We celebrate a Milestone.
by Manning, Sara
The 50th Annual Mushroom Short Course held June 8-10, 2008 at the
Nittany Lion Inn in State College, PA was a great success with more than
150 people in attendance. Mush room growers wanted to celebrate their
ties to Penn State and to honor the professors who helped them establish
production techniques that they still rely on today. "This special
50th celebration brought out industry and university veterans to share
their mutual history, to look back at all that has been accomplished and
to look ahead to the future of the mushroom Short Course," said Dr.
David Beyer, chairman of the program.
The conference was set up as it was in the early years of the Short
Course with rotating grower sessions. Topics ranged from growing for
quality, disease and pest management, spawn making and management of
Phase II. The sessions had mushroom company experts on hand to share
production and management procedures on their farms. University
researchers added technical expertise to the discussions.
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Paul Wangsness, Senior Associate Dean of the College of
Agricultural Sciences, offered the official Short Course welcome. He
applauded the interest of the mushroom farm community in working with
Penn State to establish research priorities. The Keynote Speaker was
Bart Driessen, Mycosupport, whose topic was "World Development -
Trends in Mushroom Growing." He was available during the growing
workshops for questions and answers. Mushroom Council President Bart
Minor, Allen Mannen and Dr. Xin Hu discussed results from the Guelph
Food Technology Center on UVB light treatment for mushrooms. Dr. Robert
Beelman gave an overview on mushroom nutritional research and Dr. Danny
Rinker discussed "Wheat Straw Varieties and Mushroom
Production." Some of these presentations will be published in
upcoming issues of the magazine.
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For the first time, Chester County mushroom farm employers were
able to send supervisors and senior employees to the Short Course by a
bus provided by Penn State on Monday. Participants boarded the bus for
the return trip on Tuesday afternoon. By all accounts, employees who
attended were enthusiastic about the grower sessions, the banquet and
the interaction with industry professionals.
This year's program revived fond memories by locating the
banquet at the Elks Club of State College, the venue for many past
celebrations. Sonny Pizzini, chair of the banquet committee, thanked
sponsors, welcomed attendees and hosted the Monday evening festivities.
Dean of Agricultural Science Dr. Robert Steele said the Short Course
gave participants the opportunity to consider problems, search for
solutions and share ideas. Executive Deputy Secretary of the
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Russell Redding was the guest
speaker and outlined the steps necessary to keep Pennsylvania number one
in mushroom production. His presentation is published in this issue.
Bayer introduced Giorgi Mushroom Co. President David Carroll as the
recipient of the 2008 Mushroom Short Course Award of Merit. "He is
honored for his leadership, inspiration and support of the mushroom
industry and the mushroom programs at Penn State," Beyer said.
"His master's thesis research led to a patent, with
co-inventor Dr. Lee Schisler, for delayed-release supplementation at
spawning, leading to increased yields at harvesting. Sales of the
licensed product, Spawn-Mate, provided the highest patent royalties of
any single product patented by the University."
A final highlight of the anniversary celebration was a gathering of
revered faculty members, their former students, current staff members
and mushroom growers. They reminisced about the many problems they
solved, the debt of gratitude students owe to their teachers and mentors
and the lasting friendships that have endured for 50 years.
Sara Manning, Mushroom News Editor
COPYRIGHT 2008 American Mushroom
Institute Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights
reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.