Twenty five years of mushroom and mushroom spawn production - it is rare that mushroom farmers themselves involve in mushroom spawn production too (normally they source from specialised producers) and that adds to the beauty of this siblings.
Started mushroom cultivation out of sheer fascination, P. Kathiresan (44) and his younger sibling P. Suresh (40) from Nallagoundenpalayam have now completed 25 years of donning the dual role of mushroom and mushroom spawn producers.
“It is rare that mushroom farmers themselves produce mushroom spawns as they usually outsource the spawns. Here, the brothers are not only using the spawns for their own mushroom production but also commercially producing the same for other mushroom cultivators,” pointed out A. Venkattaraman, Assistant Director of Agriculture.
Belonging to an agrarian family which was involved in vegetable cultivation, Mr. Kathiresan and Mr. Suresh developed interest in mushroom in their student days just by the sight of the said produce. They did not think twice before setting up shed on a 12,000 sq ft area and started mushroom production in a primitive way using cholam as a medium to cultivate spawns.
“We have started the production of mushroom spawn, which is nothing but the seed required for growing mushroom, in tandem with the mushroom rearing. This is due to the difficultly faced to source the spawns at requisite quantities at desired intervals because of inadequate production of spawns,” pointed out Mr. Suresh.
Sustainability of the brothers in spawn production, which is highly technical, has been attributed to their willingness to incorporate new technologies from time to time.
They are now using ultra-violet chambers and related advance techniques to produce sterilised spawns to avoid contamination. Due to this, the brothers are able to produce 120 kg of mushroom and 500 packets of mushroom spawn (each 350 g that can produce 1.5 kg of mushroom) daily.
Each kg of mushroom fetches them Rs. 140 and each packet of spawn gets them Rs. 30. “Since not much of high quality spawns are available, customers from as far as Chennai come here to source it,” said Mr. Suresh.
Sustainability of the brothers in spawn production, which is highly technical, has been attributed to their willingness to incorporate new technologies from time to time.
