Farm Tour: Phillips Mushroom Farm - 2021 PA Farm Show

hello welcome to phillips mushroom farms i'm jim angelucci general manager of the 93 year old fourth generation family-owned business located in the mushroom capital of the world kenneth square pennsylvania today we're going to take you on a brief tour show you how we grow the different varieties of mushrooms that make up pennsylvania's number one vegetable cash crop so without further ado let's go so the building we're standing in here is called a traditional pennsylvania mushroom double it consists of 24 beds stacked in tiers of six four tiers to a room and uh comprises about eight thousand square feet of growing surface mushrooms are a unique crop a mushroom will double in size in 24 hours this particular variety is the common white button mushroom we also here grow its close cousin the cremini mushroom which is the brown variety and if we allow the cremini mushroom to mature it becomes a portobello and while every portobello starts as a crimini not every crimini will make a portobello because the size of a mushroom is not determined by the the way the time it takes to grow it's more about the substrate the genetics of the string and the art of the grower so mushrooms have a get their food source from a very um nutritious blend of agricultural waste products the mushroom industry is the original recycler so we take all these agricultural waste products and blend them into the nutrient dense substrate that supports mushroom growth so here we have on the side this white mass is actually the mushroom fungus so what we eat is the fruiting body of the fungus mushrooms are different than any other vegetable for two reasons i know they're not a vegetable but you know my tour they're a vegetable for two reasons one mushrooms like humans take in oxygen or carbon dioxide it's a naturally occurring process the other thing is since mushrooms don't have any chlorophyll they can't provide their own food source so we supply it with this mushroom substrate um composting is an environmental buzzword everybody doesn't have schools municipalities they do it to reduce bulk and make it more manageable but we need a very specific uh organic material so we need carbohydrate we need carbon and we need nitrogen carbohydrate is uh from mulch hay wheat straw stable bedding carbon comes from corn cobs or whatever is readily available shredded hardwood bark nitrogen is from poultry glitter those are all blended together and using some new technology blended into what the substrate that will support mushroom growth the tire composting process takes about 30 days once it's completed it's inoculated with the culture and when we bring it into the rooms we shut off the fresh air damper the carbon dioxide level in the room will increase naturally outside air is about 350 parts per million in this room it will get up to about 10 thousand parts per million that allows this mushroom fungus to grow vegetatively it takes about 14 days for the mushroom mycelium to completely colonize the substrate once it's completely colonized then we add two inches of peat moss which has the ph adjusted to about eight and we add enough water to get it up to about 99 percent of its maximum water holding capacity we put that on the surface that's where the mushroom gets its water that's the sponge that releases the water for the mushroom after about eight days the surface is covered with the mycelium and at the time we do two different things we uh three different things we dropped the temperature that's been held at about 70 degrees we drop it down to around 60. we drop the carbon dioxide level down to about 1500 parts per million and then we start to add water and what that does is have uh the mushroom hyphen knit together and form all these little tiny fruiting bodies that we call pinheads from the time you put the case and layer on until we harvest the first mushroom it's about 18 days and this particular variety along with the brown variety grows and flushes or breaks as we call them first break we'll harvest for five to seven days then there'll be a low period of about the same amount of time where we'll put water in for the second flush uh the second flush we harvest five to seven days and then there'll be a low period we put water in for the third flush we'll harvest the third flush for five to seven days and at the end of the crop cycle we raise the temperature in this um growing rooms with using portable steam boilers to 140 degrees and we hold it for 24 hours that kills any pathogens that may have come in during the crop that would affect the next crop we cool the room down we take all the substrate out the room is sanitized steamed empty in case there's any leftover contamination that wasn't killed in the first post-crop pasteurization and we cool the room down we start all over again so at this farm we're on a nine-week schedule which means from the day we fill this room nine weeks later we'll fill it again so we have 27 growing rooms for uh white and brown mushrooms at this particular facility so that's uh mushrooms are harvested by hand everyone is picked according to its ripeness if you will but again the size of a mushroom doesn't really determine its maturity so as you can see some of these mushrooms are very round and they'll be harvested tomorrow morning harvesters will start at uh 5 a.m this is the first flush once these mushrooms are harvested they go in different types of containers some you see some are harvested directly into the packages that you'll find in a retail store some are done in bulk and they go from the growing rooms to the packing facility which when they're cooled down packaged and usually within 24 to 36 hours they're on their way to it to a distribution center so that's white button mushrooms now we're going to go look at some of the special emotions that we grow here at philips so now that you've seen how we grow white and brown mushrooms we're going to take you into some of our growing rooms that have specialty mushrooms growing or as sometimes called exotics oyster mushrooms shiitake mushrooms maitake lion's mane and king oyster so follow me and we'll take a trip these are gray oyster mushrooms the genus is pleurotus and it comes in five or six different species of the same genus and they come in colors we grow gray brown and yellow the substrate on this is pasteurized cotton seed hulls with wheat bran and weed straw we inoculate it with the culture the bags are pre pre-scored you can see how prolific these clusters are if we didn't pre-score it there'd be thousands of little tiny mushrooms on the on the uh the log which would be a great picture but not very good for sales so we'll slice the bag once the once the mycelium has colonized the substrate it'll start to fruit where there's an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide that takes about eight days once they're starting to fruit we move them into production room about 15 days later we'll pick the first flush off of oyster mushrooms they're very delicate carbon dioxide level in this room is fairly low it takes probably these mushrooms require the lowest carbon dioxide all of the mushrooms we grow grow between 60 and 64 degrees fahrenheit during production and unlike the mushrooms that we saw the white and brown mushrooms there's no water reservoir all the water is already in with the substrate so the way the mushrooms are harvested [Music] just break off a cluster and put it into a cardboard box that's sent for food service most of these mushrooms are used at food service we do have retail packs with them too they come in a four ounce package for retail sales [Music] one of the other species of oyster mushrooms that we grow is a different color so follow me across the hall as you can see these are yellow oyster mushrooms same substrate grown exactly the same way [Music] the only mushrooms you should eat raw are white and brown mushrooms and enoki mushrooms everything else should be cooked these are great have a great appearance for [Music] for show on a plate however when they're cooked they turn gray just like the other ones and you can see that this these mushrooms do not have a veil covering the gills depending on marking conditions we'll pick two flushes sometimes three it takes a lot of space as you can see so we keep moving product every week and making new new logs and they're harvested the same way most of these are used in food service and restaurants however we do have a retail pack that we call gourmet blend that has sliced shiitake sliced cremini and yellow oyster mushrooms in it in retail so it's sort of a blend that can be used in many ways so now we're going to go into another room that has the four other varieties that we grow and in the interest of time we put all of these varieties some examples in one growing room so that we're not tracing around the farm wasting time now this is one you can see that this is a completely different configuration of growing than growing white and brown mushrooms we use wire shelving for the substrate the variety that we're looking at now is called maitake it's also called hen of the woods it is probably one of the most flavorful farm-raised mushrooms the unique thing about these they're very highly prized for their nutraceutical qualities have baby glucan and polysaccharides which have been used to help with cancer prevention also helps mitigate the side effects of radiation chemotherapy these grow off of a sawdust log these logs are red oak sawdust we inoculate them with the culture it takes about 21 days for the mycelium to colonize the log once it's colonized we slit one fruiting body one or two depending on on the log and it takes about 75 days to grow one mushroom once it's harvested the it's one and done the sawdust is taken out of the bag and recycled every all the organic matter on this farm is recycled into potting soil so it's a complete cycle this is a shiitake log and that's s-h-i-i-t-a-k-e again it's sawdust and it's a very flavorful mushroom the unless you're using unless you're making a stock you only want to use the cap because the stem of a shiitake is an extension of the growing media which is oak so it's very fibrous so you should just use the cap this mushroom is very highly prized for its again for its its medicinal benefits uh contains a compound of the cell wall called lentin which has been shown in research to help protect the liver it also is the mushroom it has probably the longest shelf life all mushrooms should be refrigerated once either in the original container when you buy them in retail or if you're buying from a um a bulk station you want to put them in a brown in a paper bag and keep them refrigerated the most important thing is keep them refrigerated this mushroom will last probably 14 to 18 days on the shelf and over here this mushroom is called lion's mane we also call it pom-pom but you can see why it's called lion's mane same substrate as the shiitake and the maitake we poke a hole with a dow into the side of the bag after it's fully colonized and it takes about 23 days for the mushroom to grow we just pop it off the log has a very earthy flavor and absorbs everything that you cook with it this mushroom has been shown recently in research to help with cognitive recognition there's a lot of research has been shown that it's helping people with pre-dementia so mushrooms all mushrooms are not only tasty but they're also healthy and if you follow me down the side here we have one more variety that we grow this variety is called king oyster again it is a genus is pleurotus the species is oringi-eye and we've trademarked the name royal trumpet because you can see that it actually sort of looks like a trumpet this mushroom the stem is very dense um great for for uh grilling um one of my colleagues here they slice it on a bias and just grow it on the on a barbecue grill they also shred it put barbecue sauce on it and it's like pulled pork again very nutritious has shown benefits for good gut health so all mushrooms have um benefits they're the only fruit or vegetable with naturally occurring vitamin d and if you put them in sunlight or under a uv light it increases the amount of vitamin d in the mushrooms so with kovid take your mushrooms put them in the sun eat them and increase your vitamin d level so from here we're going to go back to our packing facility and get an overview of how we package the mushrooms getting them ready for distribution now that you've seen how we grow the mushrooms here at philips one of the most important parts is the packaging and distribution so we're in our packing facility now all the mushrooms that we grow at our six different farms come here for processing packaging and distribution we have nine different packing lines one of the things i should have mentioned earlier that we've been certified organic here since 1997 this farm every mission that we grow here is usda certified organic what you're seeing is um to the left here is is the retail packages that we send across the united states and on the right side there are workers who are getting pallets of mushrooms ready to be placed on refrigerated trucks and sent to distribution centers across the country i want to thank you for taking time to visit us here at phillips mushroom farms today i hope you found it interesting we are a unique business i've been very fortunate i've been all over the world for mushrooms and while traveling i've never told anyone what i do and had the response oh yeah me too so it's a unique industry hopefully when things get back to normal visit our retail shop the woodlands at phillips it's in an 1828 restored farmhouse we have an exhibit there that shows how we grow mushrooms and various videos on mushroom production mushroom uses and everything that looks like a mushroom has a mushroom on it or in it is is there for sale at the woodlands again thank you and uh appreciate your support of pennsylvania preferred we were a uh fortunate enough in 2008 to be named pennsylvania preferred member of the year and again thank you for your support and stay safe

Channel: PA Department of Agriculture PDA

Views: 48,767

Keywords:

Id: 9iY-fmsRwMA

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021