Lion's Mane Mania

It has been nearly eight months since I spontaneously quit my accounting job to start a mushroom farm. In the very beginning, I ran some basic back of the envelop calcs - 100 lbs a week of mushroom requires 25, 10lb blocks yielding 4 lbs a block, which is approximately 120% BE, a modest yield compared to the 150% - 200% yields achieved by experienced growers.

If I could sell the 100 lbs of mushroom at an average cost of $10/lb, this would allow me to achieve sales of $4000 a month. It was with these numbers in mind that I started the farm.

Of course, in reality, clawing my way to even half those numbers in sales has been quite the journey. Several factors impeded my progress. First, I was not able to achieve BEs anywhere near 120% in the beginning. Under sterilization, contamination, poor air flow, lack of quality second flushes, and other suboptimal factors effectively gave me BEs of around 50%, which obviously destroys my projections. Second, I was not able to get into the larger, more lucrative farmers markets. I had not - and still have not - built up enough brand reputation in order to get into the better markets. I would not be able to supply enough produce to them in any case. Third, in the markets I did get into, selling mushrooms was a harder task than I realized and I had to pivot to selling hot mushroom food to even convert mushrooms into cash. This is not necessarily a poor long term strategy as many Americans are not used to cooking with mushrooms and selling high quality prepared mushrooms can lead to sales of the fresh ones.

Yet another problem was poor yields with oyster mushrooms. Due to the nature of my climate controls in my basement facility, I have been struggling with (1) the size of my oyster mushroom flushes (maybe 60 - 70% of what would expect on first flush) and (2) difficulty with generating 2nd and 3rd flushes. I believe I understand the reasons for suboptimal yields - they are namely lack of exact temperature control, CO2 PPMs closer to 800 - 900 vs the desired 400 - 500 (due to overlap between colonization space and fruiting space), and poor cleaning habits - not completely sterilizing the growing space in between harvests.

However, with the lions mane, I have achieved significantly more success. Yields have been much closer to 100% BE, which is much closer to the theoretical max as they are not usually as prolific yielders as the oysters. So they are approximately at ~80% yield of what a professional grower might get, which is quite good. This stems from two factors: (1) their greater resistance to higher CO2 PPMs - lions mane grow satisfactorily at CO2 PPMs up to a thousand-ish and (2) the greater reliability of the generation of 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th flushes. I have not had trouble with lions mane 2nd and 3rd flushes, so have not really been changing the grow room conditions after harvests, but if I were to employ the resting techniques I have been using with the oysters (reducing light, increasing humidity, and lowering air flow), BE for lions mane may even increase to 110 - 120% which would be wonderful!

If that were the case, I could sterilize approximately 36, 6 lb bags every week, which would yield approximately 90lbs per week at 2.5 lbs of mushroom per bag across all flushes (approximately 110% BE). The lions mane has proven to be far superior to the oyster not just in terms of fruiting in my basement facility but in their ability to store well and versatility of deployment. For storage, they not only last much longer than oyster (2 - 4 weeks vs 7 - 10 days), they are significantly more dense and take up far less storage space (maybe a 3rd) Additionally, not only have I been selling fresh lions mane mushrooms at markets, but turning them in to lions mane patty sandwiches, grinding them into powers, and getting orders from vegan restaurants.

90 lbs can easily be sold every week (20 - 30 at markets, 20 - 30 to restaurants, and 10 - 20 ground into powder). This would also streamline my growing and I could change growing rooms to cater exclusively to lions mane.

Between three grow rooms (each with ~ 64 sq/ft of space), for a total of around ~200 square feet, I could place 36 blocks into each grow room for two weeks, then rotate to the next tent every two weeks. This would give the lions mane in one grow room about a month to generate two to three flushes, which I believe is sufficient time. Then I could let the tent rest for about a few days and doing a full cycle sterilization (cleaning, alcohol wiping, UV sterilization, cleaning humidifier and fans) before placing in new blocks.

With the above rotation, I believe I could realistically hit 70 lbs/week on the lower end and up to 100 lbs a week on the higher end. Selling 100lbs/week at an average of $10/lb (between farmers markets and restaurants and sale of powders) would generate ~$4000 in cash flow. On the raw material side, costs should drop substantially once I perfect generating grain spawn in house, which I believe I'm close to doing.

In summary, I am switching to exclusively growing lions mane because it has proven to be superior to the oyster mushrooms in so many ways.

• I have been achieving a BE of approximately ~100% with lions mane vs 60 - 70 with oysters (half of their optimal BE of around 150%)

• lions mane stores for longer and takes up less storage space (ideal with my limited refrigeration space)

• lions mane is cleaner than oyster mushrooms and does not emit spores at same rate or as quickly (no need to filter exhaust air)

• lions mane can be dried and ground into powder, a nonperishable product

• lions mane can be turned into a "crabcake" patty which can be sold as a vegetarian/vegan sandwich (depending on binders - e.g. using egg or not)

For all of the above reasons, I will be going all-in on lions mane over the next few months and hoping that it works!