THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040434
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
If this city gets a racetrack franchise, it will be stuck with a problem. Forty-five pounds of problem a day for every 1,000 pounds of horse, to be exact.
But the city that turned its municipal waste into a nationally renowned park shouldn't have any problem dumping dung, right?
Right.
Louis E. Cullipher, director of the city's Agriculture Department, has a simple solution: mushrooms.
Horse dung and other stable waste are key ingredients of the soupy stew used as mushroom fertilizer, according to Laura Phelps, president of the American Mushroom Institute. Mushroom growers, who consider themselves ``the great recyclers,'' mix the droppings with chicken litter, cottonseed hulls and gypsum, among other ingredients, Phelps said.
An announcement on who will get the state's only racetrack is expected next week. If Virginia Beach is the winner, horses will be racing at Princess Anne Downs a minimum of 150 days a year. Add a few more at the beginning and the end of the season to allow for training; remember that the stables will hold up to 1,520 horses; realize that the average thoroughbred weighs between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds, and you'll get an idea of the ``opportunity'' facing the city, Cullipher says.
``We need to utilize it as a resource,'' Cullipher said. ``That's a lot of stuff we can work with.''
Mushrooms are the fourth most lucrative vegetable crop in the country, according to Phelps. The 755,000 pounds of white button mushrooms grown last year were valued at $692 million, or about 92 cents per pound.
Phelps said she had never heard of inaugurating a mushroom industry because of an oversupply of waste - it's kind of like putting the cart before the horse - but said she would welcome ``responsible'' farmers into her industry.
She warned that growing mushrooms is ``very, very, very, very, very technical.''
The fertilizer must be just right to survive repeated crops of fungi, she said.
Cullipher said Phelps is just trying to scare off competition. He has faith in Virginia Beach farmers.
``If there's money in it, we can grow it,'' he said.
If that fails, Cullipher suggests renaming the stuff something fancy, slapping on a high price tag and marketing it as high-grade fertilizer. Pungo Pony Pies has a nice ring to it. ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration by ADRIANNA LIBREOS
by CNB