Returning to the mountain village, starting with mushroom picking to get rich

Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

The shiitake mushrooms in the forest have grown significantly in the past two days.

Some of the faster-growing ones have even reached the conditions for harvesting.

Yang Lin posted a picture of the mushrooms growing in the group to prove to everyone that his source of goods was absolutely reliable.

Many eager buyers couldn't help but send Yang Lin frequent messages, asking when he would start harvesting, as they were impatient to come down and collect the goods.

"It'll be soon. There aren't many mushrooms left to pick. Once I find enough pickers, it'll be ready."

Yang Lin kept replying in the group, reassuring everyone.

The county's agricultural bureau and poverty alleviation office decided to conduct technical training in Qingshan Village.

The village chief and village party secretary, among others, were busy going door-to-door, mobilizing villagers to attend the training.

Taking this opportunity, Yang Lin also explained his labor needs to the villagers.

As long as you participate in the training seriously and pass the assessment.

He would give them a bonus of one hundred yuan and hire people to work in his forest farm.

The wages are definitely worth it.

……

At 9:30 a.m., dozens of villagers from Qingshan Village who were mobilized to participate in the training had already gathered at the village committee.

Drip!

The loud whistle pierced the tranquility of the village.

Two black official vehicles led a brown bus along the mountain road into Qingshan Village.

They are the key personnel who organized and participated in today's training.

The car stopped in the courtyard in front of the village committee.

Dozens of impoverished households from other villages also got off the bus one after another.

The training session quickly got down to business.

Staff quickly put up the training banner and took photos as evidence.

From 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., the training content consisted entirely of theoretical knowledge.

Experts sent by the Agriculture Bureau introduced and explained shiitake mushroom cultivation techniques to the villagers.

We had lunch at the village committee and rested for a while until 2 p.m. before starting the on-site drill.

They will be taken to Yanglin's demonstration base.

Experience firsthand the understory cultivation model of shiitake mushrooms, and harvest and grade shiitake mushrooms in a one-acre experimental field.

"Wow, so many mushrooms!"

Even if you're mentally prepared, the shiitake mushrooms at the demonstration base won't be too bad.

The villagers who came to participate in the training were still amazed by the scene before them.

The vast expanse of mushroom fields under the forest, where the mushrooms grow as densely as cabbages, is truly breathtaking.

The locals of Qingshan Village were particularly shocked when they thought that this place was a barren wilderness not long ago.

Many of them worked for Yang Lin when the forest was being cleared.

They knew very well what this land used to look like.

The transformation from barren mountains and forests to shiitake mushroom fields is truly astonishing.

The on-site training went very smoothly.

The picking and sorting of shiitake mushrooms is not too difficult.

After about three hours of hands-on practice in the experimental field, seventy or eighty of the hundred or so trainees successfully mastered the skills of sorting shiitake mushrooms.

The training ended at 5:30 p.m. Yang Lin explained his employment needs to everyone. The organizers took everyone back to the village committee for dinner and then used a car to send the trainees from other villages back home.

The training program has temporarily come to an end.

Overnight, the mushrooms in the forest grew even more.

More shiitake mushrooms have reached harvestable condition.

……

The next morning, many men and women from Qingshan Village and several nearby villages arrived at the entrance of the forest farm one after another.

Today is the day Yang Lin had arranged.

They came to pick mushrooms.

Yang Lin, Zhao Tie, and others, who were well-prepared, set up a table at the entrance of the forest farm in advance and distributed work badges to all the villagers who came to work in the forest farm.

To facilitate management and maintain order in the forest farm.

Yang Lin divided the workers into three groups.

A group of people went to the mushroom field to pick shiitake mushrooms. The wages were calculated by piecework. They could earn two cents for every pound of shiitake mushrooms they picked from the field and brought to the designated location.

Faced with a field of mushrooms, an average person could easily pick up a couple hundred pounds in an hour.

Many people came to pick mushrooms, including not only regular laborers but also some elderly people and a group of primary and secondary school students who had just returned home for the holidays.

Yang Lin accepted all offers of help.

Because he also understood that these elderly people and students on holiday were all doing their part to ease the burden on their families.

Picking mushrooms isn't hard work; it's just that those with good stamina can pick them faster, while those with less stamina can pick them slower.

The second group is the sorting group. The requirements for this group are stricter. Yang Lin only wants those who participated in yesterday's training and performed well during the training.

In addition to the basic daily wage of 200 yuan, Yang Lin would also give certain bonuses based on the quantity and accuracy of each person's sorting.

The third group is the transport group. Anyone with strong hands is responsible for packing and transporting the sorted mushrooms to the buyers' trucks.

Wages are also linked to the amount of work done.

By noon, the workers had sorted out nearly ten tons of shiitake mushrooms.

Among them, there are about three tons of premium-grade shiitake mushrooms, about six tons of first-grade shiitake mushrooms, and about one ton of second-grade shiitake mushrooms.

Just then, Yang Lin's phone rang. It was a buyer from the Shuimu Trading Market calling.

"Boss Yang, we've entered the village. Where are we?"

"You're at the forest farm. I'll come pick you up right away."

Yang Lin responded and immediately got on his motorcycle, taking the buyers to the entrance of the forest farm.

Upon the arrival of the buyers, the porters immediately weighed and loaded the goods onto the trucks.

After carefully inspecting several batches of shiitake mushrooms with their subordinates, the buyers were immediately astonished.

30% are premium grade mushrooms, 60% are grade 1 mushrooms, and 10% are grade 2 mushrooms.

With such an alarmingly low success rate, the technical management personnel at this forest farm must be experts.

I never expected that such a small mountain village could hire a technician of this caliber.

"Boss Lin, how did you grow these mushrooms? The quality is so high!" the buyer asked in surprise.

"It's just a normal crop; maybe the feng shui here is good," Yang Lin laughed.

He checked recently and found that if shiitake mushrooms are not sorted, the price of bulk shiitake mushrooms is basically calculated as second-grade mushrooms.

With the current shiitake mushroom cultivation technology in the world, the yield of premium shiitake mushrooms, under good management and timely harvesting conditions, can reach 30% to 50%.

Therefore, he controlled the yield of premium mushrooms to around 30%, which is not excessive.

Although the buyers were surprised, as long as he didn't admit to cheating, who would know?

Together with the people brought by the buyers, hundreds of workers performed their respective duties in the forest farm, forming an assembly line.

We took occasional breaks to eat and drink.

They worked until around 7 p.m. before finally finishing picking, sorting, and loading the mushrooms.

Although the quantity purchased by each vendor varied, the purchase price had been agreed upon in advance.

The entire acquisition process went very smoothly.

In the end, the workers harvested a total of 25 tons of shiitake mushrooms.

A little over 7.5 tons of premium-grade mushrooms sold for 12 yuan.

Approximately 15 tons of first-grade mushrooms sold for 14 yuan.

2.5 tons of second-grade mushrooms sold for 1.7 yuan.

Yang Lin sold nearly 28 yuan worth of the first batch of shiitake mushrooms alone.

For a moment, everyone was amazed.

As the buyers' convoys drove away, many people gazed in the direction of the mushroom field, their eyes filled with longing.

I wish I had a mushroom field under the forest.