Got Shrooms? Abu Dhabi’s Below Farm needs little water and no arable land to grow six varieties of premium mushrooms, The National reports. The vertical agritech startup — founded by a Polish couple and British expat — grows 120 tons of varieties like pink oyster, shiitake and lion’s mane mushrooms annually, supplying Abu Dhabi’s supermarkets and online delivery companies.

Desert conditions, innovation solutions: Below Farm grows mushrooms on blocks made from a combination of waste wood, palm frond cuttings and grains which are then compressed, packed in bags and sterilized, before being fed with mycelium — a mushroom starter culture.

Stacking and tracking: The logs are stacked in an automated system that controls temperature and humidity until the mushrooms sprout. Incisions are made in the plastic bags, allowing the fungi to absorb oxygen and grow. The blocks are reused many times before being composted or used for fuel or fertilizer, and a data monitoring system uses algorithms to optimize the specific growth conditions for each variety of mushrooms cultivated.