In Jixiangsi village, Suizhou, Hubei province, the mushroom greenhouses sit quietly during the off-season, yet they are often disrupted by the ringing of Huang Tianji's mobile phone. These are messages from farmers coming to seek advice.

Huang Tianji examines the mushroom logs in the mushroom shed. [Photo/news.hzau.edu.cn]

In 2008, while pursuing his master's degree at Huazhong Agricultural University, Huang made his first visit to Suizhou. While there, he was struck by the marvelous patterns on the mushroom sticks and the thriving mushroom industry, so he decided to safeguard this fertile ground for the mushroom industry.

Upon his return to Suizhou in 2014, when he came to overcome the challenge of managing a sizable yet unbranded industry with outdated technology, Huang promptly assembled a research and development team. He established facility-based cultivation rooms, standardized testing laboratories, and modernized mushroom seed and spawn production lines, while also forging partnerships with universities and research institutions. Through their diligent efforts, a series of high-quality mushroom varieties with independent intellectual property rights emerged.

In 2020, he crafted a prototype "smart mushroom house" integrating the Internet of Things, AI control, and data cloud platforms, enabling remote control of mushroom greenhouse environments via smartphones. This led to a 40 percent reduction in labor intensity and a 30 percent increase in the output of premium flower mushrooms.

Moreover, he openly shared core technologies and conducted over 110 practical technology training sessions, benefiting more than 6,000 mushroom farmers.