COMPOST 1
A too high filling weight leads to different process in the various compost layers.
moisture than another. If a load of chicken manure is used immediately on arrival, this will irrevocably lead to large fluctuations in the nitrogen content of the compost. The best way of creating greater uniformity in multiple loads of chicken manure is to mix the different loads over a longer period of time – this does though require investments in storage capacity. Horse manure/straw
Well-incubated compost repels water.
Producing stable compost based on horse manure is more complex that based on 100% straw. The straw quality changes every year of course, but you do know roughly what to expect and de- pending on the straw quality, you can use a pre-wet system or adapt the fer- mentation programme accordingly. The recipe is also simpler. Horse manure is a different matter alto- gether. The quality differs per stable yard, per season and even weekly. Some- times it is little more that loosened dry
straw containing hardly any droppings, but there is also horse manure that does not require the addition of chicken ma- nure. Every lorry load is different. You can only create a homogenous raw mate- rial through selection (i.e.: rejec- tion),collecting horse manure with a very high frequency, mixing the batches in- tensively and if necessary adding straw. In summer, when the supply of horse manure dries up, bulking volumes up by adding straw is necessary. This is not problematic up to a straw compost per- centage of 10%, but the percentage can rise to 40%. In the latter case, good fa- cilities are needed to pre-treat the straw and mix it with the horse manure. Oth- erwise you are guaranteed lower produc- tion and quality on the mushroom farm. When large volumes of straw are added you often see that the recipe becomes unbalanced; the standard dose of chick- en manure and gypsum is no longer right. It’s best to calculate two separate recipes, one for the horse manure and one for the straw portion.
Another solution is to store horse ma- nure in spring and use this supply in summer.
Mixing
They say that composting all boils down to mixing, mixing and mixing again. Us- ing loaders simply shovels large piles of material around. Mixing is best done in mixing drums and performed at the be- ginning of the process. Each handful of compost should be identical. Only then will you have a homogenous process from scratch. If the mix is not good right from the start, it will have to be com- pensated for by extra mixing at a later stage. However by then part of the com- post will have undergone a different process so it will be impossible to correct retrospectively. There are companies that homogenise their raw materials so intensively at the offset that the materi- al does not need to be moved into an- other tunnel during fermentation, while others tht have to load and empty the tunnels again up to four times to achieve a reasonably homogenous end product.
Schedule
Each composting plant has its own fer- mentation schedule, based on raw ma- terials, experience and specific facilities. However, supplying stable, consistent
22 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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