The reality of building a morel mushroom industry
Morel mushrooms could make small farmers a significant profit, but it isn't easy to grow them.
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Morel mushrooms could make small farmers a significant profit, but it isn't easy to grow them.
In a southern Ozark forest, Nicola Macpherson and Daniel Hellmuth grow mushrooms using an ancient Japanese technique.
Listen • 4:19 Shiitake mushrooms grow on logs stacked up under a grove of pine trees at the Ozark Forest Mushrooms farm near Salem, Missouri. Trees' role in agriculture tend to be viewed as limited to the lumber industry or highly organized orchards to grow fruits, but some farmers are looking to the forest floor to get more people into agriculture, at least part-time. Dennis Lindberg’s five acres in southern Missouri don’t look like a farm. Amongst the trees on the sloping ground are smatterings of small, green plants. Those are his crops. “Here’s some ginse...