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jsncrs
DYEL


Registered: 01/16/14
Posts: 1,170
Loc: Mars
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms?
#23372272 - 06/23/16 02:36 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'd love to own a mushroom farm and run my own business. How many of you do this for a living? what is your biggest money maker? how long did it take you to get to where you're at now?
I'm on the hunt for a new house at the moment, trying to find one with some acreage where I can set up a hobby farm
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Gr0wer
always improving



Registered: 09/16/03
Posts: 6,056
Loc: El Paso, TX
Last seen: 5 years, 10 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: jsncrs] 1
#23375735 - 06/24/16 12:26 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Your best off getting a place with a workshop or large 2+ car garage. Building a structure can be great since you can custom configure, however it can get expensive. And if your experience is limited you wouldn't want to go full steam with a massive grow while figuring everything out. I don't do this for a living but have been making 50% of my full time pay on the side with it. One of the harder things depending on your location is selling the product, especially as you dial things in. It took me about 8 months from when i got back into the hobby to when i was paid off and producing a lot of mush. I didn't need to build a structure and just built a large walk in growroom inside my garage.
Oyster mushrooms are my biggest money maker, chefs like variety too so i have 2015 as my main producer then some goldens and abalone for variety. In the winter king oysters are bomb but there a bit slower and harder to grow. Shiitake are another big seller for me, not as in demand in El Paso as oyster mushrooms but still a big seller.
If your looking for ballpark i would say $5-10K to startup a grow capable of consideration as a full time job replacement, not rolling in money but maybe $2-4k a month. And plan to roll a lot of your income back into the company for the first few months for expansion and improvements. You will pretty much need at least one AA941 or X75, large flowhood, then a 55+ gal steam sterilizer or large 55+ gal pasteurizer. My advice is get as large as you can without taking on employees. Once you do take on employees you need to 2x or 3x in size to make up for there labor cost and workers comp & insurance.
Also diversify and do medicinal tinctures, supplements and dried fruitbodies too. I just recently really started medicinals about two months ago. They can be a nice extra cashflow and have an awesome shelf life.
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TravelAgency
The ongoing "wow"


Registered: 12/25/10
Posts: 4,431
Last seen: 11 months, 23 days
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: Gr0wer]
#23375997 - 06/24/16 03:27 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm waiting of SpeakSoftly to write up some Teks on what he has going on... Shit makes me jealous, lol.
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jsncrs
DYEL


Registered: 01/16/14
Posts: 1,170
Loc: Mars
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: Gr0wer]
#23376058 - 06/24/16 04:35 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Awesome stuff Gr0wer, I've read through your entire automated greenhouse build thread several times over thanks for all the info man, that will be very useful. I've been hobby growing for a few years now and I think I've honed my skills enough to take on the challenge. I've recently purchased a second hand laminar flow cabinet and already have a good size PC, will look at making a pasteurizer in the near future. House hunting at the moment so I'll look for a place with a decent sized garage/shed. Great idea on the medicinal strains too.
How did you advertise your goods? did you hit up local restaurants etc? attend farmers markets?
One question I was going to ask in your GH thread, but may aswell ask here - I've built a small, automated GH as a practice build which worked very well (thanks to your thread ) However I made the move back to Monotub grows as I'm extremely paranoid about the fire risk, mostly due to having electrics in and around a moist/humid environment.
Are you concerned about fire risk at all? What do you do to combat this, do you have any fail safe in place?
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drake89
Mushroom Magnate



Registered: 06/26/11
Posts: 4,168
Loc: TN
Last seen: 4 years, 10 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: jsncrs]
#23376466 - 06/24/16 07:45 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Prepare for 1 or 2 years of little to no income. Have at least a years worth of income on hand for yourself and 6 months for the business. Invest at least what you want to make in the first year in income and you might be lucky to make half of it back. It takes about 3 years of hard work to get to a better place, ideally. There's plenty of people willing to toil forever for farming, I am not one of them. I know old timers that are wayyyy less efficient and still slogging it out with 20 or 30%BE. This is something you need a lot of knowledge and at least a decent amount of $ to be successful at. I think grower was right at the 10-15k minimum foe a start up. If you don't have any infrastructure at all you should double that. If you can borrow money it's a lot cheaper in the long run to build and own rather than rent commercial space.
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jsncrs
DYEL


Registered: 01/16/14
Posts: 1,170
Loc: Mars
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: drake89]
#23376747 - 06/24/16 09:21 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
drake89 said: Prepare for 1 or 2 years of little to no income. Have at least a years worth of income on hand for yourself and 6 months for the business. Invest at least what you want to make in the first year in income and you might be lucky to make half of it back. It takes about 3 years of hard work to get to a better place, ideally. There's plenty of people willing to toil forever for farming, I am not one of them. I know old timers that are wayyyy less efficient and still slogging it out with 20 or 30%BE. This is something you need a lot of knowledge and at least a decent amount of $ to be successful at. I think grower was right at the 10-15k minimum foe a start up. If you don't have any infrastructure at all you should double that. If you can borrow money it's a lot cheaper in the long run to build and own rather than rent commercial space.
Yeah at this point I'll be looking at starting with a relatively small setup and just try and build myself up from there. Not planning on quitting my day job anytime soon, but I'd love to one day build up to the point where I can. If that fails, I might at least be able to supplement my income doing something I enjoy
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TedTheHighlighter
Cheshire Cat


Registered: 12/09/14
Posts: 490
Last seen: 2 months, 7 days
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: jsncrs]
#23378421 - 06/24/16 06:45 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Interesting thread, I hope to one day make some money off growing some oysters. However i wouldn't be looking to make a living off of it, just some money on the side. Is it hard/realistic to attempt to do some small scale grows that can produce maybe 20-50 pounds a month and then sell that at farmers markets and grocery stores? That seems like not a lot of investment and still a good way to make a little cash
-------------------- Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?” The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
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Gr0wer
always improving



Registered: 09/16/03
Posts: 6,056
Loc: El Paso, TX
Last seen: 5 years, 10 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: TedTheHighlighter]
#23379055 - 06/24/16 11:18 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Thats what i did, im now around 150-200 lbs a month and doing restaurants. Much less time selling than farmers market but at a lower price, overall my labor rates are better when i just do commercial sales.
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poponon
Quaaaack!!!



Registered: 09/10/07
Posts: 467
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 13 days, 20 hours
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: TedTheHighlighter]
#23380471 - 06/25/16 11:15 AM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
TedTheHighlighter said: sell that at farmers markets and grocery stores?
This thread is very interesting and relevant to my interests. I have debated starting this as a small hobby side project for a while now. On the topic of farmer's markets for current growers - what sort of area is your local farmers market in? something more rural or are you in the city? How do you think that effects the marketability
Also with regards to grocery stores - has anyone successful done this? if so, how did you go about it?
--------------------
Y e e t!! My Trade List
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SpinScratch
Distrusted Cultivator



Registered: 07/26/13
Posts: 826
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: poponon]
#23381042 - 06/25/16 02:49 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Growing them is the easy part. Selling them is the hard part. I cant even get my girlfriend to touch one, let alone a stranger to pay for them.
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TedTheHighlighter
Cheshire Cat


Registered: 12/09/14
Posts: 490
Last seen: 2 months, 7 days
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: Gr0wer]
#23382279 - 06/25/16 09:28 PM (7 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Gr0wer said: Thats what i did, im now around 150-200 lbs a month and doing restaurants. Much less time selling than farmers market but at a lower price, overall my labor rates are better when i just do commercial sales.
Wow well thats a positive sign. Do you happen to have any oyster grow logs that you could point me to? I would love to see some logs of your projects
-------------------- Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?” The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
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TedTheHighlighter
Cheshire Cat


Registered: 12/09/14
Posts: 490
Last seen: 2 months, 7 days
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: TedTheHighlighter]
#23392451 - 06/28/16 09:54 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Any more answers for this thread?
-------------------- Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?” The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
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Gr0wer
always improving



Registered: 09/16/03
Posts: 6,056
Loc: El Paso, TX
Last seen: 5 years, 10 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: TedTheHighlighter]
#23392501 - 06/28/16 10:15 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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look at my sig below, videos and thread. Its not all inclusive, most of the teks i don't cover are available here.
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mushfarmer_hn
Researcher


Registered: 11/24/14
Posts: 76
Loc: 25 min from Tegucigalpa, ...
Last seen: 6 months, 1 day
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: jsncrs]
#23393101 - 06/29/16 05:36 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
jsncrs said: I'd love to own a mushroom farm and run my own business. How many of you do this for a living? what is your biggest money maker? how long did it take you to get to where you're at now?
I'm on the hunt for a new house at the moment, trying to find one with some acreage where I can set up a hobby farm 
How many of you do this for a living? Me. what is your biggest money maker? Oyster mushrooms, by far. how long did it take you to get to where you're at now? One year making experiments learning technique, on second year I started to buy industrial machine.
-------------------- José Luis Barón J.
Facebook´s fan page of my brand: http://facebook.com/maestrofungi
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jsncrs
DYEL


Registered: 01/16/14
Posts: 1,170
Loc: Mars
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: mushfarmer_hn]
#23393778 - 06/29/16 10:31 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
mushfarmer_hn said:
Quote:
jsncrs said: I'd love to own a mushroom farm and run my own business. How many of you do this for a living? what is your biggest money maker? how long did it take you to get to where you're at now?
I'm on the hunt for a new house at the moment, trying to find one with some acreage where I can set up a hobby farm 
How many of you do this for a living? Me. what is your biggest money maker? Oyster mushrooms, by far. how long did it take you to get to where you're at now? One year making experiments learning technique, on second year I started to buy industrial machine.
What sort of industrial machine?
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poponon
Quaaaack!!!



Registered: 09/10/07
Posts: 467
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 13 days, 20 hours
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: jsncrs]
#23393917 - 06/29/16 11:30 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
jsncrs said:
What sort of industrial machine?
in his other thread he was showing a nice shredder/mulcher he was using for his kings grass substrate. I'd be interested to see what else is being used as well
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Y e e t!! My Trade List
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mushfarmer_hn
Researcher


Registered: 11/24/14
Posts: 76
Loc: 25 min from Tegucigalpa, ...
Last seen: 6 months, 1 day
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Re: How many of you make a living by selling gourmet/medicinal shrooms? [Re: jsncrs]
#23395590 - 06/29/16 09:23 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Check a youtube channel calls Mushrooms Adventures, this guy cultivate kings oysters (pleurotus eriingy) on a basement; on his first videos he shows what you need for what he do. First episode:
I have 3 gas burners for a 55 gallons barrel for hot water pasteurization, one industrial shredder and one leaf shredder, and of course a hepa filter. Go to my post "Permaculture-Growing my own substrate for mushrooms business".
JLB
-------------------- José Luis Barón J.
Facebook´s fan page of my brand: http://facebook.com/maestrofungi
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