It looks like a laboratory, but with a humid, earthy smell. It’s a sterile environment, but there’s fungus growing everywhere — in jars, in bags — and that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen!
Growing mushrooms is a totally different kind of farming than what you’d normally think of here in Wisconsin. Andrew Griffin’s story of how he got to growing mushrooms is just as unique. He’s a Wisconsin native, growing up around farms but without farm experience. He got an education in economics at UW, but preferred working in the food sector either on organic farms or in kitchens.
It wasn’t until the height of COVID when he decided to pursue growing mushrooms. He jokes part of the reason was no one was hiring at that time. But growing mushrooms was already a hobby he was passionate about.
Today, Griffin owns MicroMyco Growers in downtown Madison, growing mushrooms for restaurants and farmers’ markets.
In an interview with Mid-West Farm Report, Griffin talks about the economics of mushroom farming as well as how they’re grown:
In the simplest terms, you start a mushroom like you start a seed. Except in this case, you’re allowing mushroom cells, called mycelium, to feed on sugars and proteins in grains. The mycelium needs to grow in a sterile environment, such as a sterile jar, so that it doesn’t compete with other fungi or bacteria in the air.
Once the mycelium has grown to the size of the jar, it gets transported to an artificial log. This log is made of sawdust and soybean hulls. The plastic helps contain the log and the mycelium. In this phase, the organisms need to be warm.
It takes as little as five weeks for the mycelium to graduate from the jar to the log to the mushroom room. Then, the mycelium starts growing a temporary organ — the mushroom we eat. In this room, the mushrooms need to be at a particular humidity and temperature. Griffin basically has to ‘set the mood’ for the mycelium to reproduce.
Griffin says there could very well be a mushroom farm near you as folks transition from hobby to commercial growing in order to meet demand. He recommends you visit one.