By Jos Hilkens, AdVisie ‘de champignonteeltadviseurs’, Herkenbosch,
hilkens@champignonadvies.nl
A passion for technology THE NETHERLANDS
Despite some immense setbacks in the past, for decades the Willems family in Kessel, Limburg has devoted its energy to continually modernising and optimising its mushroom farm. A farm where the climate, moisture balance, data and energy savings play a key role.
S
jaak Willems’ parents had a mixed farm in Kessel. They started mushroom growing in two growing rooms at their site on Heldenseweg in
1966. These growing rooms have recently been demolished to make way for a house for son Wilko. The Willems family had five children, two of whom continued in mushroom growing.
Unfortunately, Sjaak’s father was unable to expand the farm as just two years after the first growing rooms were built, he died at the age of 48. After the then 11-year-old Sjaak left school, he studied electrical engineering and became a fitter. His mother died four years after his father. The Willems children were taken good care of by their mother’s family. After comple- ting his studies, he worked as a farm relief worker on various mushroom farms. He then rented a mushroom farm in nearby Grashoek with six growing rooms of 180m2
In 1985, at the age of 28, he built his own mushroom farm with four growing rooms of 400m2, six beds high, for mechanical harves- ting. In 1988 an additional two rooms of 563 m2 were built followed in 1992 by a further four. This brought the farm to ten growing rooms of 400m2
for three years.
. The company continued to harvest mechanically until 2004. Falling prices for industrial mushrooms pressured the profit margins. Then an opportunity presented itself to rent the buildings to grow mushrooms that were picked manually for the fresh market. This was a successful venture until a fire completely destroyed the farm in December 2007. The Willems family put their shoulders to the wheel again. Sjaak looked around at how various other mushroom farms were operating in Europe before building a new farm in 2009. This consists of nine growing rooms of 535 m2
with The farm with the homes of Sjaak and Agnes Willems and son Wilko and Anja in front. 28 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
two rows of seven shelves per room. On the beds he started growing white mushrooms for the fresh market. His is convinced that a three flush system gives an extra chance get things right and utilise the raw materials better. For the last 11 years, he has been growing mushrooms using a six-week cropping cycle and harvests three flushes, despite the fact that the farm is optimally suited for a 4.5-week schedule and two flushes. “If you don’t have to reach peak production during the first and second flush, the quality is better and there are still enough nutrients left in the substrate for a good quality
Photos: AdVisie, Wilke, IQClimate
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