Longnan Farmer Makes a Fortune Cultivating Lingzhi Mushrooms in Shaanxi

"Net profit of 280,000 yuan, and I estimate another 200,000-plus yuan in net income next year!" This year, Yu Donghua, a villager from Yangwei Village in Longnan Township, had a very rewarding experience cultivating lingzhi mushrooms in Shaanxi.

Yu Donghua is 46 years old this year, has been working with edible fungi for 32 years, and has been working with lingzhi for a full 9 years. He says his life's work has never strayed from edible fungi. The particular nature of lingzhi cultivation also destined him to be a wanderer. Over these 9 years of growing lingzhi, Yu Donghua has been to Jiangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan, and now he has arrived in Ankang, Shaanxi.

Yu Donghua was born into a poor family in Yangwei Village. At 14, he was forced to drop out of school because his family could not afford the 15 yuan tuition fee, and he followed his father to Wuyuan, Jiangxi, to grow shiitake mushrooms. He would leave home in winter to grow shiitake mushrooms and return in spring to farm the fields. This life lasted 8 years and accompanied almost his entire adolescence. "My family was poor, and I had younger brothers and sisters who needed to go to school. Only my father and older brother worked away from home, and we still couldn't afford the tuition, so I went along with my father and brother to work, and I could help supplement the household income too." Even as a child, Yu Donghua was very sensible.

For more than a decade, Yu Donghua had been cultivating shiitake mushrooms and wood ear mushrooms away from home, but whether in his early years following his father and older brother, partnering with others, or going it alone, cultivating shiitake and wood ear mushrooms never brought him substantial returns. "Almost every year we were in a state of just barely covering household expenses," Yu Donghua told the reporter. It was not until the winter of 2008, through an introduction from a friend, that Yu Donghua began cultivating lingzhi. He successively established planting bases in Jiangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou. Because Yu Donghua was meticulous and warm-hearted, fond of making friends and very loyal, from the years he spent following his father and older brother doing edible fungi to the time he started on his own, he accumulated a great many personal connections. Where the soil and climate were good, where labor was cheap, and where was more suitable for lingzhi cultivation - friends would all exchange information with one another, which saved Yu Donghua untold effort in choosing cultivation bases. In the first 4 years after he began cultivating lingzhi away from home in 2008, thanks to his friends' help and more than a decade of experience with edible fungi, Yu Donghua's lingzhi crops all achieved good yields and prices, and he accumulated a certain amount of wealth as a result.

But the road of entrepreneurship is always full of storms and thorns. After getting married, in order not to let his wife and child drift around with him, he chose to wander and start his business alone, leaving his wife in Longquan to care for the child. This became Yu Donghua's greatest debt to his family. Because of the long distance and the busy demands of entrepreneurship, Yu Donghua returned home only two or three times a year, so he was almost absent from all the years of his child's growing up. "The time I spent at home each year could be counted on my fingers." Moreover, in the first few years of growing lingzhi, the returns were quite good, and he saved up a considerable amount, planning to settle his family in the city. But four years ago, a worker at his factory tragically drowned while transporting log segments across a river, and more than 1 million yuan in compensation drove Yu Donghua back to square one. "I had originally planned to buy a house in the city so my family could live better and no longer have to crowd into a rented room, but with this, the plan to buy a house came to nothing." Not only that, but with empty hands he no longer even had the capital to continue investing in lingzhi, so he had to return to Longquan and start over. "During that period I was very dispirited. On one hand, I felt all my past hard work had been washed away, and on the other, I felt guilt toward the deceased." Yu Donghua said, "For a long time I couldn't pull myself out of it; it was my friends and my wife who counseled me." Yu Donghua felt that carrying on like this was not a solution either, and that he still had a whole family waiting for him to support them. With his friends' help, Yu Donghua rallied, borrowed 50,000 yuan from relatives and friends, and also obtained a bank loan of 150,000 yuan through the joint guarantee of several friends, making up 200,000 yuan. This time, Yu Donghua chose Ankang, Shaanxi. "Ankang is the hometown of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs and very suitable for growing lingzhi. The place name is also very good - Ankang, Ankang, blessing, longevity, and well-being."

Yu Donghua established a lingzhi cultivation base in Hengkou Town, Ankang City, Shaanxi, to plant and promote "Longzhi No. 2." In 2015, Yu Donghua planted 500,000 kg of "Longzhi No. 2" log segments, covering an area of 15 mu. Because the new lingzhi variety Longzhi No. 2 has large fruiting bodies, thick caps, high yields, and good quality, and because Yu Donghua implemented standardized cultivation, this year's lingzhi harvest was a bumper one across the board: 18,400 kg of lingzhi were harvested, with an average yield of 3.68 kg per 100 kg of log segments, 22% higher than ordinary production bases, and total sales reached 786,500 yuan. After deducting costs, the profit was 286,500 yuan. "A big harvest, I'm very happy. Many people who cultivate lingzhi elsewhere ask me about the variety, and some even come to my place to buy spawn," Yu Donghua said happily. Because of the high yield and excellent quality, based on the current mycelial development of this batch of log segments, another 8,000-9,000 kg can be harvested in 2016. Since there is no need for inputs such as raw logs, spawn, inoculation, mycelial incubation, or burying in soil, and only a small amount of management cost is required, costs will be greatly reduced, and an additional 250,000 yuan in income is expected by 2016.

Now, Yu Donghua has already bought a house in Longquan city, and the whole family no longer has to crowd into a small, shabby rented room. Life is getting better and better. Going forward, Yu Donghua says he will establish another 15-mu base in Dexing, Jiangxi. "The original base only needs one or two workers for daily management, and I just need to go over and take a look occasionally. Next year I'll put my focus on the new base." In Yu Donghua's eyes, the future is full of hope.