Mushroom growers in the Rio Grande Valley
Mushrooms have long fascinated chefs, botanists and storytellers. They’re known for their delicious flavor, peculiar shape, fleshy texture and sudden appearance in unexpected locations. Technically speaking, a mushroom is a fungus, not a bacterium, plant or animal, and many mushrooms are fungi. In the culinary world mushrooms are considered a vegetable.
Mushrooms grow from spores that are released from the mushroom cap. When a spore lands on an ideal growing spot, the spore grows fungal threads known as hyphae, a group of which is called mycelium. In the proper conditions, different mycelia join together and form a rooting network of thin filaments that eventually sprouts a mushroom.
Most commercial mushroom growers prefer to start their mushrooms by inoculating an enriched mushroom soil (known as substrate) with mycelium because this process is quicker and more reliable than waiting for the right spore to take root itself. Also, growers can selectively harvest and regrow mushrooms that have desired characteristics, such as good flavor or shape.
Here in the Rio Grande Valley, two mushroom companies — South Texas Mushrooms and One Up Mushroom Products — with self-taught owner-growers, are bringing exotic fungi, such as blue, pink and golden oysters, chestnuts, king oysters, lion’s manes and enokis to local farmers’ markets and restaurants for both gourmet and wellness applications.
“I was out working in a field one day. I was by myself, and I was working on a gas well and it started raining really hard. I turned around, and from nothing, all of a sudden there were mushrooms growing all around.” — Ramiro Villarreal
ONE UP MUSHROOM PRODUCTS IN MCALLEN
After a few drinks and some deep, life changing conversations with local chefs, Ramiro Villarreal determined that the Rio Grande Valley had no available commercial mushroom sources. With more vegan and vegetarian clientele, area restaurants were looking for ingredients that would satisfy their hungry, health conscious patrons.
At the time, Villarreal was a new father. His job in the oilfield paid well but took him away from home far too often. It was time for a career change.
Villarreal set up his first mushroom project in his wife’s office. He watched loads of YouTube videos and purchased several books online about mushroom growing. After a few failed attempts, he finally produced his first cluster of yellow oyster mushrooms. Villareal called his chef friend to announce his mushroom success, and the chef offered to buy them immediately.
Once other local chefs found out about the new local supplier of mushrooms, Villarreal’s business took off. He moved out of his wife’s office, pushed his motorcycles out of the garage and set up a laboratory and growing space there. But after a few years, the intricate process of mushroom production, invoicing, marketing and social media were bogging Villareal down.
He talked to his long-time friends, Andres and Jose Aguirre, two brothers he had met when they were teenagers attending Sharyland High School. They agreed that the idea of growing mushrooms for restaurants sounded intriguing. Soon the three were signing paperwork and setting up shop at their local farmers’ market.
The growth in One Up Mushroom Products coincided with what Villarreal calls the “Shroom Boom.” Gourmet consumers, chefs and restaurant goers wanted mushrooms. Additionally, people were starting to understand the health benefits of mushrooms. The Aguirres and Villareal developed a mushroom extract, which is tremendously popular among their regular farmers’ market customers.
“Each mushroom does its own thing.” —Alvaro Gurrola
SOUTH TEXAS MUSHROOMS IN LAS MILPAS
Alvaro Gurrola started his mushroom journey on a quest for better health for his father. Struggling with an autoimmune disorder, the doctors told his father that if his disease didn’t kill him then he would die from the side effects of chemotherapy and the steroids he had been prescribed. Given these choices, Gurrola set out to find an alternative healing method for his father.
Highly influenced by the YouTube videos of mycologist Paul Stamets, Gurrola began to experiment with growing reishi mushrooms as an alternative wellness supplement for his father. Next, he began to grow lion’s mane mushrooms. which are used for health and culinary purposes.
A chef friend with a food truck encouraged Gurrola to expand his growing efforts to include more gourmet mushrooms, and he did. He has successfully grown oyster, shiitake, chestnut, pioppino and enoki mushrooms. The scorching temperatures of the valley summers prohibit growing certain mushrooms year around.
“Even with air conditioning, you just can’t get the temperature in the growing room down that low. Plus, the electricity gets expensive.” So despite being grown indoors and in laboratory conditions, mushrooms are seasonal.
Along with his cousin Leonel Martinez and friend Beto Gonzalez, Gurrola is looking to grow South Texas Mushrooms — expand infrastructure, increase production and perhaps develop new lines of business.
One new area could involve the use of mushrooms in making the planet greener, which Gurrola, who has a degree in engineering, is pondering.
“Right now, mycelium is being utilized for packaging instead of Styrofoam or plastics. You simply inoculate a packaging mold with mycelium, and the packaging grows around it. In fact, Ikea has replaced Styrofoam with mushroom-based bioplastic.”
Whatever his new, future mushroom growing projects are, Gurrola hopes to have his students at Buell Central High School in Pharr participate (Gurrola is a teacher there).
“I’ve noticed that it’s very challenging for the students to sit down and listen to a typical lecture. They do better with hands-on learning.”
The “Shroom Boom” in the Rio Grande Valley has brought with it a new generation of mushroom enthusiasts. Locally grown and harvested, mushrooms provide a delicious ingredient with beneficial wellness properties.
Editors Note: While getting ready to go to press we discovered a New Cameron County Mushroom Grower. Check out Grande Farms Mushrooms @ grande_farms.
- Follow @southtexasmushrooms and @oneupmushroomproducts on Instagram.
