Third Front: mushrooms on the plate
Although they know that in the culinary taste of the Cuban edible mushrooms "do not compose spring", the researchers from the Agroforestry Station of the Santiago municipality of the Third Front insist on cultivating them.
Knowing the nutritional contributions of this species from the plant world, the aforementioned agricultural science center allocates two warehouses for its development, with a space of approximately 110 square meters.
As Mario Jesús Verdecia García, master in science, told Workers, they use solid wastes from the wet benefit of coffee as a substrate for "planting" and mushroom development.
"Over there we already give an ecological contribution, because that cherry by-product is highly polluting of the environment if it is dumped without control, and we use it as a base for the growth of the fungus strains
"The warehouses have optimal humidity conditions to obtain good harvests, we are talking about 70 to 100 kilos in each production cycle."
The specialist specified that between 5 and 7 cycles can be carried out per year, making it possible to reach up to 2 tons of mushrooms in 365 days.
The volumes obtained in the Third Front have been destined to medical assistance centers in that mountainous territory, including the Meter Homes and the hospital.
"The last shipments were to the company Tropical Contramaestre, in the municipality next to ours, where they were processed and marketed, particularly in centers for the sale of bio-healthy products."
Verdecia García recalled that edible mushrooms have a high content of calcium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc and copper, as well as vitamins such as riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3) and folates (B9) (15), and that they attribute properties antitumor.
He also said that it can be consumed in pickles or in its natural form, mixed with meat, with eggs, with rice, or in the variant that the person wishes.
Although the productive volumes are not high and the commercialization is limited, the task to promote this crop does not decline in the Third Front mountains where the researchers of the Agroforestry Station are betting, among other lines in which they work, on edible mushrooms.
