Agricultural News
This Weeks Ag In the Classroom Features Oklahoma Grown Mushrooms!
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 12:38:46 CDT
Summertime in Oklahoma means kiddos are out of school and have more time for outside-classroom activities. Ag in the Classroom offers some amazing ways to teach kids about all Agriculture topics.
Today we are featuring Ag Tech Tuesday where we are talking about the tasty mushroom! Did you know Oklahoma produces mushrooms?? J-M Farms is located in Miami, OK and has been in business for over 40 years! They grow Button, Crimini, Shiitake, and Portabella. You should be able to find them in a grocery store near you! Americans eat four pounds of mushrooms per capita a year. The Chinese eat about 22 pounds. The US is the 2nd largest producer of mushrooms, following China. You can check out fun videos and pictures on the J-M Farms website here:
Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of certain fungi. They occur in all environments on the planet. Some mushrooms are parasitic. They colonize living trees or plants, extracting nutrients until the host slowly dies. Saprophytic mushrooms live off organic matter that has already died and begun to decay. Mushrooms like to live in dark, damp places. They feed off the decaying matter around them. As the mushroom grows, it develops spores. New mushrooms grow from these spores. The spores are so tiny you can't see them without a microscope. Millions of spores together look like fine powder. A mature mushroom will form as many as 16 billion spores.
There are 38,000 different varieties of mushrooms, with 3,000 in North America. Not all mushrooms are edible. In fact, some mushrooms are poisonous, so you should NEVER EAT MUSHROOMS growing in the wild. Although a mushroom is not a true vegetable, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) includes mushrooms in the vegetable category for statistics purposes. Mushrooms are a good source of potassium. The US is the second largest producer of mushrooms, following China. You can learn about mushroom spores, the growing cycle of mushrooms, and more on the Ag in the classroom's Mushroom Page HERE
Don't forget, Ag in the Classroom offers daily activities to do with your kiddos on their website and their Facebook page.
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