CULTIVATIONTIPS DLV Gloves and infection
On practically every farm, pickers wear gloves when harvesting; often to comply with the regulations of inspection bodies or as part of the protocol to prevent infection. Wearing gloves also protects pickers’ hands from soiling. Picking with bare hands for a lengthy period results is such ingrained dirt that aggressive substances, such as chlorine solutions, are often necessary to remove it. Make sure the gloves are good quality, tight-fi tting latex gloves, and not loose plastic ones!
If there are no infections present, wearing the same gloves the whole day is not a problem. Make sure the pickers always remove their gloves at the picking rack or platform, turn them inside out and leave them to dry. Dusting the hands with talcum powder can ensure they are properly dry again after a break.
By Erik Polman, DLV Plant Mushrooms
e.polman@dlvplant.nl
However, if there are infections on the farm, it is advisable to remove the gloves in the room, turn them inside out and dispose of them immediately. This prevents bringing infections into the work corridor. This means there must be enough empty containers in the growing room, and that trays or bags used to collect stumps can be emptied or replaced in the room too. This will ensure the door to the corridor doesn’t have to be opened with possibly infected gloves. If a bubble infection or cobweb mould is accidentally touched, remove and turn the gloves inside out at once, then dispose of them. Put new gloves on before starting to work again. The situation with infection shown on the photo should be avoided at all costs!
The perils of winter
By Jan Gielen, DLV Plant Mushrooms Specialist climate & energy
j.gielen@
dlvplant.nl
Photos: DLV
Winter signals the time for more problems with drying and dehydrated casing soil, and sustaining activity levels is often harder. Problems like pinheads forming deeper in the casing and scaling occur, and mushrooms are generally more sensitive to higher fan positions. The main cause is inlet air that is too dry. In winter the moisture content of outside air is very low. As more heating is required too, the RH of the inlet air will decrease and too much dry air will be blown into the growing room. Consequently, there will be too much evaporation. Reducing the fan position can go some way to compensating for this eff ect. Maintaining the right RH level is of course very important. It is important to bear in mind where and how humidifi cation takes place. If this is done in the room, the RH here may be at the correct level, but the inlet air will still be too dry when it is blown into the room. To make amends you should concentrate on correctly humidifying the inlet air. However, many humidifying installations are incapable of maintaining the right RH for the inlet air. Also realise that humidifying cold air is more diffi cult than humidifying warm air and that humidity added via steam is absorbed more easily than humidity added via water. The great- est eff ect can be achieved if a higher CO2 setting is used in winter, so the air inlet doesn’t open as widely. Try to keep a suffi ciently high fan position. This combination of measures will give you warmer and moister mixing air to start with. Do not limit the heating either, and preferably use steam to add moisture to the inlet air. Use the temperature of the mixed air as an indicator. The higher you can get this , the easier it will be – combined with (steam) humidifi cation – to maintain the moisture content of inlet air at the right level to help avoid the casing drying out. If the installation has a pre-heating and humidity function, it’s best to set the pre-heating high enough, so the air can absorb the humidity more eff ectively.
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