By Jos Buth,
josbuth@gmail.com
Even flow CULTIVATION
As I have already mentioned in previous articles for this publication, certain important aspects of the process have decisive consequences on the final results of mushroom growing. One of these I have not dealt with so far is homogeneity and uniformity during the whole process.
E The challenge of
creating beds full of uniform mushrooms starts with
homogeneity in composting.
veryone who grows mushrooms will agree that if flushes do not appear uniformly on the beds, this will be at the expense of production. By
uniformity, I don’t mean that flushes shouldn’t be spread well, as good spread is essential for the fresh market. What I mean is that all the beds must be filled with good quality mushrooms, without bare patches and with no large differences between the beds. A desirable and necessary part of a good spread is that ‘end’ of the first flush also continues to develop well. Successive waves of pinheads should appear even though the mushrooms already on the beds are almost ready for picking. It is often difficult to identify why there are bare patches between the mushrooms, or why not enough pinheads continue to emerge. A bare patch may be just a few isolated spots or larger areas where
pinheads are not growing. This article aims to offer some guidance on how to solve these problems in practice.
Homogeneous composting The challenge of creating beds full of beautiful, uniform mushrooms already begins with crea- ting homogeneity throughout the composting process - which extends to the quality of the raw materials, mixing them as well as possible, and handling them during the pre-wet and composting processes. The priority is the most homogeneous process possible. It goes without saying that uniformity in the raw materials is vital. Big differences should be avoided. Straw, for example, can vary greatly between individual bales and loads. This also applies to chicken manure and especially to horse manure. It starts with assessing and
Not enough pinheads are growing here, because the layer of casing soil on the compost is too compacted. 28 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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