MY FARM Gospodarstwo Rolne Halina Komar (PL)
In each edition of “Mushroom Business” we publish an interview with a grower. The emphasis here is on the farm and cultiva- tion methods. This edition offers a portrait of the farm run by the Komar family, close to Siedlce, Poland.
By John Peeters
The grower “We are a genuine family compa- ny, it was started by my parents. Quite a few of my relatives still work here, brothers and cousins, so we all share the same goals. The company was established in 1988, and has been expanded se- veral times in the last ten years. I am in charge of cultivation in one block of the farm, where there are 12 growing rooms of 630 square metres. We do a lot together as a company, and as a family, and lend each other a helping hand where we can. We have recently been gaining some experience
with variety F 599 from Italspawn, with satisfactory results. Our top growing room filled with this variety produced 21.95 kg/m2 in the 1st, and 13.76 kg in the 2nd flush. And those are figures we don’t always achieve. We also use other varieties - the Sylvan A15 and Euromycel 58. The dif- ferences are slight, the compost is in fact more important than the variety of spawn. The combi- nation of Lemany compost and Italspawn is performing really well at present. We don’t have any plans to expand at the moment. We have 21,000 square metres of beds to grow on, that’s enough for the whole family. You can only do one thing at a time; you have to get the work-life balance right. The bear in our office? That’s a hunting trophy shot by my father, a keen hunter, in Russia.”
Cultivation The Komar’s farm numbers a total of 37 growing rooms, with a gro- wing surface area of 21,000 m2, divided into a number of blocks. There is a block of eight growing rooms of 300 m2, 5 of 500 m2, 12 of 720 m2 and another 12 of 630 m2. An individual grower, who
uses his own methods, is basi- cally in charge of each block. The spawned compost filled into the rooms is supplied by Lemany and Mykogen, while the spawn used is F 599 from Italspawn, 58 from Euromycel and A15 from Sylvan. A six-week cropping schedule is used with three flushes, and the casing soil comes from Torfan and Eurorap. The filling weight is 85 kilo/m2. Filling and casing is done simultaneously using a ma- chine from Christiaens that also adds the compost at casing and prepares the beds. After the beds have been filled they are not ruf- fled again. After filling, around 20 litres of water is sprayed over four to five days, before cool down is started on day six. Cool down is done slightly differently in each block on the farm, depending on how big they want the mushrooms to grow and the climate instal- lation. The air temperature is generally reduced to 16 degrees Celsius in 96 hours, and the CO2 from 1400 to 1500 ppm. During cool down the RH is maintained at 96%. Harvesting the 1st flush starts on around the eighteenth day after filling, and is done over a period of five days. During the 1st flush the air temperature is kept at 16.5 degrees, with a CO2 value of around 1400 ppm and an RH of 89%. Three litres of water is sprayed per square metre on the day before the final picking day, and after the beds have been emptied another three litres is sprayed in three sessions. The 2nd flush is produced with an air temperature of 17.5 degrees, an RH of 86% and a CO2 value of around 1300 ppm. After the 2nd flush the beds are sprayed with a further three litres of water, and they wait for the 3rd flush to emerge. The mushrooms are never sprayed directly. Dimilin is occasionally applied to control sciarids, and the rooms are all well cooked out. The Komar fa- mily employs approximately 150 people, 110 of whom are respon- sible for picking. The average yield in three flushes is 32-33 kg/ m2. ◗
Father, mother and son Komar in front of the farm.
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