PREPUBLICATION ‘MUSHROOM SIGNALS’
you approach the moment of harvest, the more accurately you can make an estimate. Making a good estimate can only be learnt from experi- ence. Add to your experience by comparing the actual yield produced with your estimated yield after each day of harvesting. Just like predicting the weather sometimes you will be spot on, but even experienced growers can sometimes be caught out! Even so, these estimates are important for mushroom sales and how you deploy your workforce.
First fl ush
About three days before harvesting you can convert your prediction into a firm production plan. What should you look out for?
• The uniformity of emergence:
Plenty of mushrooms simultaneously, more small mushrooms in a few days. Various sizes of mushrooms create more giants and more harvesting days.
The harvesting of mushrooms is of many business dependent, but is only successful in a high quality with very good communication.
Mushroom Signals
A new, practical guide to mushroom growing, written by consultant Mark den Ouden and published by Roodbont Publis- hers, is planned for publication shortly, and will be presented at the upcoming ISMS conference in Amsterdam.
‘Mushroom Signals, a practical guide to optimal mushroom growing’, is a hard- cover, full colour volume of 144 pages in English, with various illustrations and photographs on each page to accompany and explain the text.
This article on harvest management is an exclusive prepublication of chapter 10 in the book, based on the concept draft text. The text in the book may differ slightly, and the final layout will differ and
contain more pictures and a productionplanning table that could not be placed in this article.
The book is planned for release on 1 June 2016, just before the Dutch Mushroom Days, where it will be on sale for 64.90 euro (incl. 6% VAT).
For information and to pre-order:
mark.den.ouden@
mushroomoffice.com
• Compost temperature: If the temperature is higher than normal, mushrooms will grow faster and form smaller mushrooms on fewer harvesting days. If the temperature is lower than normal, growth will be slowed, mushrooms can stay on the beds longer and there will be more harvesting days. When the outside temperature is much higher than normal you notice that everything grows faster. So more mushrooms ready for picking on the same day, and fewer days to harvest them in.
• Compost quality:
‘Good’ compost gives more than ‘poor’ compost: more mushrooms and more days to harvest on.
Second fl ush
The same points apply in the second flush, but now you have the benefit of experience gained in the first flush. If the first flush showed a normal production pattern, so will the second flush. But if you noticed a lot of mushrooms in two days during the first flush, the second flush will perform in almost the same way, producing nearly everything at once.
Third fl ush
The third flush is always erratic: it nearly always produces smaller mushrooms and they mature sooner. It is more awkward to predict accurately, but as far fewer mushrooms have to be harvested, these differences are not really noticeable in the total picture.
34 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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