seven, the casing is ruffled. During ruffling, the casing on the surface is levelled by hand so the mycelium just below the casing is all at the same height. Cool down starts in the growing room three days after ruffling. This is done quite quic- kly to promote enough pinhead formation. The pinheads form just below the surface of the casing, which creates a large micro-climate. In other words, the pinheads are well protected from dehydration. The heating, cooling coil and fresh air inlets of the climate unit are all regula- ted by hand. For obvious reasons, the climate control is not as gradual as in an automatic sys- tem. But as you can see on the photos, the results in the growing room are very uniform with mushrooms on all the bags from the bottom to top shelves and from the front of the room to the back. For a farm that does everything by hand, this is a rather good result. However, the fine structure of the casing and the challenges of climate control mean that steering the number of pinheads and therefore creating a good spread is difficult to achieve.
Harvesting Three flushes are harvested on the farm. The first flush produces a yield of 12% in relation to the amount of compost filled. The mushrooms emerge at the same time, and small mushrooms are picked during the first flush ranging in size from 2 to max 2.5 cm Slightly larger mushrooms are picked during the second flush, giving a yield of 9%. The largest mushrooms are harvested during the third flush as there are fewer of them. Total production amounts to 25% in relation to the compost, which is an incredibly good result! The raw materials are not optimal and every- thing, including controlling the climate, is done by hand. Managing all these factors to ensure the mushrooms emerge uniformly in the growing rooms is no mean feat, and the results go to show just how well all the processes are managed!
Pest and diseases Hygiene on the farm could be a potential issue. Taking into account the high number of employees, the general hygiene in India and the long cropping cycle, you could expect serious problems. But it’s actually not that bad. Apart from a few verticillium infections in the third flush, there have been no major problems so far. They cook out the rooms at the end of the cycles, and the very hot and dry climate conditions are also an advantage as insects and fungi have little chance of survival outdoors. It’s simply too hot and dry for fungi to grow, plus there is practi- cally no vegetation that offers sciarids and pho- rids a habitat. They do notice a clear increase in disease pressure during the rainy season. Market
Manegrow supplies the large supermarkets and offers both premium and standard mushrooms in its range. The mushrooms are transported in boxes cooled with ice packs up to a distance of around 800 km. Mushrooms are a market seg- ment that is growing fast in India. There are also facilities on site to conserve the mushrooms, but due to the high demand for fresh mushrooms this is rarely done.
Conclusion Manegrow has its own way of producing compos- ting and growing mushrooms. From the view- point of a Dutch consultant, you have to reserve your judgement on things like using bagasse as the main ingredient for making compost, for example. Ultimately, it’s the financial results that count. With a yield of 25% in relation to the com- post, it’s not down to the compost. The casing soil is a different matter though. In my view, it’s the casing that is the limiting factor for even higher yields. I believe that with the current fine structure and poor water retention capacity, plenty of progression can be made in a short time by using a mixture that contains black peat. This will create coarser structured mycelium and the- refore a better spread, which would benefit the first flush especially.
Considering all the challenges, a
production of 25% in relation to
compost on the farm, is a very good result.
The mushrooms are packed in boxes. There is an ice pack between each layer, to keep the mushrooms cool during transport.
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 35
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