QLD grower using sugarcane bagasse as mushroom growing substrate

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Sugar mills are in full swing in Australia's cane growing regions, with some areas expecting record seasons. But it's not just the sugar that has producers in bundaberg buzzing, with an unlikely new product emerging out of the extraction process.

Transcript

00:00There's something strangely beautiful about growing mushrooms.

00:09But despite the exotic nature of this urban farm in Logan in South East Queensland, Simon

00:17Tang is on a mission to make all parts of his business homegrown.

00:23We probably produce like from two to three times every week, including like king oyster

00:29mushroom and shiitake mushrooms.

00:31Now we have three farms, one farm growing oyster mushroom, one farm growing like shiitake

00:37mushroom, another farm more like a factory in Bundaberg.

00:42It's not the mushrooms themselves being produced here in Bundaberg, but rather the special material

00:48required to grow premium exotic mushrooms.

00:52That's what prompted Simon Tang to settle on Bundy as the site for this factory.

00:57The key ingredient in this mushroom substrate comes from sugarcane processing.

01:02So where better to set up a manufacturing hub than the sugar city?

01:07He sent me an email asking about growing mushrooms from the gas, are you interested in supplying

01:12some?

01:13So we went, yep, no worries.

01:14We had some spare.

01:15The gas is the by-product after we squeeze out all the sugar juice out of it.

01:20It's about 45% moisture so we use that in our boilers to produce the steam which runs the

01:25whole process.

01:27Using sugarcane bagasse to grow mushrooms is definitely a little further outside of the

01:33ordinary.

01:34Funding from the Federal Government and research partnerships between several universities have

01:39all helped to grow the fledgling industry to this point.

01:43Researchers have led extensive mushroom growing trials and spent time cultivating mushroom spores

01:50and developing different recipes using the sugarcane bagasse.

01:54Once the substrate bags are composed, they're injected with the mushroom spores and then stored

02:00in incubation rooms for a couple of weeks.

02:03When they first started out growing the oyster mushrooms using the sugarcane bagasse, they

02:09were only harvesting about 50 grams per grow bag.

02:13Over time they've refined the process and now they're harvesting up to 300 grams using the

02:19bagasse as the growing medium.

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