A year into the mushroom business, Christian Brown of Mush Love Farm in Mathews sees a bright future for the edible fungus in the county.

“The geography of the land, the amount of rainfall, the humidity, the morning fog, all contribute to making Mathews a perfect mushroom environment,” said Brown. “I want to see Mathews become a hub for mushrooms.”

Brown is growing mushrooms the natural way—on logs on his heavily-wooded four-acre property near downtown Mathews. There are around 2,000 logs in stacks under the trees around his house, separated according to the type of mushroom being grown—blue, golden, white, grey, and Italian oyster; shiitake, nameko and lion’s mane; chestnut, bear’s head tooth, and turkey tale.

Since he began in January, Brown has purchased the spores needed to produce his mushrooms from commercial suppliers in blocks of sawdust. The logs they grow on have come from a private property owner who needed some trees cleared and offered them on a “you-cut-and-haul” basis.

Mushrooms can be produced from the sawdust itself in an indoor environment, said Brown, but he believes growing mushrooms in a completely natural environment on logs yields a superior product that’s tastier and more attractive.

To do this, he “inoculates” logs with spawn discs made of the spore-laden sawdust that he’s cultivated on pieces of aluminum foil. Once strands of mycelium, the vegetative stage of the fungus, have begun to develop, he places a disc on each end of a log and molds the aluminum foil around the log to keep it in place.

Before long, the mycelium begins to grow through the log by consuming the lignin, said Brown. When the conditions are right and the mycelium is ready to reproduce, mushrooms will begin to “bloom.”

Although there weren’t many mushrooms on Brown’s farm last week, he said warmer weather will bring them out. The best seasons for mushrooms, he said, are spring and summer.

Brown is making sure to soak up as much knowledge as possible about “the seasons and nature of mushrooms,” and he enjoys sharing that knowledge. While some mushrooms, such as the saprophytes that are grown on his farm, live on dead plant matter, he said, others, such as the russula and bolete, attach to the roots of trees and transfer nutrients and water to the tree in a symbiotic relationship known as a mycorrhiza.
Mushrooms can pop up just about any place where the conditions are right, he said, because mycelium is actually every place.

“Everywhere you step on the planet, you’re likely to step on it,” he said.

Mushrooms are nutritious, said Brown, providing a variety of vitamins, as well as protein, fiber, micronutrients, and phytochemicals that are beneficial to health. Some mushrooms, such as the turkey tale, have medicinal properties, as well, he said.

And then there are some quirky facts.

“Mushrooms drop about 50 megatons of spores a year worldwide, equivalent to the weight of 500,000 blue whales,” said Brown. “We breathe in fungal spores with every breath we take.”

Although he’s new to growing mushrooms, Brown has been learning from other local growers, and they’ve been using a commercial kitchen to experiment with different products such as mushroom jerky, mushroom chips, and freeze-dried mushroom soup. He said they would welcome participation from other growers.

“I would love to show others,” he said. “We’re trying to help out other people because it’s better when you do it together. With enough growers, we can provide a decent quantity.”

Brown said he enjoys the whole process of growing mushrooms. His goal is to eventually cultivate mushrooms on 40,000 to 50,000 logs on his property and to have a “you-pick-it” farm.

“It’s taking off,” he said. “I’m super excited to see where it goes.”