NEW ZEALAND / AUSTRALIA By Dr. Geoff Martin, Dr. Mush Advisory
‘ Nau Mai Haere Mai Ki Aotearoa’
The 45th AMGA Conference, this time combined with the New Zealand Commercial Mushroom Growers Federation and Meadow Mushrooms, attracted 155 delegates and was held over three days in late October at the Grand Millennium Hotel in Auckland, ‘The City of Sails’.
Mercer Mushrooms As has become the custom, the first day was the Farm Walk, hosted by Mercer Mushrooms in Pukekawa, some 50 Km south of Auckland. The farm, ideally located close to the Auckland area, where 50% of New Zealand’s population reside, is owned by the Inger family. Commissioned in 2022, their state of the art indoor composting facility with bio-filtration, is unique in using standard gas concrete 40m x 4m tunnels for a wheaten straw based Phase 1 compost. The facility has 5 dedica- ted Phase 1 tunnels and 7 Phase 2/3 tun- nels, designed and built by Christiaens, with a pre-wetting 4200 m2 domed area supplied by Container Domes Australia. It is currently producing 150 tons of Phase 3
Dave Hyland, CEO of Mercer Mushrooms welcoming the delegates to the farm.
each week, with consent to increase to 320 tons/week in the future. The 24 rooms have a combined growing area of 12600 m2, with the modern expansion being built by GTL Europe in 2016/17. The farm cur- rently produces 45 tons/week, both white and brown mushrooms; yields are expected to increase as experience is gained growing on local sedge peat blends, mined from Mercer’s peat bog. The farm has 2220 solar panels generating almost 800 MWs of power per annum. CEO Dave Hyland welcomed delegates to the operation and Craig Inger led the groups touring the composting facility. He explained the wheaten straw bale wetting process, which involves injecting bales with goodie water, through a patented
system designed by Jon Carlson, which can deliver 870 l into the centre of a 600 Kg 8x4x4 bale in 45 seconds. Then bales are wetted for 12 days by intermittent over- head sprinkling. A low temperature regime is used for the pre-wet process. After bale break with poultry and gypsum addition, the compost is stacked 3.5m high on an open aerated floor for 72 hours, followed by a flip and a further 48 hours on the aerated floor, with temperatures being held below 55 degrees Celsius. Material is then transferred using a Hoving cassette tunnel filler into the Phase 1 tunnels, for a 12 day period, whilst maintaining compost temperatures in excess of 80 degrees. Compost is transferred to Phase 2, using the previous week’s finished Phase 2 to re-inoculate the necessary microorga- nisms. A 16 to 17 day Phase 3 follows before transfer to the growing rooms. For more details regarding the composting metho- dology, see MB 120: ‘Innovative Phase 3 Composting at Waikato’). Growing manager Rinke van der Meer led the tours through the growing rooms and Stéphane Doutrioux from MycoSense demonstrated his Spotlight AI harvesting system, which attracted a great deal of grower attention. After the tours, rain fortunately held off whilst delegates were treated to a fantastic al fresco lunch, created by NZ celebrity chef, Nici Wickes, which featured Mercer’s delicious mushrooms and of course New Zealand lamb. Founder Glen Inger addressed the delegates and wshared his company vision. Thanks to the Inger family and the whole team for opening up their facility for inspection, always a daunting experience!
8 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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