The overarching goal of this project is to create a pilot scale, year round indoor specialty mushroom (shiitake) cultivation facility using forestry products at the alcorn state agricultural…

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded Alcorn State University $501,626 under the Cooperative Forestry Research (McIntire-Stennis) program on October 1, 2025, to establish a pilot-scale, year-round indoor shiitake mushroom cultivation facility at the Alcorn State Agricultural Experiment Station in Lorman, Mississippi.

The project converts wood milling byproducts—sawdust, wood shavings, wood chips, and bark—into value-added mushroom production, addressing the legislatively mandated forestry research area of wood and forest product utilization. Mississippi mills generate substantial wood residue that is primarily burned as industrial fuel; this initiative redirects those materials as growing substrates for shiitake cultivation using published recipes and five-pound grow blocks inoculated with shiitake strains, processed in batches of twenty bags. Shiitake production remains concentrated in Pennsylvania and California, and the pilot facility targets market expansion in Mississippi while leveraging the state's abundant forestry infrastructure and byproduct streams.

The award period runs from October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2027. Work is performed at the Alcorn State Agricultural Experiment Station. Alcorn State University, a historically Black 1890 land-grant institution, serves as both direct recipient and administrator of the award, which functions as a formula grant distributed to state-certified forestry research institutions as determined by the Governor or designee.

The overarching goal of this project is to create a pilot scale, year round indoor specialty mushroom (shiitake) cultivation facility using forestry products at the alcorn state agricultural experiment station. Accordingly, the project would address one of the seven legislatively mandated forestry research areas, namely 'utilization of wood and other forest products.' IT was reported that in 2018, mississippi had 19.7 million acres of forestland, with forestry contributing approximately $1.25 billion annually and serving as the state's second largest revenue source. More than 60% of the state is forested, with 72% of that land privately owned and at least 25% of the workforce employed in the forestry sector. Wood shavings, sawdust, wood chips, and bark are products of milling, and in 2011 mississippi mills produced 203 million cubic feet of wood residue, with wood chips accounting for 41 percent of residues, sawdust 25%, and wood shavings 7%, respectively. However, most residues were directly utilized as industrial fuel. Value added products from wood milling byproducts are needed to generate additional revenue. Annually, three pounds of fresh mushrooms are consumed by americans. Mushroom sales reached a second all time high in 2017 with $1.2 billion value, with specialty mushrooms, including shiitake, showing steady growth. Shiitake mushrooms alone accounted for $40.7 million in sales at an wholesale price of $5.67 per pound. Production is concentrated in pennsylvania and california. Since shiitake can be produced using primary substrates such as sawdust and wood shavings, which are primarily utilized as fuel in mississippi, this project aims to develop a pilot scale indoor shiitake cultivation facility at the alcorn agricultural experiment station. We will utilize well published recipes for the indoor cultivation of shiitake mushrooms. Five pound grow blocks per bag will be inoculated with shiitake strains, and 20 bags will be made per batch. Mushroom qualitative and quantitative analyses will be conducted per batch and compared to USDA standards. As a land grant university with a robust extension portfolio serving a large number of small forest landowners and farmers, a pilot scale shiitake cultivation facility is expected to: i) promote mushroom cultivation to landowners as a source to augment farm income; II) promote alternative and sustainable use of forestry products such as sawdust and wood chips; III) educate stakeholders on the health benefits of shiitake mushrooms and demonstrate indoor cultivation; and IV) serve as a platform to conduct basic research on indoor mushroom cultivation. In the long term, the goal is to ensure large scale adoption of shiitake cultivation and contribute to national mushroom sales