Big data technology drives Baiyun's mushroom industry to new heights

The edible mushroom industry in Baiyun district in Guiyang, the capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has achieved high-quality development through the application of big data technology.

The Baiyun edible mushroom industrial demonstration park in the district's Niuchang Bouyei township is a good example in applying such technology.

The demonstration park covers a total area of about 100 mu (6.67 hectares), and 50 intelligent mushroom houses have been built for rare edible mushrooms such as red-tuoped bamboo mushrooms, black-skinned chicken firs and white ginseng. Its annual output value is capable of reaching 3.5 million yuan ($507,246.4).

The traditional greenhouse planting mode relies too much on human subjective experience, and the quality and yield of mushrooms are also greatly affected by climate and seasons. While, big data technology has made mushroom planting more intelligent in terms of strain cultivation, mushroom stick cultivation, edible mushroom growth, and processing.

Real-time monitoring of the meteorological, soil, and water environment of the mushroom production site can be realized. The growth cycle of mushrooms can be shortened and labor costs can also be reduced by more than 40 percent through the use of remote automatic control.

Take bamboo mushrooms as an example, an intelligent mushroom house can plant 1,000 sticks of bamboo mushrooms, which indicates that more than 40 sticks can be planted per square meter on average. However, the traditional planting model only allows 10-14 sticks per square meter.

An intelligent mushroom house can harvest 750 kilograms of fresh bamboo mushrooms in a year, with a total price of 45,000 yuan. Its output value is three to five times that of traditional cultivation methods.

It is understood that in 2022, Baiyun completed the planting of 45 million edible mushrooms, with an output of 25,000 metric tons and an output value of 350 million yuan.