MY FARM Bressingham Mushrooms Ltd (UK)
In each edition of “Mushroom Business” we publish an interview with a grower. The emp- hasis here is on the farm and cultivation me- thods. In this edition, a portrait of Bressingham Mushrooms, close to Diss, in Norfolk, England. This farm, which is owned by Robert Aldous, grows its mushrooms in wooden trays.
By John Peeters
The grower “The oldest part of the farm dates from the early1980s, and was built at the time by Peter Mann, my wife’s grandfather. There are 11 sheds on that part of farm which can each hold 100 m2 in trays. It used to go by the name of Thwaite Green Farm. I currently rent that part of the farm - our current picking sheds. On the other side there are four, newer sheds, which we used for mycelium growth and pinheading, opposite the tray line and our phase II tunnel. My wife and I started setting up and developing this part in 2007. We are members of the Waveney Mushrooms cooperative, a marke- ting and growers’ association here in East Anglia. I studied at agri- cultural college, and then started
working for the local John Deere agent. My wife brought this chal- lenge to my attention, but no one told me that you have to be a bit crazy to grow mushrooms…! But seriously, it’s all doing really well, we’re happy at Waveney and we plan to let our company expand slowly. We have to aim for one full load of phase I compost a week to enable continuous production of our chestnut mushrooms. The market is ready in England.”
Method Bressingham Mushrooms has a pasteurisation tunnel, a corridor containing the tray line and which all four sheds open onto, and 11 picking sheds. Bressingham Mushrooms is a so-called multi- zone tray farm. This means that the different stages of cultivation take place in various places and the trays are moved to other parts of the farm depending on the current stage. The pasteurisation tunnel is filled with 60 tons of phase 1 compost every second week. This compost is subsequently pasteu- rised. This process takes five to six days, with a normal temperature development of 58 degrees Cel- sius for pasteurisation and 48 de- grees for conditioning. The tunnel is equipped with modern Fancom
climate control. The fan has been installed in a separate area next to the tunnel, which has been built in the shape of a shed. Once pasteurisation has been completed, the automatic filling line fills the trays with compost. Of the original 60 tons, around 36 tons of compost is left. This is used to fill approximately 200 wooden trays, giving 325 m2 of growing surface area. The compost is inoculated with Amycel Heirloom using 7.5 litres per ton of phase I. The tray handling machinery comes from Traymaster. After spawning, the 200 trays are placed in a separate area where they stay 16 days to allow the compost to incubate. When 16 days have passed, the trays are placed on the tray line again and cased with casing soil supplied by Harte Peat from Ireland, mixed with Amycel Fusion - a form of cac spawn or CI (Casing Inoculum). No compost is used for casing. The casing soil is compacted lightly on the line. The trays are then moved to the gro- wing shed where the casing soil is colonised and pinheading can start. During this stage spraying is started two days after casing. Around 12 litres of water per m2 is sprayed in three days. Cool down takes place on day seven or eight, when the temperature is reduced from 22 to 17 degrees in four days, the CO2 drops to 1200-1300 ppm and the RH is 92-93%. After 13 days the trays are moved to the picking sheds. Three or four sheds are needed to house the 325 m2 of growing surface. The 1st flush starts on Sundays, and is usually sprayed with two litres of water. Around another 5 litres are given after the flush. When the 2nd flush has been picked, up to 3 l/m2 is sprayed onto the trays again. If necessary, Sporgon is used to control bubble. Eleven pickers are employed at Bressingham, and one fulltime employee in the packaging department. Ian Panter, from Humax casing soil, assists Robert in getting all the details right. The farm currently produces 6000 kg of chestnut mushrooms on average each week. ◗
Robert Aldous: ‘The market is ready for expansion’.
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