Xinjiang farmers make desert mushrooms bloom

(ECNS) -- Tumushuke city in the Third Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), has been seeking benefits from the desert and has achieved significant results.

Thanks to the abundant local solar thermal resources, the city has been developing desert facility agriculture since the beginning of this year. Currently, a large field of vegetable and mushroom greenhouses has been established in the desert.

With an investment of 103 million yuan($14.46 million) by Xinjiang Nongfa Group Co., Ltd. in 2022, currently, more than 100 greenhouses have been put into operation. The agriculture park has formed an integrated system that includes mushroom stem production, mushroom cultivation, product processing, and market sales.

Each greenhouse is equipped with photovoltaic devices on its roof, and inside rows of mushroom racks with water spray equipment. The ground is covered with cooling drip irrigation belts.

"The fresh mushrooms produced in the earlier stages, as well as the dried shiitake mushrooms, have all been sold to the domestic and international markets," said Xie Fucai, vice general manager of the group.

He further added, "One greenhouse can cultivate 140,000 mushrooms per year, and each mushroom stem can yield about 4 cycles or maximum of 5 cycles. The purchasing price for commercial mushrooms is around 10 yuan per kilogram."

"In February this year, we put 2.1 million mushroom stems into cultivation, and the daily mushroom yield ranges from 40 to 60 tons," said Xie.

"Now it is the off-season in the domestic mushroom market, so we can stagger our market entry," Xie continued, "Nearly 200 tons of fresh mushrooms from the first harvest have been purchased by merchants from Urumqi and Xixia County, Henan Province."

The raw materials for these mushroom stems are locally sourced from pruned and discarded fruit tree branches. This approach solves the problem of environmental pollution caused by burning discarded fruit tree branches. The discarded mushroom stems can be used as fertilizer, and after drying, they can also be used as fuel, turning waste into treasure and reducing production costs.

Currently, large-scale mushroom production greenhouses have been built across the city The industry has stimulated the development of collective economies within the areas and has increased income for residents.