Agriculture Business Week

A whole day seminar on mushroom production is scheduled this Saturday, October 3, at the AANI Urban Farm at Kingsville Court, Antipolo City. The place is near Sumulong Highway.

Teddy Laurie who is an expert in producing spawns as well as growing the crop will conduct the seminar right at the AANI Urban Farm where he has put up a facility to produce planting materials, particularly fruiting bags of oyster mushroom.

Fruiting bags produced by Laurie are of such quality that they can remain productive for as long as eight months, according to him. Some fruiting bags from other sources usually remain productive for only a few weeks or months.

Mushroom growing can be undertaken by urban dwellers as well as those living in the countryside. It can be undertaken as a commercial venture or just as a hobby for producing one’s own home requirements.

Mushroom growing offers a number of advantages. One is that it does not require a big space for one to be able to undertake his mushroom project. Another advantage is that the gestation period is very short. If one is to start with purchased fruiting bags, he will be able to harvest his first mushrooms after only several days. Planting could be staggered so that harvesting could be done on a daily basis or some other frequency desired by the grower or the demand of the market.The capital required is also minimal.

Growing mushrooms in the urban area is advantageous in that the market is right in the city. These include institutional buyers like restaurants, subdivision homeowners, weekend markets and the like.

If there is an abundance of fresh harvest and it could not be absorbed by the present buyers, the same could be made into powder or dried mushroom. Or they could be pickled. Teddy Laurie will also teach how to process the mushrooms at the seminar. Direction to the seminar site could be had at www.aaniphil.net.