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This Wisconsin Economist Found Happiness Growing Mushrooms In His Basement
He started researching how to grow mushrooms online and attempted to grow button mushrooms that grow in manure
Jerome Segura III has turned what started as a hobby into a viable commercial business.
Photography courtesy of Segura & Sons Mushroom Farm
When Jerome Segura III leapt from the ivory tower of academia, he didn’t know what would be waiting for him when he hit the ground.
The central Wisconsin resident quit his job as chief economist and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2018 because he was unhappy at work. He figured he would do some consulting work and be a stay-at-home dad to his two sons while his wife, Cara Adams, embarked on her dream of launching a makers market. But he found he had a ton of free time when the children were at school or napping. He started filling that time with trying to grow mushrooms. He had been thinking about how much the family spent on mushrooms every week, and he figured he could try to grow his own for fun.
He started researching how to grow mushrooms online and attempted to grow button mushrooms that grow in manure. “I found myself going out and foraging poop from our chickens to make this compost in which these things were supposed to grow, but they never grew,” he says. “I just kept growing mold. So I threw that stuff out pretty quickly.”
When that experiment failed, he turned away from forums on the internet and started looking into academic literature for better advice. He came across a sustainable form of mushroom cultivation used in developing countries. “These people around the world are growing these things in some of the craziest of conditions,” he says. “In Southeast Asia, they’re growing them in bamboo huts. I thought if they can grow these things in tough socio-economic conditions that aren’t necessarily very clean, I might actually have an opportunity to do this here.”
This process involved a lime pasteurization method, rather than a steam sterilization. Segura knew that the latter would not be an affordable option for him, as a lab could cost tens of thousands of dollars. He started using the lime pasteurization method to grow oyster mushrooms on sawdust wood pellets (and not poop).
In his first few months, he says 80 to 90 percent of the spores he was planting were failing. But since then, he says 98 percent of them have been successful.
Segura started sharing photos of his mushrooms on Facebook, and soon people started asking him if they could buy them from him. More and more customers started coming out of the woodwork, and what started as a hobby in his basement quickly grew into a flourishing local business—Segura & Sons Mushroom Farm. Segura now sells mushrooms to families through a CSA to local restaurants, as well as out of his wife’s store.
When he started his mushroom operation, Segura says, he never would have imagined it would grow into a viable commercial venture. He didn’t even know if there was a market for mushrooms in their part of Wisconsin. But there was, and now he’s known as “the mushroom man” around town.
“All of a sudden, where people used to know me as this economist, now they’re talking about me as the mushroom man,” he says. “I didn’t think I was going to be successful growing mushrooms, let alone actually running a mushroom farm.”
Vertical Farms Offer Solution For Unused Urban Space
InvertiGro founder and CEO Ben Lee will showcase vertical farming, which makes use of urban space to grow food, at the City of Sydney’s Emergent 2050 expo next month
26 September 2019
Indoor vertical farming is a more efficient way of growing crops because it is a controlled environment, proponents say.
Vertical farms can boost community engagement while making good use of vacant urban spaces, the founder of a vertical farming startup says.
Ben Lee
InvertiGro founder and CEO Ben Lee will showcase vertical farming, which makes use of urban space to grow food, at the City of Sydney’s Emergent 2050 expo next month.
Mr. Lee says the functional nature of vertical farms distinguishes them from vertical gardens, which are more ornamental.
He says vertical farming is good for community engagement and sustainable food production and has particular benefits for children in urban areas.
“Lots of children around the world don’t have access to outdoor natural spaces,” he told Government News. “So these indoor farms or vertical farms have been quite beneficial in being able to help with their development.”
Vertical farms can fill up spaces such as disused warehouses and car parks, which Mr Lee predicts will become increasingly available.
“The thought process behind that is, as autonomous cars become more prevalent in the future, car parks will become more and more disused because… you can’t really convert underground spaces into living quarters, and there’s a saturation of retail that you can have,” he says.
A recent InvertiGro pop-up in the basement of Westpac’s Sydney headquarters. Source: InvertiGro.com
Benefits of farming in a controlled environment
Indoor vertical farming is currently seen as futuristic technology where food is grown in a “lab environment”, and this can often be a barrier to communities embracing it, Mr Lee says.
But he says these fears are unfounded.
“It’s not any different from being grown in the field,” he says. “In fact, it’s much better, it’s much more efficient, it’s cleaner.”
The conditions of indoor farms often prove more favorable than crops grown in the field.
“The reality is that with the shifting weather patterns, being able to grow efficiently in a controlled environment is actually better because you can control the amount of output thereby reducing waste,” he says.
“And in a controlled environment, you’re growing product that is cleaner and safer to eat without the risk of microbial contamination, which has happened in some instances in field-grown products.”
Mr. Lee says vertical farming is being widely adopted overseas.
“It’s already starting to be seen as more commonplace, especially in the US and Europe, where larger corporations or businesses are adopting these as part of their strategy for food production, and also to reduce their carbon footprint through the distribution chain,” he says.
“And with more and more of these business coming to the fore and more focus on it, it’s already becoming part of the landscape rather than being totally futuristic.”
When clients approach InvertiGro about starting a vertical farm, Mr. Lee and his team engage with them to find the right sites to use, plan what the farm will look like, consider capacity and costs required, and then mobilize the resources to implement the project.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore
He says InvertiGro is currently exploring opportunities to work with the City of Sydney to determine potential spaces for vertical farming.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore told Government News Council is continuing to explore existing and emerging technologies to utilize buildings and open spaces to support sustainable communities.
She said increasing urbanization, which 80 percent of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, would lead to an increased demand for food, pressure on water supplies and stresses on transport systems.
“Vertical farming potentially offers a significant opportunity to address these issues,” she said.
Going beyond leafy greens and herbs
The potential of vertical farming goes beyond regular fruits and vegetables, Mr. Lee says.
“Outside of the leafy greens and herbs, we are able to use the same infrastructure to grow things like fibre for the material industry,” he says.
“And there’s a whole range of other applications, from medicinal plants to viticulture, which we’re very excited about.”
The 2050 Emergent expo on October 19 is a headline event of the Spark Festival and will showcase emerging technologies, initiatives and ideas shaping the future of Sydney.
It will feature more than 30 startups and 50 displays as well as presentations on green cities, alternative housing models and the sharing economy.
“This event is a unique opportunity to learn more about emerging ideas and technologies, connect with their creators and give everyone a say in the Sydney they’d like to see in 2050,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said in a statement.
Russia: City Farming In Tomsk
The Orlov family started an unusual business two years ago. Despite Siberian frosts, they successfully grow strawberries year-round with the help of their own engineering inventions
Growing Strawberries In The Basement of a Block of flats
The Orlov family started an unusual business two years ago. Despite Siberian frosts, they successfully grow strawberries year-round with the help of their own engineering inventions.
In the basement of a regular 5-storeyed block of flats, the city farmers grow their berries, without a single ray of sunshine and natural warmth.
“The agricultural method is based on hydroponics and aeroponics”, explains Alexander Orlov, demonstrating the small farming facility. “These are important factors, but lighting is even more vital. The technology was worked out by my son; it is his know-how that formed the basis of our business”.
The family have various technical devices, but the main factor is lighting, due to which the berries get all the needed warmth and light for growth, aroma and color.
The inventive son, Kirill Orlov, is a professional engineer, who specialized in applied mathematics in Tomsk University. His lamps allow for reduced energy consumption and stabilize the temperature regime. One lamp lasts 7.5 days, if used 18 hours a day. With these lamps, strawberries grow and ripen faster, productivity increases up to four times.
“I had already retired when one day my son came and suggested growing strawberries. He experimented with light before and grew greenery like onions, parsley and spinach quite successfully. The volume wasn’t big and nobody had thought he was going to start big production”, shares the father, Alexander Orlov.
The local government supported the idea; they liked the systematic approach and the idea of growing and selecting strawberries in Tomsk all year round. The first grant that was received for the complex creation came from the local government. Currently the growers have three rooms, two of which are occupied with beds for 3000 berry bushes and various systems, and the third one contains the enterprise management system: water conditioning, fertigation and irrigation unit and other equipment.
“We get a lot of positive feedback from customers on our Instagram page, both private persons and restaurant business representatives. Parents write that they are happy that our strawberries cause no allergic reaction with children”, shares Mrs. Alla Orlova.
“Our dream is to create the best greenhouse not only in Siberia but also in the world”, shares Kirill. “We have an opportunity to pick a suitable land plot for the construction and we want to show that Siberia can boast the most advanced agricultural technologies and contemporary profitable greenhouses. Any plant can be grown with our technology, not only strawberries but also greenery and tulips that we purchase in huge amounts form the Netherlands. I feel we can do it with the support of the family. Further development will be related to expansion of our interest and gradual fulfillment of the plans”.
The vegetation period in Orlov’s greenhouse lasts 45 days, after which harvesting is done every day all year round. 40 thousand bushes can produce 40-60 tons of berries per year.
Source: rg.ru
Publication date: 5/15/2019
In A Basement in Stockholm, The Inhabitants Grow Their Own Fish and Vegetables - Cycling Cultivation Provides Extremely Grown Food
PUBLISHED FÖR 14 DAGAR SEDAN.
Different forms of urban cultivation are becoming increasingly popular and Dag-Tore Johannessen from the Circulation Company is testing aquaponics in a basement room. Photo: Yle / Linda Söderlund
In a few months the residents of Solberga in Stockholm can go and catch the dinner fish in the basement. At the same time, they can harvest salad, tomatoes and herbs. The cycling plant is tested to get locally produced food in town.
You first go through a bicycle cellar and then you come to a basement room, where the former storehouse was kept. An aquaponic cultivation has now been built, which provides both the fish and vegetables for the needs of the tenants.
THIS IS HOW AQUAPONI WORKS
- I jumped on the project right away. I am interested in food production and I also work with it. It seemed interesting to have friends with neighbors and raise fish and plants in the basement, says Markus Jantunen, one of the tenants in Solberga.
Torbjörn Frisö and Markus Jantunen read about the various hydroponic cultivation techniques. Photo: Yle / Linda Söderlund
The entire plant is a biological system that works with bacteria. The plants get nourishment from the fish bait, and at the same time the plants help to clean the water so that it can return to the fish farm.
In two open tanks, tilapia swims, one of the world's most cultured fish. Tilapia grows fast and thrives on a small surface and one expects to get 200 kg of fish a year from here.
Tilapia is an African fish that is grown a lot in especially Asia and the USA. Photo: Yle / Linda Söderlund
The fishermen sprinkle and swim up to the surface when Torbjörn Frisö pours half a cup of fish feed into the water.
- The only thing we add to the culture is oxygen and fish food, says Frisö.
Frisö founded Kretsloppsbolaget and he and Dag-Tore Johannessen have built the cultivation plant in the basement. Cultivation is part of the EU project Green Solberga and here in southern Stockholm several different climate-smart and sustainable innovations are tested.
The cultivation can provide 1500 basil pots per year
In the basement, three different hydroponic cultivation beds are tested, where one grows in water. Here grow lush basil, tomatoes, sugar peas, fennel and chili.
Basil is the main product right now and one expects 1500 basil pots per year.
The NFT technology with pipes is especially suitable for growing herbs. Photo: Yle / Linda Söderlund
THREE DIFFERENT HYDROPONIC CROPS
The big challenge is to maintain the balance in the biological system.
- Secondly, it is important to raise the level of bacteria, which converts the fish's poo ammonium to nitrite and then to nitrate. The pH value is important, as is the alkalinity, says Torbjörn Frisö.
With climate change, interest in urban cultivation is growing
Markus Jantunen believes that in the future it will become increasingly important that one can also produce their own food in the cities.
- We city dwellers do not have many options, compared to people living in rural areas. Then such solutions are needed to become self-sufficient in food.
He also appreciates the social part, to do something for the climate together with the neighbors.
- We are destroying our soil, we are depleting the soil and surpassing them elsewhere and we are fishing out of the sea. Then it is this that will be the future.
Ebb and river technology are suitable for different types of perennials, such as tomatoes. Photo: Yle / Linda Söderlund
The ecocycle company also believes that interest in urban cultivation continues to grow. People are becoming increasingly aware of climate change and want to influence themselves with active choices.
It is hoped that this type of aquaponic plant will be built in several basements around Stockholm. According to the circuit company, the plant has many advantages.
- This food is extremely popular if you think of the tenants living in Solberga. Water consumption is smaller than in normal cultivation and so we have the premises that are already heated, says Dag-Tore Johannesson.
The cultivation requires supervision a few times a week
Now the inhabitants are learning how to manage the cultivation. It is a group of about ten people who have been allowed to register and eventually they take over the responsibility for the cultivation from the Circulation Company.
- It requires supervision two or three times a week, depending on how the plant has been set up. It takes some time, but at the same time it is fun, so I think it will be fine, ”says Jantunen.
Photo: Yle / Linda Söderlund
Torbjörn shows Markus how to best sow basil. He uses regular seed soil and seeds sold for commercial use, they have much better germination than regular seeds.
- The first pots we put - oh, oh, as soon as it grew! It is amazing !, describes Torbjörn and shows with his hands how quickly the basilica grew.
"So the problem is that it gets so much that you don't know what to do about it?" Asks Markus.
- No, it's just eating it! We usually make pesto at home, it will be fine, Torbjörn tips and laughs.
The Green Solberga project also includes cultivation in pallet collars, a project with water stairs that can take advantage of stormwater and to test a biotechnology that removes bad odor during waste sorting. The project is run by IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet and Stockholmshem.
VIDEO: New York Restaurant Basement Farm to Table
Underneath two-star Michelin restaurant Atera in Lower Manhattan is an actual working farm. Using LED lighting and hydroponics, Farm.One grows rare herbs and greens for some of New York City’s top restaurants. We talk to the founder Rob Laing about his venture and get a taste of what he’s growing.
FRI, MAR 15 2019 • 1:02 PM EDT