The secret behind "Straw Crisp"! The residue of fruit and vegetable was turned into regenerated cover soil, and Zhou Zhaoyang practiced circular economy in growing mushrooms.

0 Share

"Rice straw roll heart crisp" is a popular popular card spot, the owner is Jin Yiyang mushroom farm Zhou Zhaoyang. He not only recycles rice straw, but also attempts to ferment vegetable and fruit residues into compost to make "recycled soil" to replace the red soil used in mushroom cultivation in the past. In a year, he can solve more than 3,000 tons of vegetable and fruit wastes in the western snail fruit market and 400 tons of rice straw in rice fields!

"Dr. Sun Yat-sen failed 10 times before he succeeded in his revolution. I failed more than 100 times and can catch up with Edison's record." Zhou Zhaoyang, who won this year's production and marketing resume, shared his fighting experience and hoped that more mushroom farmers could join the ranks of circular economy.

For my son's sake, recycle straw and start planting mushrooms

"Dad! The teacher said that with global warming, if we don't save energy and carbon and do environmental protection to save the earth, the world will soon end!" One day his elementary school son told him so. More than ten years ago, Zhou Zhaoyang was still doing transportation industry, and also doing sideline to help cattle farmers collect corn leaves and corncobs, on the way to find rice harvest, farmers often burn straw on the spot, seriously affecting driving sight, think of his son's words, Zhou Zhaoyang decided to recycle straw.

Recalling the process of starting a business, Zhou Zhaoyang, 61 years old, spoke with a smile on his face, but his words were full of blood and tears. He said that at first he wanted to buy straw and sell it to cattle farmers and mushroom farmers, but the straw was seriously slow to sell."Growing mushrooms requires a lot of straw, but Taiwan mushroom farmers are very confident. Any material is used to handling it by themselves, looking for it by themselves, and unwilling to hand it over to others." And in order to solve the unsalable straw, he had the intention of starting a business.

Jin Yiyang Mushroom Farm Operator Zhou Zhaoyang (Photo_Lin Yijun)

Zhou Zhaoyang started growing mushrooms in 2011."It's a hard road of no return," he said. At first, the process was not smooth. Several times the compost fermentation failed, so it could only be dumped directly. His original black hair had unknowingly grown a lot of white hair. Seeing that his losses were increasing, he was quite anxious and did not know what to do.

Fortunately, Zhou Zhaoyang thought of asking for help from the Mushroom Research Office of the Agricultural Laboratory. He consulted experts Shi Xinde, Chen Meixing, Lu Yunsheng, Li Weisong and retired Peng Jinteng one by one. The teachers told him everything and gave him many valuable suggestions. After repeated corrections, Zhou Chaoyang's mushroom farm finally slowly stepped on track.

In addition to growing mushrooms, Chou Chao-yang also works as a recycling business. Not only does he recycle rice straw, he also accepts commissions from the western snail fruit and vegetable market to recycle fruit and vegetable residues. However, because the fruit and vegetable residues vary from day to day, and the water content is high, he didn't know how to use them at first, so he could only make compost and send them to the villagers for free, but the acceptance rate was not high. He suddenly thought: Can these fruit and vegetable residues be used as raw materials for mushroom cultivation? And this attempt was another hundred failures.

Lateritic soil is often used for mushroom planting, but the more red soil is dug, the less red soil is used.

Taiwan's mushroom industry has been recorded since 1909. Since the 1950s, the Taiwan government has promoted the export of processed agricultural products, creating three canned industries: asparagus, pineapple and mushroom. In the past, every household in rural areas would grow mushrooms in winter. Today, professional mushroom farmers have emerged. They use modern environmentally-controlled mushroom houses with constant temperature and humidity to grow mushrooms. Planting is no longer restricted by seasons and can be produced annually.

The general mushroom cultivation process is roughly: making compost, compost planting, mushroom bed, bacteria and soil covering. Walking into the mushroom room, you can see the side of the mushroom bed: the bottom layer is straw, the upper layer is soil.

Zhou Zhaoyang said that it takes 14 days for mycelium to grow after planting mushroom, and it can only be covered with soil after the compost mushroom bed is full. It takes about 21 days to harvest the first water mushroom after covering the soil, and it takes more than a month from the start of composting to the complete growth of mushroom. Traditionally, five or six cycles of mushrooms can be harvested at a time, but his farm only harvests three cycles at most to avoid pest infestations.

In the process of growing mushrooms, Chou discovered that the soil covering the upper layer of mushrooms was a big problem. He said that traditional mushroom planting would use a lot of red soil, but after the mushrooms were harvested, the red soil would be discarded. "These red soils are only available on the mountains, and we often have to queue up to buy them." Once, Zhou Zhaoyang didn't buy red soils. He was shocked."The less red soils we dig, the less we will dig. One day, we will finish digging them. What will we do then?"

(Photo_Lin Yijun) The Institute of Agriculture suggested that Zhou Zhaoyang try to use the mushroom cultivation residue as the regeneration cover soil.

Li Wei-sung, assistant researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Research, says that the red soil in the upper layer serves to retain water and maintain an environment suitable for mushroom production. Peat soil is the best soil for mushroom mulching in foreign countries, but its price is high. Therefore, mushroom farmers in China mostly replace it with cheaper red soil, but the red soil after harvest cannot be reused.

Li Weisong explained that the used red soil will accumulate harmful substances such as salts, and lose activity mycelium, subsequent easy to breed pathogenic bacteria, even if disinfection treatment, will also be due to lack of other beneficial microorganisms and can not produce mushrooms,"the red soil that has grown mushrooms, the internal conditions have been different, is no longer suitable for mushroom growth environment." To replace red soil, we must think from the perspective of water retention and mushroom growth, preferably a material similar to peat soil.

Plant remains from ancient times slowly decompose in swamps, lakes, or standing water above ground, becoming a fibrous peat soil over the years. Li Weisong said peat soil is very precious, even if it is not mined, it is only 1 to 2 meters thick, and its global content is limited.

Zhou Zhaoyang's method, taught by the Agricultural Laboratory, is to follow the principle of peat soil. First, vegetable residues are mixed with chicken manure to make compost. After composting is successful, mushrooms are planted first. When mushrooms are produced, the used residual soil is composted again to become the covering soil of the next batch of mushrooms. Although it is not like peat soil, which is decomposed by plants soaked in water, it is very similar to peat soil because of the addition of new fruit and vegetable residues, straw that has been decomposed initially, and the "regenerated cover soil" produced after composting.

Mushroom farm workers are "cleaning the bed", which means that after harvesting mushrooms for three times, they will clean the mushroom bed, and then sterilize and re-lay straw, bacteria and culture soil (Photo_Lin Yijun) Composting fermentation is completely critical. Breaking up, recycling of materials without waste

Zhou Zhaoyang's vegetable and fruit residues come from the western snail fruit and vegetable market. Before making compost, we must also check whether there are other impurities in the residues, such as plastic bags, cardboard, etc., which must be removed manually.

After removing impurities, Zhou Zhaoyang will use machinery and straw to break up the fruit and vegetable residues, and then pile them indoors for fermentation for 20 days. During the fermentation period, the compost will undergo two heating cycles, and the chemical and microbial reactions will reach equilibrium. There is no ammonia odor, that is, the fermentation is complete. After that, mushroom strains are added to the fermented compost, and after the mycelium is fully grown, the reused covering medium is laid. After the mushrooms are grown and harvested, the straw compost and covering soil on the mushroom bed will be reprocessed into the next batch of soil for recycling without waste.

"I just started paying a lot of tuition." Zhou Zhaoyang explained that the production of compost takes time and costs a lot. At first, he was not familiar with the production of compost and failed quite a few times."Compost without complete fermentation can't be distinguished by sight or smell. Only when the mushroom can't grow after covering the soil can we know that the production failed."

Li Wei-sung explains that most small farms and family gardens produce small amounts of compost, and there is relatively little problem of incomplete fermentation. However, Zhou Zhaoyang's scale not only has a large amount of compost, but also adds fruit and vegetable residues. Later, he can go to stable fermentation. The key lies in the crushing step of the pre-operation.

Li Weisong explained that the types and proportions of fruit and vegetable residues received every day are different. Crushing before composting, increasing contact area after crushing, evenly dispersing and contacting various raw materials can make the fermentation speed of the whole vegetable residue more consistent. "If there's even one or half of an unbroken cantaloupe or grapefruit in today's residue, it could ruin the whole batch!"