In March, I and my advisor Dr. John Pecchia took a long flight to Songzi City, China to attend the Chinese Morel Industry Conference and the Development of Global Valuable Edible Fungi Forum. It was a two days Conference, from March 10, 2017 to March 12, 2017. More than 400 hundred people, including farmers, researchers, investors and morel lovers attended in this conference. I was very excited about this conference, since my research is about morel cultivation and the truth that there is no morel cultivation industry in USA right now, this morel industry conference provided a great opportunity for me and John to see how farmers grow morels in China and some key techniques regarding to morel cultivation as well as the most recent research results. I was honored to give a brief presentation about some basic biology and taxonomy studies on Morchella spp. in USA.
Morels (Morchella Spp.) are one of the most prized edible fungi in the world. They were first artificially cultivated by Donald Ower in 1986 in USA and the first patent (NO. 4595809) about morel cultivation was applied. In 2005, a morel farm was built in Michigan State and the industry of commercial morel cultivation was initiated. However, because of some technical problems, they stopped cultivating morels in 2008 and the entire industry of morel cultivation just disappeared in USA.
Researchers in China have done a plenty of research on morel cultivation since 1980 and there have been some successful reports, among which the achievements of Douxi Zhu, the head of Mianyang Edible Fungi Research Institute of Sichuan, was the most significant one. This research institute started to work on morel artificial cultivation in 1985 and their first success of getting morel fruiting bodies was achieved in 1992. In 2012, they started to popularize their techniques of morel artificial cultivation in field throughout China.
The Development Situation of Morel Artificial Cultivation in China
According to the statistical data provided by China Edible Fungi Industry Chapter during the conference, the cultivated area of morels in China were around 1000 acre in 2011 and the number is growing more and more every year (Fig. 1). Especially in 2016, the total cultivated area of morels was more than twice as it was in 2015.
Fig. 1
The regions of morel cultivation are located in more than 20 provinces in China, among which Sichuan province has the biggest growing area. In 2016, Sichuan province contributed 44% of the entire morel cultivation area with a number of 15780 acre (Fig. 2). The second largest morel cultivation province is Hubei Province, where Songzi City is located.
Fig. 2
There are three clades of Morchella spp., the rufobrunnae clade, esculenta clade and elata clade. There are more than 30 Morchella spp. In China, including 13 species in the elata clade and 17 in the esculenta clade. Several species were selected to be cultivated artificially after lots of scientific practices. They are M. importuna, M. sextelata, M. septimelata, M. esculenta, among which M. importuna is the most widely cultivated species in China (above 95%) due to the good productivity and stability.
The Techniques of Morel Artificial Cultivation in China
An innovative technique significantly changed the morel cultivation industry in china recently. The first in
novation is the application of nutrient bags. Basically nutrient bags are additional nutrient sources. They are filled with wheat, sawdust or corn, etc. They add these bags on the soil surface several days after spawning to increase the productivity. The theory behind this application is that the sexual development requires a comparably nutrient poor environment. However, the nutrient poor soil cannot support the growth the new mycelia, so additional nutrient source is needed to facilitate the growth of mycelia. But this additional nutrient sources should be removed later in order to trigger the sexual development of Morchella spp.
There was an interesting story behind this. Around 2000, Dr. Douxi Zhu hired some farmers to help him transport some spawn bags to another place. Accidentally, there were few bags left on the soil surface. Ten days later, he found a jumble of white powdery substances around the bags that had openings downward. When they were getting fruiting bodies, he found that more morels were popping up from the region that had bags laid on. That gave Dr. Zhu some inspiration and created this technology, which is a key step to morel cultivation nowadays. Strictly speaking, this concept of additional nutrient source was first described by Ower back to 1986, however, he failed to pinpoint or compare the importance of this application in the morel cultivation practices.
In the regions south to Changjiang River, such as Hubei province, they spawn between the middle of October to the middle of November. However, in the regions north to Changjiang River, the spawn date may be brought forward to the middle of September.
This flow chart shows the widely applied techniques used in morel cultivation in China. The morel-rice rotation and morel-tree intercropping pattern has appeared in some region (Fig. 4).
Problems Hidden Behind the Developing Morel Industry in China
Along with the rapid development of morel cultivation in China, some problems have arisen and they may have detrimental impact on the morel industry.
a) Not 100% artificial cultivation. Compared with other mature edible fungi industry, such as Agaricas bisporus, the most popular edible mushroom in USA, shiitake and oyster mushroom, the productivity of mor
els depends largely on the weather conditions. Additionally, the soil conditions vary significantly in different geographical locations. It is not 100% artificial cultivation, or it will be more convincing to be called bionic cultivation.
b) The reduction of soil nutrients. The continuous cropping obstacle has been a serious problem in morel cultivation. The productivity of morels tends to decrease after two to three years and even no harvest at all, which forces farmers to find new land to cultivate morels. There is absolutely a need to figure out what nutrient is essential for the morel in different stages, or the cost of continuously cultivating morels can be really huge.
c) Pest and disease problems. Most farmers only have limited knowledge of Morchella spp. and have limited access to the management information. The studies on pests and diseases on Morchella spp. are extremely limited. There have been no systemic of continuous pest and disease management strategies so far.
d) Cost control. The additional nutrient bags and building up the plastic green houses can be very expansive. Is it necessary to use additional nutrient bags? In order to answer this question, supplementary scientific demonstrations are required.
Even though there have been a significant progress in morel cultivation in China, there is a truth I want to highlight that nearly 80% farmers in China are not making considerable money or even losing money from the morel cultivation. Those who make good money are the spawn sellers, training agencies and bidders. But most advertisements and reports you can find are released by these people who makes money, and of course they are all good news. When I talked to a local farmer Li, he said the cost of cultivating morels is terrifying, about 10000 CNY per acre (1430 USD per acre). I made a little calculation, you have to harvest 67kg fresh morels per acre only in order to not lose money. Sometimes the number is difficult to accomplish for a large portion of farmers. The morel cultivation techniques are not mature and more research regarding to the basic biology of Morchella. spp should be done.