How can morel mushroom farming bring in 600,000 yuan a year?

Right now, at the morel mushroom growing base of Ke Dongli, a villager of Miaojie Village, Magutian Town, Biyang County, morel mushrooms are pushing up through the soil in one greenhouse after another. "Once these morel mushrooms are sold, this year's income will be more than 600,000 yuan," Ke Dongli said.

Morel mushrooms are a rare and precious wild fungus with unique growing conditions and broad market prospects; their flesh is tender, sweet and delicious, and they are rich in protein, carbohydrates, a variety of vitamins and more than 20 kinds of amino acids, with effects of tonifying the kidney, strengthening yang, nourishing the brain and refreshing the mind. Wild morel mushrooms generally grow in

the forests deep in the mountains, and their yield is very limited. Because they are rare, dried products sell for more than 1,800 yuan per kg, mainly exported to European and American countries and sold to first-tier cities in China.

Magutian Town is located in the remaining ridges of the Dabie Mountains, and wild morel mushrooms grow in its mountain forests. Every spring and summer, villagers rush up the mountains to gather wild morel mushrooms, earning no small income. In 2013, after Magutian villager Ke Dongli saw that the local climate was suitable for morel mushroom cultivation, he introduced the crop from Sichuan to develop morel mushroom farming, and that year

earned more than 60,000 yuan. Ke Dongli also taught himself morel mushroom spawn production techniques, and followed imitation-ecological cultivation techniques, using no pesticides and no fertilizer from production to harvest. Because the prospects are good, this increased Ke Dongli's confidence in expanding the planting scale; this year the scale has expanded to 16 mu of land with 22 greenhouses in total, and it is expected

that the dry product yield per mu will be 40 jin to 50 jin, and an investment of 10,000 yuan per mu can bring in more than 30,000 yuan in income; the yield is high, there is no pollution, and the mushroom residue is also excellent organic fertilizer.

At present, many villagers in Magutian Town are learning artificial morel mushroom cultivation techniques from Ke Dongli, and many people have thus embarked on the road to prosperity by growing morel mushrooms.