An uneven first flush creates very poor conditions for the second flush. The yield will always be lower.
The bare patches on this photo were caused by ammonia problems in the compost, which caused spawn run to stagnate in some parts.
approving the incoming materials. It is temp- ting to accept all the raw materials that arrive at the company, but that can have disastrous con- sequences, especially if there is a high percen- tage of poor quality batches. ‘Cheap’ and ‘easy’ are often the motivations to take a less than strict selection policy. On the contrary, it is extremely important to be critical of the loads you accept and then mix the raw materials as well as possible.
A top filler in modern bunkers is an enormous help to mix compost continuously when filling bunkers, but it is not enough. A good mixing line with multiple spinners will greatly improve the homogeneity. For companies without a top filler, it might seem a good idea to gain time and move the compost from one bunker to another straight away. But, for the sake of uni- formity, it is far better to completely remove the compost from one bunker and then place this pile back into another bunker. Or return it to the same bunker - after the floor has been cleaned of course. This mixes the compost again, which benefits homogeneity. During the composting process in the bunkers, differences always occur because the compost temperature is never exactly the same in every part of the bunker (this also greatly depends on the mixing quality on the mixing line). Even in closed phase I tunnels, the compost temperature will not be precisely identical throughout the process and so the end result will be slightly heterogeneous when the compost leaves the tunnel. The quality of bunker filling is very
important. The same applies to filling phase II and phase III tunnels.
Compost quality
On some composting plants too much carbon is fermented out of the materials, which is a shame as it is an excellent nutrient source for mushrooms. If this happens, stimulating suffi- cient pinhead outgrow will be difficult and this will reflect on the yield. Excessive temperatures during pre-wet, for example, also burn off too much carbon. An over-long fermentation process will also destroy too much cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Too much aeration at certain moments during the composting process, for example during the bunker process or phase II in tunnels, can extract too much ammonia from the compost, at the expense of the quantity of nitrogen in the compost. In this case, the compost may leave the tunnel in a well incubated state, and mycelium growth may be fairly good in the casing soil with reasonable pinhead formation, but the pinheads will fail to develop and grow properly. Poor quality compost more easily leads to too many patches - small and large - where pinheads fail to grow or show poor growth.
Filling quality of compost Logically, good quality compost should be filled in the growing rooms as homogeneously as possible. That, however, is easier said than done. Everywhere I have been during my career, I have seen that compost from a tunnel is not
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 29
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