Growing bamboo fungus under nanzhu bamboo forests in Naxi, Sichuan
On December 13, the author walked into the bamboo fungus planting base in Huihu Village, Baijie Town, Naxi District, Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, and saw that on the open ground among the nanzhu bamboo forest, patches of white agricultural film could be seen everywhere covering rows of newly planted bamboo fungus.
"The spawn sown in late September has already produced 98% mycelium, and the growth is excellent." Grower Xian Ligui said after casually lifting the film to check, "We use the method of digging pits in the bamboo forest for fixed planting." In June of this year, under the guidance of local technicians in Naxi District, he transferred 150 mu of nanzhu bamboo forest in the village for large-scale bamboo fungus cultivation. All you have to do is first line the pit with rice chaff, then scatter the bamboo fungus spawn in proportion, then cover it with soil, lay plastic film over it, and wait for the harvest.
"Growing bamboo fungus under the forest not only saves land, but also saves costs and helps increase farmers' income." Chen Yongfu, head of the Naxi District Economic Crops Station, told the author that this year, Naxi District began promoting large-scale interplanting of bamboo fungus under nanzhu bamboo forests, effectively solving the "mushroom-field conflict" in edible fungus production. He said that currently, artificial cultivation of bamboo fungus is generally mainly shed cultivation in open fields, which requires building shade sheds, and bamboo fungus cannot be continuously cropped. Generally, a field that has been planted must be rotated with other crops for more than 3 years before it can be used again as bamboo fungus cultivation land, which to a certain extent causes a waste of cultivated land resources. However, interplanting bamboo fungus under bamboo forests not only saves cultivated land resources and the labor required to build shade sheds, but also significantly increases efficiency. At the same time, the spent mushroom substrate after cultivation returns to the land, which can increase soil organic matter and improve soil structure.
Xian Ligui said that based on the income-increasing techniques for interplanting bamboo fungus in nanzhu bamboo that have already been successfully explored elsewhere, 1 mu of land can yield 350 kg of fresh bamboo fungus and 70 kg of dried bamboo fungus. Calculated at 400 yuan per kg of dried bamboo fungus, each mu can generate an income of 28,000 yuan, and farmers can obtain a net profit of about 15,000 yuan.
"Although the economic value of bamboo fungus is high, the cost of growing bamboo fungus is also very high. 1 mu of land requires nearly 10,000 yuan, which may make some farmers hesitate." Xian Ligui said that based on this situation, he adopted the "company (cooperative) + farmers" model to develop bamboo fungus cultivation. "Because bamboo fungus cannot be continuously cropped, our next step will be to combine under-forest breeding and Chinese medicinal herb cultivation for joint development, to maximize the economic benefits of the bamboo forest and help more farmers get on the new path of increasing income and becoming rich by 'relying on bamboo and living off bamboo' as soon as possible."