Filling at Leckford with Christiaens machinery.
The Leckford Mushroom
Farm was one of the first Dutch Style shelf
farms to be built in the United Kingdom.
large and 8 small. This then also conveniently also matched the 6 weekly cycle of future phase III compost that was becoming available so that it was then possible to fill 1260m2 weekly. The SMC is both sold off the Estate from their garden centre/farm shop at Longstock, and also applied to various arable crops being grown on the thin chalky soils in this part of Hampshire. The farm is currently producing around 28 tonnes of mushrooms weekly and these are sold in various grades of cup sizes, plus Portabellini and Portabella. The compost at the moment is coming from Sterckx Belgium being filled at 85 kgs/m2, and the casing soil is coming from TopTerra Holland.
Tunnel Tech South
After inspecting the mushroom farm the group went across the road to see the new develop- ments underway at Tunnel Tech South where the General Manager Tim Harker showed the group around the site. The company is enlarging and improving its facility at the moment with both a newly positioned phase I yard, complete with new goody water tanks and a bale dunking facility, soon to be built new phase I bunkers, and then extending the numbers of phase II/III tunnels, bringing the production up to just short of 900 tonnes of phase III compost weekly by later this year. The company currently produces both conventional and organic phase III com- posts and this will be continued.
Both the compost business and the mushroom farm have now been in existence for over 30 years on the Estate and it is good to see that both
Visitors during the Tunnel Tech compost tour. MUSHROOM BUSINESS 17
sides are still excited about their continued successful future in the UK mushroom industry. Many old faces were seen on the day, some of whom are now retired, but the general buzz felt about the place means that this will hopefully be the first of many more such occasions to look forward to in the future.
Thanks go to Leckford Mushrooms and Tunnel Tech and also the British Growers Association for organising what turned out to be a most enjoya- ble day.
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Photos: Hendrick Mans of Leckord Mushrooms
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