NI25MSCFRXXXG003

The overarching goal of this project is to create a pilot-scale year-round indoor specialty mushroom (SHIITAKE) cultivation facility on forestry products like sawdust and wood chips at Alcorn State Agricultural Experiment Station.

Accordingly, the project would address one of the seven legislatively mandated forestry research areas, namely 'Utilization of Wood and Other Forest Products'.

In 2018, there were 19.7 million acres of forest land in Mississippi, with 125,000 forest landowners, and forestry contributing to $1,250 million.

Forestry continues to be the second largest revenue contributor in Mississippi.

Forest cover is seen in more than 60% of the state and 72% of this land is privately owned.

At least 25% of the workforce is employed in the forestry sector.

Wood shavings, sawdust, wood chips, and bark are products of milling, and in 2011 Mississippi mills produced 203 million cubic feet of wood residue, with wood chips accounting for 41 percent of residues, 25% sawdust, and 7% wood shavings, respectively.

Mississippi utilizes all the forestry residues, and in 2011, 77% of sawdust and shavings were used as industrial fuel.

Annually, three pounds of fresh mushrooms are consumed by Americans.

Mushroom sales reached a second all-time high in 2017 with $1.2 billion.

Specialty mushrooms accounted for 2.7% of the sales, of which 1.1% or 10.98 million pounds of SHIITAKE mushrooms were sold.

SHIITAKE was sold for $3.89/pound and resulted in $40.7 million sales.

Specialty mushroom sales increased by 4% from the previous years.

Most of the mushrooms in the U.S. in 2017, as in previous years, were produced by Pennsylvania (64%) and California (11%).

Mississippi is not a contributor to the national mushroom production and/or sales statistics.

For a state endowed with forestry resources, and agriculture including forestry ranked the largest employer, mushroom cultivation on forestry products or agriculture residues is not considered as an industry to augment farm income.

Since SHIITAKE can be produced indoors in artificial grow blocks year-round using a combination of sawdust, wood chips, grain, and bran, and since the primary substrates like sawdust and wood shavings are used primarily as fuel in Mississippi, this project aims to develop a pilot-scale indoor SHIITAKE cultivation facility at the Alcorn Agricultural Experiment Station.

The indoor cultivation of SHIITAKE mushroom blocks is simple, and we will utilize the well-published recipes.

The recipe will be tailored to include a larger proportion of forestry products, and the most efficient SHIITAKE strain will be utilized.

Five-pound grow blocks per bag will be inoculated with SHIITAKE strain, and 20 bags will be made per batch.

Mushroom qualitative and quantitative analyses will be conducted per batch and compared to the USDA standards.

As a land-grant university with a robust extension portfolio serving a large number of small forest landowners and farmers, a pilot-scale SHIITAKE cultivation facility is expected to:

I) Promote mushroom cultivation to landowners as a source to augment farm income,

II) Promote alternative and sustainable use of forestry products like sawdust and woodchips,

III) Educate stakeholders of SHIITAKE health benefits and demonstrate indoor cultivation, and

IV) Serve as a platform to conduct basic research on indoor mushroom cultivation.

In the long-term, the goal is ensuring large-scale adoption of SHIITAKE cultivation and contribute to national mushroom sales.

Alcorn State University

NOT APPLICABLE

10.202 - Cooperative Forestry Research

Institute of Bioenergy, Climate, and Environment (IBCE) [USDA - NIFA]

Lorman, Mississippi 39096 United States

Single Zip Code

USDA-NIFA-10202-MSCFRXXX-25-0001

Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 770% from $55,090 to $479,418.