Running one of Louisiana's biggest mushroom farms is not for the weak. Mushroom Maggie's Farm grows and sells up to 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of mushrooms every week. The St. Francisville-based business cultivates a variety of fungi, at least eight different kinds like lion's mane, oyster, pink trumpet, shiitake and chestnut mushrooms. At the helm of the operation is Maggie Long, business owner, and her husband, Cyrus Lester, operations manager.
"Maggie one day was like, 'Start a farm with me,'" Lester said. "I was like, 'We're broke. We don't have any money. We don't have any land. What're we going to farm?'"
The answer was mushrooms, a solution that came after the couple learned it's one of the most profitable crops in the country that requires the least amount of start-up costs and land, Lester said. It was 2017, and Long and Lester had been married for three months after a year of planning and another year of constructing their new farm. In the first week of official operations, a fire turned two years of preparation into a total loss.
"We were steaming our fruiting blocks with propane at the time, and one of the hoses busted as I was standing right next to it," Lester said. "So, I had two, 5-foot-tall propane tanks and the valves just blew. The whole barn burnt down."
Read more at The Advocate
