Woolley Farm Mushrooms

Supplier to PFC since 2000

 Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin

16 miles from PFC La Crosse

Adam Woolley decided at 15 or 16 years of age that he would be a mushroom grower. He says he was “born a farmer without a farm. I loved to grow things but realized that 500 acres and all the equipment to work it wasn’t feasible. So I focused my attention on indoor, climate-controlled farming: mushrooms.”

Adam bought his small farm and started setting up his mushroom operation in 1999. Woolley Farm has supplied People’s Food Co-op—La Crosse with mushrooms off and on since 2000. The farm specializes in oyster mushrooms. Although Adam follows organic principles in production, the farm is not certified organic.  

One big difference in mushroom farming versus other types of farming is that it takes place in a controlled climate environment, hence year-round cultivation is possible. Heat, cooling, humidity, and oxygen levels are all regulated.

 While you don’t have to worry about Mother Nature sending a drought when you need rain, Adam notes that equipment breakdowns and power failures are a challenge to the indoor grower, just as they are to an “outdoor” farm “Farming is a challenge either way,” he says.

 In 2018, Adam took on a partner, Scott Reosler. They converted Reosler’s organic laying hen operation into Woolley Farm’s current mushroom production facility.  Adam also has a spawn production laboratory at his property. “The lab is what makes us unique,” he says. “Most growers buy their spawn. I make ours, giving us control over the entire growing process.”

 In mushroom agriculture, the farmer places Mycelium, or actively growing mushroom culture, on a substrate—usually sterilized grains such as rye or millet. The mycelium is induced to grow into those grains. After a couple of weeks of incubation, the grain is fully colonized. That grain is then pasteurized. These inoculated grains are referred to as spawn and placed in a growing medium to produce mushrooms. Woolley Farm uses straw as the growing medium for their mushrooms.

 Woolley Farms employs six part-timers in addition to Adam. They grow things other than fungi, but Adam has only been a commercial mushroom farmer thus far, although he expects to start supplying the co-op with hot peppers this coming summer. Look for Woolley Farm’s oyster mushrooms this spring at PFC in La Crosse.

 “Mushrooms are the ultimate recycler of the planet,” Adam says.