Another great article about integrated farming.

[FedUpWithIt All]

Even when the rice straw can no longer grow mushrooms, it finds a further use. Rice straw, like all other plant material, contains lignin, a compound that strengthens the plant. Most animals cannot digest lignin or the cellulose attached to it, making the nutrients unavailable. However, some fungi, like the rice straw mushroom, are able to synthesize the lignin, freeing up more nutrients and creating an excellent fertilizer in the process.

Danh can use this straw as mulch, return it to the rice field or compost it for use in the vegetable garden. Even the seemingly insignificant, exhausted straw has a use, and one less piece is lost.

The rain races towards us across the rice fields, shattering their calm surfaces and dripping from palm frond to palm frond before crashing to the ground. Danh takes shelter in the doorway of his house and watches. Farmers in the Mekong Delta, where water is as ubiquitous as rice, know that the rain is part of the cycle of the farm.

This rain will water the grass that will feed the cow whose manure will grow the worms that will feed the chickens that provide the eggs. This rain will fill the pond where the fish feed on what the goats do not digest. This rain will flood the rice fields that provide the straw where the mushrooms will grow.

And when the cycle is complete, it will all begin again.

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2877337/

[xchrom]

1. love heifer.org -- nt

[fasttense]

2. I think I'm going to try my hand at growing mushrooms this year.

I love to eat mushrooms.

I've been researching growing mushrooms for about 2 years now. But what has finally made up my mind is that those little shrooms make great soil out of things like coffee grounds, cardboard, straw and sawdust (all things in plentiful supply around our farm). Our soil is kind of hard and thin. So getting a bed of good planting soil after growing the mushrooms is such a perfect situation for us.

Plus there is this mushroom you can grow in among your veggies that actually improves the health of your plants. And there is this other one that eats up chicken crap, brings the worms that then feed the chickens. I'm going to try and start it in our chicken run.

You just got to love how mother nature has all these cycles developed just waiting to be used.

Did I mention, I love mushrooms.

[FedUpWithIt All]

3. You'll have to share with us here how it goes.

I swear, in my house, we eat mushrooms nearly every single day. Not exaggerating either :)

I would be very interested to hear of your experience.

You just got to love how mother nature has all these cycles developed just waiting to be used.

It is almost a hobby of mine to research how many "loops" can be found. I find it completely fascinating how well many natural systems can lend themselves to agriculture.

[fasttense]

4. I'll let you know.

I plan to start in early to mid April.

I wish I could eat mushrooms everyday. Do you grow them or hunt them?

We have some hardwood acreage in the back of our farm and I've been tempted to hunt for wild shroons, but I'm afraid I might pick up a poisonous one. My husband knows more about hunting mushrooms and is interested in the Morel. He is going to try cultivating the Morel (in the woods by the oaks and poplars) and Lion's Main on logs. We'll see how it works.

I think growing them outdoors in plots will be better for me - plus I get better soil and use up waste products! The cool temperature purple oyster is the one I think I'll grow. It has no poisonous look-a-like in North America, so I'm safe there.