China’s Mushroom Obsession Goes From an Apple to Outer Space

A mushroom growing unexpectedly from a forgotten apple might normally end up in the compost. In China, it ended up being crossed with a fungus that had traveled into space and developed into a potential new food variety.

The unlikely story began in Zhejiang Province when Deng Lixing discovered a small white mushroom growing from a rotting apple on her windowsill. She posted a photograph online, where the curiosity went viral and acquired the suitably grand nickname “Apple Fungus King.” 

More importantly, it caught the attention of scientists at the Kunming Institute of Botany, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Deng sent the apple more than 2,000 kilometres to Kunming, where researchers identified the fungus as Schizophyllum commune, or splitgill mushroom, an edible species more commonly associated with decaying wood.

And this is where an odd food story became distinctly Chinese in scale and ambition.

According to CGTN News researchers isolated the strain and crossed it with another strain of the same fungus that had traveled aboard China’s Shenzhou-12 spacecraft. Eight generations of cultivation later, scientists report a new mushroom with a crisp texture, richer flavour, lower spore production and a cultivation cycle of only 15–20 days. The former windowsill oddity has already made it into a wok.

China is by a considerable margin the world’s dominant mushroom economy. Official Chinese figures put annual edible mushroom production at more than 40 million tonnes, with an industry worth more than RMB380 billion (US$53 billion). China is also described as both the world’s largest producer and consumer of edible mushrooms.

And sending fungi into orbit isn’t a one-off stunt.

A strain of tremella mushroom from Fujian Province travelled aboard Shenzhou-16 in 2023. Following space-induced mutation and almost two years of selection, researchers developed HT108, reportedly producing more than 12% higher yields alongside increased flavones, polyphenols and polysaccharides. Gutian County, known as China’s “capital of edible fungi”, has even established a dedicated edible-fungus space-breeding laboratory.

So perhaps the Apple Fungus King isn’t quite as strange as it first appears.

China increasingly treats mushrooms as more than something to fry for dinner. They sit at an unusual intersection of food security, rural development, nutrition, biotechnology and advanced breeding.

When an interesting fungus appeared on somebody’s windowsill, Chinese researchers didn’t throw it away.

They crossed it with a space traveler.

And then they ate it.

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