AMINE AND MANGA

The beauty of a mushroom often goes unnoticed. Nature's shadowy nooks and deep crannies nurture myriad forms of fungi from the familiar umbrella-shaped mushrooms and toadstools to strangely contorted cups and saucers. Delicate plants pop into sight from the moist, warm forest floor and push their way through nourishing layers of decaying forest to take their place in the magnificent display of nature's handiwork. Although the welfare of man is tied to the fungi in many surprising ways, fungi do not make up an important part of man's diet. While millions of edible mushrooms are cultivated annually, they are considered luxuries, not staples essential for survival. The Shiitake Mushroom is farmed commercially outdoors on fallen logs. The cultivation of this mushroom is believed to date back at least two thousand years. Today the Shiitake Mushroom is produced under controlled conditions to ensure annual crops large enough to meet the growing demand for this tasty mushroom. Logs are soaked in water and then inoculated with the necessary mycelium to begin mushroom growth. The infected logs are than placed in a carefully selected site in the forest, known as the laying yard, where they will remain until the crop begins to appear, usually five to eight months. The logs are then moved to a new site called the raising yard where the mushrooms continue to grow and are finally harvested. Once the logs have begun to produce, they continue to do so for a number of years, in the spring and autumn of each year.