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MY FARM Henk van Roij Champignons (NL)


In each edition of “Mushroom Business” we publish an interview with a grower. The emphasis here is on the farm and cultivation methods. In this edition, a portrait of the farm run by Henk van Roij in Weert, in the Netherlands.


By John Peeters


The grower “Mushroom growing was more forgiving in the past, errors didn’t always have such grave conse- quences. Now we can’t afford to slip up at all. If there were fewer mistakes made in the entire chain, I’m convinced the entire cultiva- tion process would benefit. That applies to me as a grower, but equally to my suppliers. Take the quality of horse manure, for instan- ce. It can hardly be called stable, and that’s putting it mildly. Most people see it as a waste product, but for us it’s the most important raw material. Why can’t the sector establish some other parameters for its quality? I also work with ChampFood. They use my farm to test certain products.” Jac Nijssen, who is responsible for these tests, explains: “In around 1994 we were looking for a farm of this size to test certain blends. What we main- ly do here is run trials with various


formulas of supplement. We use a new blend in half of a growing room so the differences are clearly visible. We look at aspects like the picking performance, yields and quality. This partnership works ideally for ChampFood.” Van Roij now also uses the 901 variety from Lambert Spawn. “I think that the 901 can cope more easily with the short, soft compost that is being supplied now. Production is not higher than with A15, but the qua- lity is slightly better on this type of compost. For that matter, there are many different things that influ- ence growing - for example com- post that is too warm when it is delivered. And that takes us back to my opening remark. There is no more margin for error, but there are still too many blunders made. I used to be able to set my filling machine as standard between 32 and 34 centimetres for a good filling weight. But now I have to work with variations between 25 and 35 centimetres. I am positive that improvements can be made here. I also have another company, TMF Jobs, which trains personnel and mediates for other farms and composting companies.”


Method Henk van Roij’s farm, which is situated just outside the town of


Weert, has 12 growing rooms, each of 300 square metres. He grows according to a 6 week cycle with 3 flushes. The compost is supplied by CNC, and has been spawned with Sylvan A15. Every 14 days, a growing room is also filled with 901 from Lambert Spawn. Casing is always done with casing soil from Euroveen of the carbo 9 quality. The supple- ment added by van Roij is always ChampFood, but as the farm is used as a trial facility, a new test is run on average once every three weeks for ChampFood. The supplement is added on the sup- ply belt to the filling machine. All filling is done by Wieman, and takes place on Tuesdays. After filling, watering is done. The amount given depends on the condition of the compost and casing soil, but recently it has been between 20 and 25 litres. As two growing rooms are filled each Tuesday, the grower tries to take a different approach to each by using a different amount of cac-ing and an adapted tempe- rature during mycelium growth. Both growing rooms are ruffled on Mondays, the differences oc- cur due to the different speeds of recovery. The air inlet is often opened slightly in the first gro- wing room on Monday evenings, before the full cool down pro- gram starts on Tuesdays. Cool down is started in the second growing room on Wednesday mornings, after the air inlet has been opened a little on Tuesday evening. Pinheading is started during cool down when in about three days the air temperature is lowered by half a degree per day from 21 to 19.5 degrees Celsius. The compost temperature is gra- dually reduced, as is the RH and CO2. No water is sprayed on the mushrooms. The first two flushes produce an average of 29 kilos, the third flush varies, also depen- ding on whether a third flush is harvested or not. The mushrooms are marketed via Banken/Hooza, whereby 65% are picked and put into 250 gram punnets. ◗


Henk van Roij and his wife Ellie: “Ellie spends more time on the farm than I do, because of my work with TMF Jobs.”


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