Supermarket shelves could be stocked with mushrooms grown from the Northern Territory's cotton waste, with a Charles Darwin University (CDU) research project exploring the possibility of broadening the region's agricultural industry.
The project, led by PhD candidate Waseem Ahmed from CDU's Research Institute for Northern Agriculture (RINA), aims to create a circular economy by using cotton crop waste to grow mushrooms.
Cotton crop production in the Northern Territory has expanded to more than 10,000 hectares and is anticipated to reach 15,000 hectares in the coming years. This process of using cotton waste – known as cotton trash – is the first of its kind in Australia, with sugarcane and wheat crop waste being the most used byproducts in growth.
Australian mushroom production is estimated to be annually around 65,000 tons, on top of importing about 5,000 tons of mushrooms a year. Mr Ahmed, who began this project in 2024, said the process has fallen into three stages: to assess the viability of using cotton trash to grow mushrooms, to develop successful recipes using cotton trash and other waste, and conduct an economic analysis on the potential of the industry.
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