General
- Mushrooms double in size every 24 hours.
- Pennsylvania mushroom growers have William Swayne to thank for the long tradition of PA mushroom growing. The successful Kennett Square, PA, florist conceived the idea of growing mushrooms beneath his greenhouse benches in the late 1800s.
- Mushrooms are 90% water
- Mushrooms do not need sunlight to grow.
- The most popular mushroom variety grown in the U.S. is white button, followed by crimini (brown or baby bellas), portabellas, enoki, oyster, maitake and shiitake.
- Mushrooms are grown and harvested year-round.
- Store mushrooms in original packaging or in a porous paper bag for prolonged shelf life.
- To clean mushrooms, brush off any debris with fingers or a damp paper towel, or rinse briefly and pat dry with a paper towel.
How Mushrooms Grow
- It takes about three weeks to produce the first mushrooms for harvest. Throughout the growing period, mushroom farmers play Mother Nature, manipulating water, airflow, temperature fluctuation and more.
- Farmers combine materials like hay, straw, corn cobs, cocoa shells, and horse or chicken manure and place them in stacked wooden beds mixed with the spawn.
- In a lab, cereal grains are inoculated with mushroom spores and incubated until they develop into spawn or ‘mushroom seeds.’
- Every mushroom harvested in the U.S. is harvested by hand.
Nutrition
- One Portabella mushroom has more Potassium than 1 medium banana.
- Mushrooms are low in calories and sodium, and fat, cholesterol and gluten-free.
- Scientists at City of Hope were some of the first to discover that mushrooms could suppress growth of breast cancer and prostate cancer cells in cell cultures and in animals. City of Hope researchers have conducted a small clinical trial in patients with prostate cancer.
- Mushrooms are the leading source of the antioxidant nutrient selenium in the produce aisle. Antioxidants, like selenium, protect body cells from damage that might lead to chronic diseases and help to strengthen the immune system, as well. In addition, mushrooms provide ergothioneine, a naturally occurring antioxidant that may help protect the body’s cells.
- Mushrooms are the only source of vitamin D in the produce aisle and one of the few non-fortified food sources.
- All mushrooms contain some vitamin D, but mushrooms have the unique ability to increase vitamin D amounts due to UV-light or sunlight exposure. Similar to humans, mushrooms naturally produce vitamin D following exposure to sunlight or a sunlamp: mushrooms’ plant sterol – ergosterol – converts to vitamin D when exposed to light.
Sustainability
- Mushroom growers are known as the ”ultimate recyclers“ for their ability to convert byproducts and waste from other sectors of agriculture into the compost or medium used to grow mushrooms. Because of this recycling of other agricultural crops and byproducts, mushroom farms have a smaller environmental footprint than almost any other farms.
- Today’s growers use smart management and production practices that use less than 2 gallons of water to produce one pound of button mushrooms – that’s about 32 (8 oz) glasses of water to grow, harvest, and process an entire pound of mushrooms, compared with an average of 50 gallons of water per pound of other fresh produce items.
- Mushrooms are a fairly low-energy footprint crop. Producing one pound of button mushrooms takes 1.0 kilowatt hour (kwh) of electricity. This is the same amount of energy (1 kwh) as it takes to run a coffeemaker for one hour each day.
- From the compost recipe, all the way through to what you purchase in the store, one pound of mushrooms generates just 0.7 pounds of CO2 equivalents. By comparison, using one gallon of fuel emits nearly 20 pounds of CO2.
- Mushrooms are grown year-round, across the nation, and don’t require much land. On average, one square foot of space in a mushroom bed can produce 6.55 pounds of mushrooms. One square foot is 144 square inches, or 4.5 red bricks in a patio– that’s a lot of production power in a small space.
- One acre of land can produce 1 million pounds of mushrooms annually. In recent years, mushroom growers have produced just over 900 million pounds of Agaricus mushrooms each year. Put another way, one acre of land can produce enough mushrooms in a year to fill the length of nearly 4,700 football stadiums. Even more, 900 million pounds of mushrooms is enough to circle the circumference of the globe – mushroom cap to mushroom cap – 19 times!
Economic Impact (PA)
- PA mushroom farms support more than 9,300 jobs and $313 million in compensation.
- PA mushroom farms contribute $1.2 billion to the local economy.
- Kennett Square, PA, has the largest concentration of mushrooms farms in the country. Nearly two-thirds of all mushroom production occurs in Southeastern PA.
Economic Impact (Nationwide)
- U.S. mushroom farms support more than 21,000 jobs and $864 million in compensation.
- U.S. mushroom farms contribute $3.3 billion to the economy.
Looking for mushroom recipes? Click here.
For additional information on mushrooms, their health benefits, recipes and more, visit the Mushroom Council.
Source: American Mushroom Institute, Mushroom Council
