Also called: Mushroom Grower
Grows mushrooms—from button mushrooms to lion's mane—on farms and in indoor facilities.
Sterilizes sawdust blocks, inoculates them with fungus, tends humid grow rooms, and harvests by hand at dawn.
Estimate; owners' income varies widely.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 1 year after high school. No degree required; learned on the job or self-taught.
Ways in: On-the-job training, Self-taught. Training cost: Under $15k.
Majors to look at: Horticulture, Mycology (self-taught).
Growing about average (about 3% over 10 years). Estimate.
Low risk for 10 years. Climate controls help, but sterilizing, inoculating and hand-harvesting mushrooms stay manual farm work.
Age 16+. One way to start: Apply at a mushroom farm as a grower or harvester, or grow oyster mushrooms at home and sell at a farmers market
Classes: Biology, Agriculture CTE.
Official data: O*NET occupation 45-2092.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.