shiitake mushrooms from spoiling during transport.

Daring to Fight, Daring to Venture, Daring to Plan. Under Hou Dongsheng's leadership, a number of farmers have now joined the company. Shiitake production is thriving, and both output and quality have reached expectations. But Hou Dongsheng is not satisfied. This post-90s young man, who dares to venture and fight, has already mapped out a blueprint for his career development. Hou Dongsheng said: On the one hand, the fruiting greenhouses should be expanded to 20, leading the villagers to further expand the planting scale, striving for excellence in packaging and sales, showcasing regional characteristics, and relying on excellent quality to make Xiyan Town the largest shiitake production base in North China, so that Xiyan shiitake mushrooms can go beyond Yicheng and reach the whole country; on the other hand, increasing the varieties of edible mushrooms, such as oyster mushrooms, straw mushrooms, button mushrooms and enoki mushrooms, to meet the diversified needs of the market, while experiments with rare medicinal mushroom species such as lingzhi and zhu ling are also being carried out at full speed.

Introducing new varieties is absolutely a good idea for starting a business and getting rich. To get rich and start a business, the first thing to think of is to achieve what others do not have. The first magic weapon is introducing new varieties and improving the quality of one's agricultural products. Dealing with risk does not mean everyone has to build a cold storage facility. Because the investment is large, not everyone can afford it, but the idea of using cold storage to deal with market risk is indeed worth learning from.