Farmer Frank

Having finished early at Maha-Wittyalay Ratchamongala (Agricultural University of the Auspicious King; aka Farming University) for today I decided to write this post on what it is I do at the farming University. Today I harvested a plentiful bounty of Het Fang (Straw Mushroom), and am now sitting in the office of the foreign language department.

While the name “Farming University” might suggest that I’m out in the fields every day, most of the work is a blend of a biology class and some agricultural exercises. I’ve mentioned the mushrooms before, which is illustrates this dual-learning experience. Having grown a couple batches of mushrooms now, and I thought that bulleted list format worked well for the last post, I’ll explain the process of mushrooming.

I preemptively apologize for any scientifically inaccurate terminology. The reasoning behind what I do is explained in Thinglish, and I’m an idiot at science to begin with.

1.     I always start by heading down to one of the plant science professors office at roughly 9 AM. There I’m given my instructions for the day, which are one of the following options.

2.     Prepare a mushroom culture. I begin by removing a piece of a mushroom and placing it in an empty Whiskey bottle with auger (Thai ingenuity). I’ve gotten pretty good at sterilization, though there has been the occasional burn from getting rubbing alcohol on my finger and placing said finger too close to the flame.

3.     When the mushrooms have successfully grown for a number of days and there’s no sign of contamination, a piece of the new mushroom is placed inside a new whiskey bottle with auger and left to grow for a few days.

4.      When ready, the new sample is placed inside a jar of “spores”. I think they are some kind of grain or seed, but I couldn’t be sure.

5.     Meanwhile, I’ve prepared roughly 120-150 bags of dirt mixed with different ingredients including lye, organic fertilizer, and sometimes straw. Said bags have been cooked in steam for something like 3 hours and left to sit for another 30 or so.

6.     The spores, which by now have started to grow small mushrooms are poured through the bags. The bags are sealed and placed in a room I like to call the “Mush-Room”. Haha, get it? Because all of the Thais sure as hell don’t. :(

7.     This is, of course, only one way to grow mushrooms. Another method is the straw method, which is by far the most dangerous. Beds of straw, dirt, and mushrooms spores are prepared and covered with a tarp. After a week or so, you should have massive and delicious straw mushrooms growing.

8.     First though, you have to cut up the straw with a machete. It was during this first step a couple weeks ago that I managed to flay a small corner of my left index finger. The wound healed admirably and I got a free tour of the Nan Hospital emergency room. Free, is perhaps not the right word, but stitches, a week of daily dressings and finally removal of said stitches only cost about 600 Baht ($18), so a very good price for the services rendered.

I’ve done work like this with orchids as well, but haven’t gotten as in depth of knowledge as with the mushroom production.

What I really respect about the Farming University is that it applies its knowledge in practical and humanitarian ways. I’ve traveled with professors to villages in the area where they educate the locals on how to improve food production while staying organic, or ways to grow cash crops without destroying too much of the soil. I think this really should be the purpose of education. While the US relies indirectly on students to graduate and take the initiative and use their knowledge to benefit others, it’s simply a job requirement of university professors here.

This post has taken me a couple days to write, and I’m finishing it up during the day of graduation for students at the farming University. It’s been a fun and interesting day for the most part, but I tragically forgot my camera. Even though I won’t be able to provide pictures  (but really, that’s nothing new), I’ll try to get a post up on it. Nothing to profound to be observed, but I think it’ll be a good topic to write on and make a decent read for all of you.

I hope you all are having as nice a day as me.