 Welcome to Farming Matters, the YouTube video series of the North Central SARE program where we get to talk with our SARE farmer rancher grantees and help elevate their stories and learn from them and hear what they learned from their SARE grant. I am really excited today. I'm with a couple of very special special guests. My co-host Marie Flanagan and producer of the show. Hello. And today we were excited to share and learn more from Jeremy Motater who is the farm manager at Michigan's campus farm. And Jeremy, I'll let you share more about a little what led you to your project idea and kind of what came out of that. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me today. And, yeah, so I'm the program manager, farm manager here at the University of Michigan campus farm, which is part of the Moutha Botanical Gardens. You can see the one of the farm fields behind me and my video. So we're a diversified vegetable farm that's a very living learning lab student led space on campus farm produces food for our dining halls for a farm stand on campus and for the amazing blue cupboard food pantry on campus. So as a kind of living learning lab for sustainable food systems student led farm, when a group of students came to me and were very interested in they saw the opportunity to do a Sarah small sale grant and kind of explore something that they were really interested in, which was mushrooms. We sat down and talked a little bit about like what what might be unique and interesting project to do that involve mushrooms. And one of the things that I think is is important and as folks who are running diversified small scale farms now and I used to run an organic farmer training program at the other university up the road and she would say for 10 years. And, you know, it's thinking about when you have a fixed resource, that's a fixed cost resource. Anytime you can have that resource, make more production in a kind of value add way. It's useful. So transplant production, which is kind of for most, you know, diversified farms are especially ecological organic farms that are growing their own transplants. When you fire up your greenhouse and turn it on and start paying to heat it as much money as could come out of that exceeding expense is desirable. And so we're thinking a little bit about, you know, we already fill our greenhouse full of transplants, both for on farm use and for sale. But the question was, is there a way to utilize that space underneath our growing tables to have an additional supplemental crop of mushrooms. And the students who I worked with, Annabelle and Lauren, they, they created this zine to basically share about the report. It's uploaded to the Sarah site and was distributed to farmers in the area as well. They really took a lot of creative passion for this project and they also did all the actual physical work that I'm going to describe and I advised and mentored them and helped us think through the various ins and outs as we went along and help with the reporting. So just a shout out to Annabelle and Lauren. We used a couple, they wanted to try out a few different kinds of mushrooms, right? We didn't know which ones would work best. So we tried three different types in a couple of different production schemes. So we used a wine cap or a compost or mushroom, which can grow in sawdust or wood chips that we had on site from chipping up some invasive like buckthorn wood chips when we were just getting rid of some buckthorn. But we also tried oyster logs, oysters on logs, oysters and kind of a stacked totem system like you can see down here in the bottom of my screen. And then we tried shiitakes in plugs. So here's a diagram picture from before the experiment, those different kinds of things. So we had three different types of mushrooms and a few different types of growing methods to try to see which ones might work better. So you can see that with the shiitakes, we used oak logs, varying diameters because we used what we could get our hands on of freshly cut white oak. So and then used plugs and cheese wax to close those up in a drill to put the plugs in. With totems, on here in the lower left, we used those stacks and then we used a sawdust based inoculum and had those in bags until the mycelium was running kind of fairly well on them. And then we use, here's an example, a great picture showing both the thorn wood chips as well as the wheat straw for the compost or mushrooms. You can see here a few of those different applications and some of the mycelium runs and a little bit of fruit germination and our fruit germination, fruit initiation as well as some fruit production. We ended up thoking the shiitake logs to force some fruiting and that worked reasonably well. And I'll talk a little bit more about the overall timeline for this process and what some of the things that I think we did well and what some of the things that didn't work so well. So I'll stick here maybe with these pictures or maybe I'll actually pipe back to this one because it shows these different treatments and I can kind of narrate the pros and cons of what we did in each one. So by the timing of the grant, we essentially ended up a little bit later into the season for getting things off the ground than we had intended. But we did have enough time in the second season to kind of retry a timeline more akin to our original idea and I think in the end, I would recommend a timeline that was even different than either of those. But the idea of having the mushrooms there and fruiting at the time when that would maybe be out of sync or early market for these mushrooms earlier than you might get in the outdoor production that might potentially carry with it some price premium depending on the market avenue you were choosing. We set out to think about how that could work that way. We know that our transplant tables are most full of transplants in the spring. And so we basically inoculated these plants and inoculated the substrates and put them under our tables. But the challenge was that our greenhouse production spaces and ours happens to be a glass house but it will be the same in a hoop house I think. It was too hot in the summer like we got some mycelium runs and then things kind of went dormant. We probably could have with more active management attempted to keep them we did keep them watered but we probably didn't keep them watered quite enough or just the truth is that the environmental conditions in there just weren't really appropriate. So we tried a couple of different timings the next year with relying mostly on the wine caps because we thought that in the end that that might be a more farmer friendly production system because it's because there's no logs and you know it's like putting a substrate. It's pretty easy to come by a couple of bales straw to put under your three tables it's harder to come by some of those other some of that other oak logs and things like that and kind of was cumbersome to get that stuff in and out and out from under our tables. But even then when we seeded them in the spring are in the closer to our original timeline which was like December January, we still found that by the time we had a good mycelium run, we, the temperatures in the greenhouse still became kind of inappropriately hot, even using warm season strains of the spawns of the different spawns. We did have some success with the shiitakes and you can see that and kind of these pictures here where the mycelium runs we did see in the winter. When we had started to fire the greenhouse back up again in year two, we noticed that the shiitake logs had started to fruit some out of the bottom, where those logs were contacting the soil at the base of the greenhouse and were more moisture was accumulating. So we were like, well, let's see if those runs if that mycelial run is just in there but it's been too dry fruit. So we force-fruited them by soaking them basically 24 hours in a tank. And what we discovered was that although those logs seemed we weren't sure how good the mycelium run was, there were mycelium in there throughout the log and we did get fruit along the entire length of the log after we force-fruited it. But one of the things that we realized through that was that it was silly of us and anyone who was really into mushroom productions would have been like, guys, I could have told you that and sometimes things are hindsight. We stored them as per our drawings here in the lower right there in basically a fruiting position. And we did that because I don't know that's how we drew it and we thought, hey, look at that, we'll cut them in these lengths, they'll fit right there really well. I think we should have stored them, although it would have been more moving, we should have stored them completely flat to the ground in basically a more typical yard formation to decrease the solar irradiation and decrease the amount of drying wind that they got. And then when we wanted to fruit them, put them up into the fruiting stance like that. And that probably would have also allowed us to put more logs under the tables if we had wanted. In addition to that, you can see the great variation in diameter of the logs that we used. If I were to do this again, although this wouldn't give you the longest run of mushrooms, I would probably only do pretty small four inch diameter or less logs because that big log you can see there in the lower right. It's not fawn or reasonable to get that inner out from under a table. It's just not really appropriate for a system like this, whereas it might be in a wood lot or something. So I would stick with kind of smaller logs if I was going to try to do it with shiitakes. The totems we had the worst luck with, I think because they just, although we pulled the bags off after the mycelium run happened, they were the most susceptible to drying because of just the architecture of the way the totem stack was. So we just didn't get a good mycelium run in those. And so I don't have a lot to add there other than it seems like that's probably the least compatible style of production, I would say, that we experienced with having them under the greenhouse stage. So we just didn't get a good mycelium run over the tables. We must around with shade cloths over the tables after we were at a time of the year when the transplants weren't there. We had shade cloth around and so we just threw shade cloth over the tables when the tables didn't have transplants on them anymore to just try to reduce some of that solar radiation. But I think that didn't change the fact that the ambient air temperature in there often exceeded 100 degrees. So, you know, mushrooms don't like that. So in the end, I think if we, I still think that it's a potentially viable project. I think the shiitakes kind of could work. It seems based on what we found on almost on most any timeline, although I would probably recommend the following timeline, based on what we discovered. I think inoculation in the early fall, actually when the how you may not be using your transplant production house at this time, right, you know, you may be your storing stuff in it or whatever the all kinds of things that we do with transplant houses when they're not growing transplants, using them as wash pack stations or whatever else we do that. I think inoculation in, say, October 1, in, you know, we're in southern Michigan or sometime when the temperatures in that hoop house or that greenhouse transplant greenhouse are starting to come off that really high edge. For us, it's like kind of the same window where we might successfully germinate spinach in our passive solar hoop houses just where it's, you're not getting those really hot daytime temperatures. You don't have the heat on in there at that time. But if you could initiate that mycelium run as the greenhouse was warm, that'll be too late really probably to initiate it successfully outdoors or isn't when most people would do it. But you can use the runway, so to speak, of the extra warmth that you get in the October and November and early December window just because you're undercover to hopefully get a nice run of the mycelium when the temperatures start to come off. I think that the temperature in the greenhouse, even with the heat off is a little bit more like an extended prolonged fall. And then I think the timing would work best then once you have the added moisture and you turn the heat on, you know, depending on what crops are going in January or February. For those of mycelium to wake back up and potentially ideally set fruit then in maybe April before it gets so hot that then they go dormant again. And I think the dormancy with the shiitake logs would just be dormant dormancy as long as you didn't get so dry that they died. And they probably would wake back up and flush again in the future. My guess is that with the straw based wine caps that system would probably it might look more like a one and done. I'm not sure you might, you know, in the fall, flush your mushrooms off that straw in the spring, and then reset the program. I'm not sure if it would make it for a second run or if it would just get too dry and too hot under that straw in the greenhouse. Another thing is I would recommend the straw because I think over the wood chips because although people use wood chips for a more durable like longer term, like my like fruiting window and mycelium run from wine caps. I think in this setting your the better fit is something that feels more like a fast crop, like what I call in vegetable production like a cheater crop where I've put something in between where there's two things that are supposed to be there but now I've got one that I didn't have radishes before because they just can basically cheat off book and be fit in between two things that are on the actual schedule. So in that sense, I think the straw just is a little bit better fit from that because you get a faster mycelium run and I think in turn, a faster fruiting turnaround. So that was a lot of words all at once in kind of a wild overview. I'll just click to the end there you can see the cute picture of after we had soaked the logs of the shiitake is starting to come out and they're they're nice quality, and we didn't have any pest pressure or issues in there it's a pretty clean and controlled environment. And there's not a lot of mushroom pests, because it's not that wet or comfortable for the kinds of things that might be mushrooms. So, you know that's I'm going to stop the screen share and see if you have additional follow up questions, Erin or Marie to guide us in the conversation. Oh, well thank you that just taking us through those mycelial threads of your project and how that went that was one. One thing I was really that drew me to you know or just like I teased out from your listening to you talk a little was was one about like that notion of scale, and really thinking like so after going through and trying this out and hopefully the grant helps support some of that risk taking and learning. What would you offer up as kind of your sweet spot for scale or would you think you do it again or like for some ones wanted to try it. I think the sweet spot for scale. I think it depends a little bit on how your transplant greenhouses set up but a lot of people have fabric on the floor their houses so we did some over fabric and some where we remove the fabric so there is direct soil contact. I'm not sure that mattered a ton of the difference between those two things it may have mattered more for the wine caps I don't think the shiitakes carry at all, because they weren't really the way that we had them, I don't think it would have affected it. I would say if someone is looking for something that is kind of more of a little bit of a. I hate to say this because I don't think this is true for really anything even though that like set it and forget it kind of idea. I think the shiitakes might on some level, provide a little bit more of that in the sense that you could have them to even though they went dormant as long as the run successfully happened when they went dormant when it was too hot that's part of the normal cycle that it's hot it didn't die. They went dormant and then we can wake them up when we wanted through flushing and you might find that they wake up naturally in the fall if you like, you know, run some over it we considered putting irrigation in there which is funny which we didn't do. We just kind of threw some water down on them with our water once in a while, but we could have put some, you know, some irrigation in there. Again, this gets back to like the scale issue. I think it gets a little complicated is if your main gig is vegetable production, and your main gig is vegetable and transplant production. Then you probably don't take care of the mushrooms as well as you would if you were like, you know, certainly people who are watching this who are mushroom folks will be like, you know, these, it's a little bit crazy what we did. But I think that there's still an opportunity there to have something that could be a lower scale background management kind of like I said bonus kind of crop. I think you probably either need to treat it that way and have go really low maintenance with reasonably low expectations on the suggested timelines that I have or decide that you that this is a you're going to up your game. And you're going to basically be both a mushroom farmer and a vegetable diversified vegetable farmer and you're going to you're going to attend to those mushrooms which are in this space, as you would anything else in your plan. The idea that they would just kind of like be under there and, you know, make a bonus crop I think was probably a little bit like, you know, opt overly optimistic. But so I think that that's one thing that I would say in reflection on scale, but I think if I was to do it. I don't know I'm a little bit drawn to the idea I'd like to try it again and do it with the with the wine caps with the fall inoculated wine caps on straw, because I feel like it's not heavy. It's not complicated. It's easy to source wine caps straw spawn and it's easy to source wheat straw in the fall, especially throw some bales underneath there inoculate it water them in and see if we maybe that version gets us that low maintenance spring flush of wine cap or composter is some people call them mushrooms. I think so I think the shiitake logs would almost always have to be probably forced. I'm not sure that the ambient. So the other idea that we had was that right like was not just do use of the space but do use of the water right when the water flows off the transplants and down onto the ground it's fine it's hurting anything, but we were like what what if that water can be utilized by another crop you know but I we don't over water our transplants because we're not trying to nutrient leach them so I think that for the shiitakes at least the probably food fruiting might be dependent on forcing, whereas I think the straw gets enough like flow through from the overhead to kind of stay moist and produce a free crop so that's I guess what I would say about scale and management style it's like how how all in are you trying to get. It's an asset to have our season extension as farmers for like two houses and greenhouses but then you're like left with this real estate and I just appreciate how you all took that innovation and you know. I mean that's what it feels like for for so much stuff and I think I think about that and I guess I think about that a lot in a lot of different contexts right it's the same thing you can make that argument for any fixed piece of infrastructure whether it's your walking cool or your tractor or you know if you only use it. Five hours a year then I don't know it's expensive on a per hour basis or per acre basis or whatever but everything I think is what in the context of like that. Trying to squeeze something in that's kind of off playbook you're off crop schedule or whatever I think there's also just like you brought up a really good point there's scale issues there right so. At some level doing something like that's almost for free right you sneak this thing in it's kind of a side project and you get something almost for what feels like nothing but at the point that you scale that. There's a there's a limited scale window there because when you turn up the volume enough then it actually is no longer something that's extra it's just a thing and once it's a thing then you're it's fine but it's now now I'm like making this other I have this other enterprise. Well Jeremy we've been really super generous with your with your time and sharing sharing like your project and taking us to to both the greenhouse into your farm and like a window into that world. Is there anything else that you would want to just share that it's giving you heartburn or like makes your heart say no I mean I think it's going to give a shout out to Sarah I mean honestly I think the fact that you guys are as supportive as you are is amazing and I think that you take some of that risk out of there and help farmers. Try to innovate and share those innovations out with other farmers I think that's some of the best learning that we can do I know that you both believe that are you probably wouldn't work gets there. But I but I just if you're watching this and you are thinking it's it's it's set up to work for farmers and I value and appreciate that and so I value the resource that this is and the opportunity that it creates for for both like folks like who are my students and you know folks who are farming every day. Thank you.