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CHINA |
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Chinese innovation |
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| Abstract |
Yongtiangui and Tangshugang toil in their farms throughout the year. Although educated only till Junior High School, they have been inventing or innovating affordable and useful devices and methods for the farmers.
For a month after summer crop of corn, they remained free. They found that during the same time the farmers of the Muyu village were engaged just for three-four hours per day, but earned as much as 300 Yuan (One Chinese Yuan = 7.2 Indian Rupees) in a day. They were busy in tilling another crop in their corn fields in a greenhouse. That crop was Dictyophora sp. It is generally sown in the green houses in the bamboo groves. Both the farmers started wondering if it could be grown in their corn fields also.
The Queen of Fungi
Dictyophora is a parasitic fungus, which grows at the root of the withered bamboo. China’s wild Dictyophora originally grows in the hot and humid sub-alpine zone with the elevation ranging between 200-2000 meters in the areas like Yunnan-Guizhou mountains. Because of the scarce supply in recent years, its market price has risen rapidly. In other places its cultivation has been undertaken in the bamboo fields. Dictyophora is delicious in taste and rich in nutrients and thus is known as “the queen of fungi”. It is used to make one of the luxurious banquet dishes.
Innovation Motivation
The market price of the wild Dictyophora is about 250 Yuan per kg. Tangshugang thought that the cultivation of this fungus in the corn fields could give lucrative yields. In 2000, he read about some people cultivating Dictyophora in Gutian town of Fujian province. He then went to Fujian to study this kind of technology. Since the techniques were considered as trade secret, people there were not willing to share them. After three months in Fujian, he acquired only some simple techniques of Fungi production. But even this helped him a lot.
Tangshugang said, “I own a piece of bamboo field where several wild Dictyophoras grow. Excavating with hoes myself, I observed the direction of mycelium growth, especially the way of hyphae growth.” After observing and experimenting for three years, Tangshugang eventually achieved success in cultivating Dictyophora in a greenhouse in 2003. This needs bamboo as a base material. People may gain 30,000 to 50,000 Yuan per acre by cultivating Dictyophora in greenhouse. And the production cycle is of three years. But the returns, in comparison to the investment and efforts put in, were not sufficient.
Experiment
After visiting the cultivation of Dictyophora in Tangshugang’s greenhouse, Yongtiangui found that the main function of the greenhouse in the cultivation was providing shade. Dictyophora is a kind of fungus, which prefers moist and shady environment. Having planted corns for several decades, Yong considered that the leaves of the corns would perform similar function as the greenhouse did in the cultivation of Dictyophora. Because the sunlight was blocked by corns’ leaves, other crops were not planted in the corn field (Though in many countries, farmers intercropped beans with maize: Ed). Yong wondered if he could cultivate something like Dictyophora whose growth did not need sunlight in corn field.
Yong first planted Dictyophora in a small piece of field. He inoculated and cultivated mycelium. In April when everything was ready, he transplanted the bags of cultivated mycelium in the corn field. With worries and anxiety, he waited for four months. In August, the cultivated Dictyophora eventually grew out of the corn field.
However, Yong discovered a strange phenomenon several days later. In the field with grasses, the mycelium growth was better and thus also the fungi. No Dictyophora grew in the fields where grasses were weeded completely. Yong was puzzled. Through observation and consultation, he concluded that it is good to weed the grass for most crops, except Dictyophora. If the grasses are weeded completely, the direct exposure of the sun will dry and hurt the exposed mycelium. Apart from that, weeding may damage the mycelium of Dictyophora, which is not good for the growth of Dictyophora as well.
According to the expert opinion, the cultivation of Dictyophora does not hamper the growth of the corn. Its cultivation in the corn fields required the investment of only 1,000 Yuan. More and more people have begun to try its cultivation. By making use of corn leaves to provide shade, the production of Dictyophora could be 50 kg per acre and the output value may be 5,000 Yuan or more. The local farmers constantly did research in the corn fields in order to improve their technique of planting the Dictyophora, and finally they gained a great success in the year 2004.
Now Dictyophora’s cultivation is one of the major industries in China. From an individual to a community,
from a village to the whole country, the practice of cultivating Dictyophora in the corn field has spread quickly. Yongtiangui and Tangshugang have changed their and other’s fortunes through their innovative insight.
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| Volume No. |
HB19(3)July-September 2009 7-8 |
