Bold move in shiitake farming: Longyou farmer couple pays 70,000 yuan a year to hire an expert

On March 19, under bright sunshine, in Chen Baolin's shiitake mushroom greenhouse in Wangjia Natural Village, Xiajia Village, Shifo Township, Longyou County, shiitake mushroom substrate bags were packed densely along the field ridges. The shiitake mushrooms on the bags varied in size; some were already plump and full, while others had just begun to show their caps. The distinctive aroma inside the greenhouse drew passersby to stop. "If they hadn't been frozen before the New Year, they could have grown even better," Chen Baolin sighed regretfully.

Two years ago, Chen Baolin and his wife Wang Ganfeng were still novices at shiitake cultivation, but now the couple have become veritable "shiitake experts." Yet at this title, Wang Ganfeng waved her hand and said, "This is technology I paid money to learn day by day."

Wang Ganfeng and her husband once ran a vegetable wholesale business in Guangzhou for more than 10 years. After returning to their hometown, the two planned to grow shiitake mushrooms. In the spring of 2014, they rushed to Jinyun, Lishui, to learn from experience, following a local mushroom farmer for half a month. But because shiitake cultivation involves many steps, that amount of time was far from enough. The couple steeled themselves and did something many farmer growers would not dare to do - pay 70,000 yuan a year to hire a shiitake cultivation expert.

In May of the same year, the expert came with the couple to Shifo. When some people in the village heard about it, they all said the couple was too bold: they had not grown a single shiitake mushroom yet, but had spent so much money hiring a technician. In fact, compared with the expert's 6,000 yuan monthly salary, Wang Ganfeng and her husband had long done the math: if the 15 mu of shiitake mushrooms failed, it could cause a loss of around 200,000 yuan, but with a technician, the situation was different.

The expert ate, lived and worked in the fields together with the couple. Wood chip quality, spawn selection, raw material bagging, high-temperature steaming, inoculation and fermentation, disinfection and sterilization, temperature control, management and care during the harvest period... because of the expert's instruction, the couple did every step methodically. Take the high-temperature steaming step, for example: the raw materials had to be bagged and steamed in a high-temperature furnace for a full 72 hours. Less than that, and the mushroom bags would not easily sprout; too long, and the shiitake mushrooms that grew would easily rot. Most importantly, controlling the heat in this process was especially difficult. "Fortunately, the expert was always by our side, so we were not afraid."

"The temperature must be controlled between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius, and disinfection and sterilization must be thorough..." Last December, the expert returned to Lishui, but Chen Baolin and his wife were not flustered. "We have mastered at least about 90 percent of the technology," Wang Ganfeng said rather proudly. She said they now grow two varieties, high-temperature mushrooms and water mushrooms, with a net profit of about 15,000 yuan per mu. "We sell them in all four seasons, mainly wholesale to the local market." In peak season, they wholesale about 2,000 kg of shiitake mushrooms a day, nearly half the Longyou market.