There are many existing businesses growing crops indoors either hydroponically or in shallow beds of soil/compost. There are many more such businesses trying to get going but who don’t know how the make the technology work. Crops grown indoors require Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) technology, and the evolving history of CEA in commercial farming is the general topic of this blog. Mushrooms are the original original CEA crop grown indoors, but nobody seems to realize how much the current bunch of CEA farmers owe to the 140 years of developing mushroom CEA technology.
We will be posting sequentially a series of essays that provide some background musings on the history, evolution and current applications of CEA technology, both in the mushroom industry, and generally for other indoor growing activities. The prespective of these essays is from the career of Duncan Soldner, a long time participent in the mushroom industry. As with any collection of such essays based on personal reflection and recollection, there may be folks who take exception to some details of Duncan's story. However, the events related are presented as acurately as memory allows. For those of you whose paths have crossed Duncan's, please feel free to augment the storyline. Now, on to the story.
Chapter 1 CEA -Evolving Techno-Farming
Why do English teachers make 8th graders read Romeo and Juliet? The answer is that some things never change. The fourteen year old Romy and Julie suffered the same teenage angst as kids today. Nobody understands me. Our love is pure. Our love is unlike any other that ever existed. I will end my life if I cannot be with my beloved. Poppycock!
People don’t change, but technology does. Look at King Arthur and Luke Skywalker. Both have a magic sword. Both have unknown parentage. Both are pre-destined for greatness. Both have an unknown sister. Both have a wizard mentor. The stories are the same – the technology has evolved.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and vertical farming (VF) are not new concepts, but evolving technology continues to make them both more possible, and more profitable. Controlled Environment Agriculture seems like a revolutionary concept until one considers the historic evolution of agricultural practices. Archeologists have found evidence of wall structures that seem to have been built to keep blowing sand from encroaching on planting areas. In more recent times, farmers have planted hedgerows and tree lines to reduce wind damage to downwind plantings. While these steps may seem primitive, they are examples of efforts to control agricultural environments. It seems to be our nature as a species to make efforts to overcome natural challenges in our farming activities. Eventually farming grew away from superstition and fertility rites and began to embrace more self conscientious ways of proceeding, and thus agronomy was born.
Though its practice may seem primitive by modern standards, over 300 years ago the CEA cultivation of a very valuable crop began. This crop was grown on a manufactured biomass substrate made from agricultural by-products and propagated indoors where the
environment could be optimized for increased yield. The feedstock for the growing substrate could be specifically formulated to comply with the vagaries of seasonal variations and the limits of indoor environmental control. Since this was real controlled environment agriculture it could be conducted year round ensuring both a steady supply to customers, and a steady income stream to the farmer. There were still a lot of challenges ahead as this industry evolved, but it was a significant merger of agriculture technology and economics.
What crop is this crop? - Mushrooms
The late comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s catch phrase was “I don’t get no respect,” and that is the situation with mushroom farming. Most people are familiar with the job place joke: ‘They treat me like a mushroom - they keep me in the dark and feed me horse(stuff).’ That is not a very glamorous image, but it is one that lingers.
Hundreds of years ago in Paris, France, the public workers who were responsible for collecting and disposing of street sweepings realized that edible mushrooms of the Agaricus variety would grow on the piles of straw that they were charged with removing. Paris then had crowned streets with an underground waste system (the sewers of Paris) with a ditch down the center and shelves on either side. Street sweepers would push the solids waste of the day, mostly straw spread by merchants, into drop holes where it would land on the shelves while the liquid waste drained away. From time to time the solids were collected to be removed to the surrounding fields as fertilizer.
What was noticed was that shortly after moving the sweepings to the fresh air in the fields mushrooms began to sprout from the piles. A miracle, but what was going on? In modern common terms a mixture of raw materials was allowed to bio-degrade in a humid, stuffy environment where mushroom spores propagated. Then, when exposed to fresh air the fuzzy mushroom mycelia (root mass) put forth the fruiting body (mushroom) to make spores for the next generation.
Farmers soon recognized that if they put the sweepings in a barn with doors they could get a second and maybe a third crop of mushrooms to grow from the pile. By closing the doors until the piles were covered by fuzz again, and then opening them to introduce fresh air succeeding crops could be harvested. That’s Controlled Environment Agriculture.
The commercial mushroom industry is the oldest form of controlled environment agriculture, CEA, dating back to the 19th Century in the North America. Tune in for the next chapter discussing the where, the why, the technology and the economics that have driven the mushroom industry, and continue to drive Controlled Environment Agriculture.
© Duncan Soldner 2024
