Topic: Study on the relationship between maturation time and yield in Lentinula edodes, using different strains and substrate formulations.
Biography:
Patrick was born in the French part of Switzerland. After a degree in agricultural economy at ETH Zurich, he joined the Hauser group in 1981.
He learned mushroom growing at Hauser’s Farm in Gossau ZH with Dr. James Sinden and Dr. Hans Joachim Tschierpe. Patrick was in charge of the agaricus production, inclusively compost and was responsible for the test units, where strain selection and research on strain behaviour was carried out.
In the later years he took over the spawn production and began in 1988 consulting Hauser’s customers all over Europe on mushroom growing. At the same time he started his own business with shiitake mushrooms.
In 1992 he decided to work independently and to develop a shiitake production in Switzerland. He continued working as a consultant, traveling all over the world while working also for Sylvan spawn Europe.
In order to increase his own shiitake production, Patrick developed a process of making sterile substrate in a conical mixer. He was able to sell this technology a couple of times to different customers, as for example to Bert Rademakers in 2000, who brought the technology to CNC-Exotics.
In 1997 Patrick enlarged his business, taking over a part of the former Hauser buildings in Gossau ZH and started growing exotics in a professional way. Today, 20 years later, the Fine Funghi AG occupies 20 employees and produces more than 10 tons of organic mushrooms every week for the Swiss market.
In 2017 Patrick sold the company to a Swiss grower (Wauwiler Champignons AG) to ensure a succession of the business in the future.
The company’s philosophy is to complete the entire process from substrate production all the way to the retailers. The company grows five kind of mushrooms: Agaricus, shiitake, king oyster, oyster and black poplar mushrooms