Fresh idea

Even before the paper mills were shut, local authorities had been racking their brains trying to find eco-friendly and economical ways to utilize the reeds.

The solution arrived one rainy day when Shi Yuelong, a local working in the reeds for more than 30 years, came across a vast group of "little umbrellas", which looked like edible fungi, growing out of rotting reeds.

"It was like a surprise encounter with a gem," Shi, now general manager of the Hunan Guangya mushroom-cultivating company, recalled with excitement.

Without hesitation, he collected five or six types of the wild mushrooms and sent them to biological institutes for identification and nutrient analysis.

"We identified from these reed mushrooms three edible varieties for commercialization," said Wu from the Edible Fungi Research Institute, pointing out a white spring mushroom, a mayonnaise-colored one and a bulbous fungus.

In 2017, Shi asked several biologists to experiment with domestication and cultivation of wild reed mushrooms, which proved a difficult task as they had no precedents to follow.

The breakthrough came last year with a successful small-scale trial cultivation of the three domesticated mushroom varieties from soil containing reed residue.

Shi said it is an "awesome" way to utilize reed resources and avoid pollution, as 0.067 hectares of mushrooms needed up to 20 metric tons of reeds.