26
THE NETHERLANDS
Open days at Van Asseldonk Champignons
On 30 and 31 May, the doors of the van Asseldonk mushroom farm opened for the people of Boekel (NL), and business contacts from the mushroom sector, for a look behind the scenes and a chance to admire the advanced machinery used on this mechanical harvesting farm.
By Jos Hilkens AdVisie “de champignonteeltadviseurs”, Herkenbosch
hilkens@champignonadvies.nl
The perfectly organised event attracted around 1500 visitors. Parts of the company on show included the thermal energy storage system and the water purifi- cation installation and the machines used to fill and empty the growing rooms. Via a growing room where the 2nd flush develops, visitors could walk through a growing room of around 70 metres in length to the corridor inside the farm. For those unfamiliar with the sector, an impressive experience! In the corridor and a number of growing rooms, information about the various stages of cultivation, harvesting and re- moving the stalks was available. The tour ended with a look at the grading, cutting, filling and stacking line.
The farm The farm is located in the province of Brabant, in the small town of Boekel. The old farm lies behind the family home, and beyond that is the current farm which numbers 20 growing rooms of 1,535 m2. The total growing surface area is 30,700 m2. All the growing rooms have been solidly constructed from autoclaved aerated concrete blocks, and each room contains two rows of shelving with seven tiers of beds. The beds are the standard width for mechani- cal harvest, namely 1.6 metres. Cooling and heating is provided by a thermal energy system that uses two heat sources and two cold sources. The total pump capacity is 180 m3/hour. This installation is linked to a heat pump which cools in the summer months and provides heat in winter. The oldest part of the current farm dates to 1995 with the last expansion completed in 2009. The farm has grown to its present size in four
stages of expansion over that fourteen-year period.
The venue for the festivities.
The family Peter van Asseldonk’s father started the business back in 1961 on this site with just two growing rooms of 140 m2 equipped with two rows of wooden shelving in each room, four tiers high. In ten years time he expanded the farm to 12 growing rooms offering approximately 1500 m2 of growing area. “My farm then was the same size as just one of the growing rooms in our current set-up. And size isn’t the only difference, the cropping cycle – back then 18 weeks, now five weeks- and production – then eight to ten kg/m2, now 35 kg/m2 – are incredibly different. We used to have to make our own compost and take everything into the growing room by hand. Casing the beds with casing soil carried in buckets was really hard work”, reminisces Mr van Asseldonk senior. He was a well-known figure in the sector as a former board member of CNC, the experimental sta- tion and the mushroom training school. The farm was taken over by his son Peter in 1988. At 83, father, and grandfather van Asseldonk wouldn’t mind still being in the mushroom business. “But today, you really have to keep your wits about you”, he concludes. Van Asseldonk is a genuine family-run company, owned by Peter and Dianne van Asseldonk and run since a few years with the support of their daugh- ter Michelle and son Hannes. Peter is in charge of the general management and cultivation. His wife Dianne mainly occupies herself with the adminis- trative tasks. Daughter Michelle (25) is responsible for harvesting, the staff and contact with customers. “Our goal is a satisfied customer who is supplied with the right amount, in the right grades and quality at the agreed time. You can’t achieve much on your own, so we rely on the support of a motivated team of employees.” Hannes van Asseldonk (22) is the company’s technical man, and if his father is away, in charge of cultivation.” In the not too distant future, he would like to work towards further expansion. As well as enthusiastic reactions during the open days, he was also bombarded with all sorts of questions such as ‘How many kilos do you harvest?’ but also: ‘Are there
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