Mushrooms planted by Guiyang company come onto market

Workers pick morchella esculenta mushrooms at the Luojiaqiao Vegetable Base. [Photo/guiyang.gov.cn]

In recent days, edible morchella esculenta mushrooms planted at the Luojiaqiao Vegetable Base, affiliated to the Guiyang Agricultural Investment Group (GAIG) – based in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province – have come onto the market.

The local media reported on Feb 17 that they were ready in the hothouse and the workers then got busy harvesting them.

The base adopts the "vegetable + mushroom" model, with morchella mushrooms in autumn and winter and fruit and vegetables such as cherries and tomatoes in summer. At the same time, GAIG and Guizhou University have jointly been exploring new technologies for cultivating morchella esculenta – one of the world's most recognizable and popular species of edible mushrooms.

"At present, the planting area of morchella esculenta in the base is 295 mu (19.7 hectares) and the total output value can reach 7.5 million yuan ($1.09 million)," said base head Shen Xuan. He added that the latest batch of mushrooms is being sold to Sichuan, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other provinces and cities by order.

The cultivation of morchella esculenta drives the income of surrounding villagers. "The workers in the base are basically locals, who fill more than 1,700 jobs during the annual planting and harvesting of morchella esculentas. At the same time, the company also provides technical training for the villagers," Shen said.

One villager said the locals were doing very well indeed from the mushrooms. "My family rents out the land and works here, with an annual income of 20,000-30,000 yuan," said Wang Shufen, adding that this was her third year of working at the base.