Every breakthrough in mushroom cultivation begins with a simple question: how can we do this better? For years, growers around the world have faced the same relentless challenges, labour shortages, ergonomic strain, rising production demands and the constant pressure to maintain quality with fewer hands in the growing rooms.

Every major advancement in mushroom production begins with a familiar question: How can growers produce more, at higher quality, with less dependency on scarce labour?

Around the world, farms are facing rising labour costs, declining availability of experienced pickers, and intensifying pressure to improve yields and consistency.
These realities have accelerated the need for practical, scalable automation.

Modern infrastructure such as the Christiaens drawer system offers a strong foundation, like Henry Ford did for automobile manufacturing more than 100 years ago – assembly lines bring the product to the workers rather than moving the workers to the product.

The critical breakthrough comes from pairing that design with a robotic harvesting platform capable of real, measurable performance in commercial conditions.

That is where Mycionics, a trailblazer in mushroom robotics, has stepped forward to set a new standard.
 

It started with a shared challenge

Christiaens and Mycionics began from the same place as suppliers: working inside commercial farms, studying picker behavior, understanding crop variability, and listening to producers' daily frustrations, labor.

The original drawer-based harvesting concept was designed to simplify access to the crop, but real value would only emerge if automation and robotics delivered consistent performance, solved labour shortages, and protected product quality.

For Mycionics the question was clear: Could robotics not only match human pickers, but outperform traditional workflows, while improving yield, reducing waste, and making harvesting more predictable?
 

Real-world pilots and proof

To ensure robotics would succeed in challenging farm environments, Mycionics launched intensive field-testing in 2024 at South Mill Champs’ Apex 2 facility in British Columbia, where operators quickly integrated the technology into daily workflows, even nicknaming the robotic pincers “Jessica.”

During these pilots, the robots:

• Worked side-by-side with humans through humidity swings and rapid growth cycles.
• Harvested around the clock, averaging the same performance as a human harvester.
• Proved to be intuitive to operate, maintain, and clean all within food-safe and harsh environments.

This phase proved a critical point: The market needs both automation and intelligence to move forward, and Mycionics technology is ready to deliver.

Digitizing the crop, transforming the workflow

From the earliest prototypes, Mycionics focused on one principle: automation must be crop aware.

Using advanced vision systems and AI, scanning each drawer bed digitizes with up to 99% detection accuracy. The system maps each mushroom’s size, location, growth rate, and environmental signals. This enables graze harvesting, reduced waste, better watering, predictable quality, and data-driven decision making. When using manual pickers – Crop scout turns them into robots, making all the decisions for them.

Added intelligence layer

Through Crop Scout, each mushroom receives a “digital identity”, capturing its growth rate, density, microclimate, and much more. Growers gain a live crop overview, even remotely, via mobile devices.

What started as a harvesting tool is now a connected farm ecosystem.

Collaborative robotics

Recognizing that many farms aren’t prepared for, and aren’t likely to achieve full autonomy – especially in peak flush, Mycionics supports:

1. Fully autonomous harvesting and packing

2. Co-bot workflows where humans augment robotics for tasks like thinning

In traditional Dutch-shelf farm environments, Mycionics also provides solutions, including automated packing systems that reduce labour by 50% with minimal infrastructure investment.

From prototype to proven performance

Early deployment at commercial farms shows:

• Pick rate: 30 per minute during pilot, up to 80–90 ppm with 4-arm robot
• Mass harvested: ±12,000 lbs. per cycle (up from 3,550 lbs.)
• Labour replacement rate: 75% (up from 33% at first pilot) where staff support thinning

In mixed workflows, the robot can provide over two-thirds of total picking and mass rates, while optimizing where to pick and when making sure the right mushrooms are picked at the right time for maximum weight – eliminating thousands of manual picker decisions. 

Designing a system for full-scale automation

The Christiaens drawer platform provides a stable, ergonomic foundation, while Mycionics adds:

• Modular Picking & packing robotics
• Integrated scanner + pointer
• Real-time crop intelligence with autopilot, reporting & harvest optimization
  
  

Deployment today in North America and Europe

The Mycionics modular platform is now a fully operational, commercial solution already deployed across North America and Europe, including Canada, the Netherlands demonstrating paybacks of less than 3 years.

A decade of research investment and development is now delivering measurable change in real farm environments.

The result: a new standard

Mycionics delivers:

• Up to 75% true labour reduction
• 6–12% yield improvement
• Full crop digitization with reporting and analytics
• Predictable scheduling and autopilot harvesting
• Improved work conditions
  
  

A solution with purpose

The drawer system didn’t start as a machine. It started as a challenge, one familiar to every grower. Through collaboration, field experience, and a shared drive for smarter farming, Christiaens Group and Mycionics turned a concept into a reliable, field-ready harvesting solution. 

Because innovation isn’t only about technology. It’s about transforming the way farms work. And sometimes, the biggest leap forward begins with going back to first principles and rethinking the way we grow and pick mushrooms from the start.

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We often think of mushrooms as the visible fruit of a hidden world. A delicacy, a medicine, or simply a curiosity popping up after the rain. But beneath every mushroom lies an unseen network that is nothing less than the foundation of life on Earth. Remove the mushroom and nature, as we know it, begins to fall apart.

The hidden network beneath our feet

Every forest, meadow, and even your backyard soil hides a dense web of fungal threads called mycelium. This living network connects plants, trees, and microorganisms in an intricate underground communication system. It transports water, nutrients, and information, a kind of “wood wide web” that sustains entire ecosystems.

Without fungi, plants would struggle to grow. In fact, more than 90% of all plant species depend on a partnership with fungi known as mycorrhiza. These fungi attach to plant roots, exchanging minerals and moisture for sugars and carbon. It’s a perfect example of nature’s collaboration and without it, most forests would collapse.

The great recyclers

Fungi are the world’s ultimate recyclers. They decompose dead trees, fallen leaves, and animal remains, breaking down complex materials into nutrients that can be reused by other organisms. Without this process, forests would be buried under layers of organic waste, and the soil would become sterile.

In essence, fungi close the circle of life. When we remove them through soil degradation, chemical overuse, or deforestation, we break that natural recycling system. Nutrients stop flowing, and biodiversity declines.

An unsung climate ally

Fungi don’t just support plants — they also store massive amounts of carbon underground. Mycorrhizal fungi capture carbon from plant roots and lock it into the soil for decades or even centuries. Destroying fungal networks not only weakens plant life but also releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change.

The mushroom’s message

Mushrooms are the tip of a vast, intelligent system that has quietly sustained life for over a billion years. They are nature’s architects, caretakers and messengers, indicators of ecosystem health. When mushrooms disappear, it’s not just a culinary loss; it’s a warning sign that our environment is out of balance.

Protecting fungi means protecting life itself. Healthy soil, resilient forests, clean air, and even the food we eat all depend on the unseen world beneath our feet. So next time you see a mushroom in the wild, take a closer look. It’s not just a fungus, it’s a lifeline.

How do you see the role of fungi in the future of a healthier planet? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so drop us a line below!

The mushroom industry has always been an example of how biology and ingenuity can coexist. What started centuries ago as a craft based on observation, experience, and intuition is now rapidly evolving into a field where data and digital technology drive every decision. The next generation of mushroom farms is taking shape, intelligent, connected, and remarkably sustainable.

Automation becomes accessible

Until recently, automation was something only large farms could afford. Complex climate control systems, robotic picking solutions, and data-driven monitoring platforms were impressive but often out of reach for smaller growers. That landscape is now changing. As technology becomes more affordable and modular, small and mid-sized farms can adopt automation step by step, from simple environmental sensors to cloud-based farm management systems.

These tools help growers maintain stable growing conditions, reduce labor costs, and minimize waste. More importantly, they allow farmers to focus on the art of cultivation, rather than on manual data collection or repetitive control adjustments.

Smarter growing through data

Every mushroom tells a story of temperature, humidity, substrate composition, and microbial balance. By collecting and interpreting this data, growers can now understand their crops better than ever before. Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering the scene, helping to predict yields, identify anomalies early, and even recommend optimal growing cycles.

Imagine a system that learns the behavior of your farm, adjusting CO₂ levels, light exposure, or irrigation based on previous flushes while alerting you to subtle changes that might affect productivity. That’s not science fiction anymore; it’s the emerging reality of smart mushroom cultivation.

The rise of AI-assisted strain development

While climate control and automation enhance the growing environment, artificial intelligence could soon reshape what we grow. AI-assisted strain selection combines genomic data, performance tracking, and environmental inputs to identify which varieties thrive under specific conditions. This opens the door to developing new strains faster, with higher yields, better shelf life, or specific nutritional or medicinal properties.

For mushroom breeders and spawn producers, this digital layer adds precision to what has long been an art form, bridging traditional mycology with computational biology.

Transparency and traceability through blockchain

Consumers today want to know where their food comes from and mushrooms are no exception. Blockchain technology can bring new levels of transparency to the supply chain. From substrate sourcing to post-harvest logistics, each step could be securely logged, offering proof of sustainability, origin, and quality.

For growers, it’s also a way to build trust with buyers and regulatory bodies, simplifying certification and export documentation. In a world where sustainability is not just a value but a requirement, such traceability systems will likely become standard practice.

Sustainability: the core of innovation

At the heart of all this progress is a shared commitment to sustainability. Automation and digitalization are not replacing the grower, they’re empowering them to produce more efficiently, use fewer resources, and reduce waste. From optimizing substrate recipes to recycling heat and water within facilities, smart systems are helping farms close the loop.

The mushroom sector has always been a pioneer in circular agriculture. Now, by integrating technology, it is showing that environmental responsibility and innovation can grow side by side.

A future rooted in tradition and technology

The message is clear: the future of mushroom farming is intelligent, data-driven, and sustainable. Yet the essence of the craft remains unchanged, understanding living organisms and creating the conditions for them to thrive. By combining centuries-old cultivation wisdom with 21st-century technology, the mushroom industry continues to prove that innovation grows best on a fertile foundation.

Published by Mushroom Matter: connecting the global mushroom community through insight, innovation, and inspiration

To expand production capacity, Gerber Champignons AG in Seftigen (Switzerland) needed a new head-filling machine, but the filling hall was exceptionally narrow.
Having already worked with several GTL Europe machines, Gerber once again turned to GTL for a tailor-made solution. The result: a custom-built head-filling machine designed to fit perfectly within the limited space and integrate seamlessly with existing hoppers and the winch system.

Installed and tested in just 48 hours, the machine delivers the same efficiency and reliability as larger systems.

The GTL difference for smaller projects
Gerber Champignons AG demonstrates that GTL’s expertise and service level are not reserved for large turnkey projects. Even for standalone machines and specific needs, clients benefit from the same precision, flexibility, and commitment to performance.

Read the full project story here.

Researchers across Europe are developing new building materials made from mycelium—the root-like network of fungi—that grow on agricultural waste.
These materials, part of the EU-funded Fungateria initiative, aim to create construction elements that are sustainable, adaptable and self-repairing.

Some key points:

• The team uses the fungus Schizophyllum commune grown on waste feedstocks to produce lightweight composites with properties similar to wood or foam.

• These “living materials” can respond to their environment: for example, walls that close cracks themselves, or panels that absorb CO₂ and clean the air.

• The materials are designed so growth can be safely controlled — for instance by using light or engineered bacteria to stop fungal growth when required.

• The environmental potential is significant: using fungal composites could reduce waste and CO₂ emissions compared to traditional building materials

Read the full article here.

Preparations are in full swing for the next edition of the Dutch Mushroom Days, taking place from 22–24 April 2026 at the Brabanthallen in ’s-Hertogenbosch (the Netherlands).

Following the successful 2023 edition, the upcoming event promises once again to be a key global meeting point for the mushroom industry, bringing together participants and visitors from all continents. The programme includes a vibrant exhibition, networking opportunities, and the festive Network Party with the presentation of the Ambassador of the Mushroom Industry Awards.

Companies interested in exhibiting can still register until 15 November 2025.
More information about the organizers and registration you can find here.

Running a modern mushroom farm isn’t just about yields—it’s about cleanliness.
Learn how regular, proper cleaning of harvest lorries protects food safety, prevents disease, and keeps you compliant.
Our latest video walks you through an easy routine you can adopt today.

Read the article & watch the video here.