Mushrooms Bring Success To Rural Couple

Mushrooms Bring Success To Rural Couple 27-4-7 When Wendy and Tom Wiandt decided to give up their city jobs and move back to the small farm where Tom grew up, they did it knowing they couldn't make the kind of living they wanted on just a few head of cattle and 40 tillable acres. But they took with them their professional training and a plan to launch a business they now call Killbuck Valley Mushrooms, Ltd. Located near Burbank, Ohio, the 7-year-old business turns out up to 300 lbs. of fresh mushrooms for sale per week to restaurant clientele and farmers market customers. Their success recently won them recognition as the Outstanding Young Farm Couple of 2002 from the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. The Wiandts say their business has prospered because of their unique approach to mushroom production and their constant attention to marketing products. Production at Killbuck Valley Mushrooms begins in a sterile on-farm laboratory, where Wendy puts her medical technology background to use in propagating mushrooms from tissue and spore samples. Their materials and methods have allowed the lab to be certified organic which allows them to sell organic spawn to other mushroom growers, giving them a secondary income. For their own production, they mix organic spawn with a fermented malt sugar solution and rye grain to make what they call "grain spawn." For most of their mushrooms, grain spawn is inoculated onto chopped organically grown straw that has first been pasteurized to kill bacteria and æwild' fungi. The straw is packed into 5-ft. long clear plastic tubes, which are then hung like columns in a high-humidity warm room for two or three weeks. When the first mushrooms begin popping out of holes poked through the plastic, the columns are moved into a fruiting room where the temperature is maintained at 60 to 75 degrees and humidity is kept high by spraying water onto the floor. These hanging columns produce marketable mushrooms for two months or more. Like dairy farmers, the Wiandts must head to the barn twice a day, every day, but in their case, it's to pick mushrooms. They produce several colors (or varieties) of oyster mushrooms, as well as Wine Cap, Lions Mane and Blewit mushrooms. In the summer, they also produce shiitake mushrooms on hardwood logs. Half of their production is sold at farm markets in Cleveland, Wooster, and Akron. The other half goes to chefs at restaurants in Akron and Cleveland. During the winter, nearly all of their sales go to restaurants. In addition to fresh mushrooms, they also sell dried mushrooms and canned mushrooms pickled in vinegar. Recipes are included with the packaged products. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Tom and Wendy Wiandt, Killbuck Valley Mushrooms, 7927 Overton Road, Burbank, Ohio 44214 (ph 419 846-3258: email: kbmushrooms@msn.com).

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