By Antynet Ford

Mushroom farmer Bernard Gitau discovered this year he could get an extra 10kg of mushrooms per grow bag by burying them after harvesting ends, delivering extra mushrooms for another six weeks.

The bags were stopping producing because they had run out of moisture, which cannot be added again, but, by accident, he found out that a thin layer of moist soil above them brought a whole burst of new mushrooms.

“I was harvesting mushroom from the grow bags for three months or even four. After that, the bag would stop producing, but If you would look at it, it was still white meaning it still had spawns,” said Bernard, who farms half an acre, in Joska, Machakos.

“I always use the substrate as manure after the four months when they stop producing. When it rained I saw mushrooms grow on the farm. It was a lot and that’s when I discovered that I was not supposed to dispose of the bags, but try and get more value from the waste and increase production by giving it a conducive environment, because what it was missing is the moisture,” h said.

To do this, he now buries the bags covered with just a centimetre of soil that he sprays and within a few days he gets extra mushrooms. 

“If you had harvested for three months, you can harvest for another one and half months extra meaning you have added its life span.”

Bernard, who gets about 70kg of mushrooms per bag is now getting around another 10kg from the burying.

“For the mushrooms that I am growing directly in the soil, I am supplying it to the community here who want between 1Kg-5Kg. It has helped me fill that gap and now I can never tell them that there is no mushroom. I am now having an extra almost 10kg from the direct growing, which is meeting the demand from the community around,” he said.

“While I would be telling them, previously, that I do not have extra to sell to them, I have done away with that excuse, because, in a week, I harvest three times. This is our first production of growing directly on ground and I have harvested twice. I harvested yesterday (Wednesday) and Monday. Tomorrow, I will also harvest more. So if I can harvest three times a week, that is something great as the bag was to get lost with some good chunk of mushroom,” he said.

“It is curiosity that made me know that the bags would still produce for an extra six weeks,” he said.

“By that, I have been able to increase my income and production of mushroom… I have put it in an enclosed room because directly on the farm there is dust and pests, which can destroy it,” he said.

He irrigates the buried bags with a spray gun to void getting soil on the mushroom, and now has enough mushrooms for small, local orders, instead of only for his large commercial buyer.