White mushrooms often appear one to two days later on the beds…
...then brown strains
Four and a half week cycle with two flushes The pressure is relieved a little if the cropping cycle is slightly extended beyond four weeks. This creates some breathing space to vary the first harvest day, and you can be certain of rea- ching the end of the second flush, even when producing white mushrooms. So the process is less of a race against time. This will also gene- rally allow you to cook out the growing rooms, i.e. with compost, if this is desirable or neces- sary due to high disease pressure. But you can’t easily cut a week in half. It is only possible if you have at least nine growing rooms and fill two rooms a week but not on the same day. Imagine you fill room one on Monday, and room two on Thursday. After four and a half weeks it’s time to fill room one again, but now on Thursday. So you have two filling days a week. This cycle is often applied at larger farms that do not grow a
third flush due to quality issues and disease pressure, but where maximum production is desirable without the pressure of a four-week cycle - especially with white mushrooms. In this situation, the compost may have spent a slightly shorter time in the tunnel and there is time during the preparatory phase to control the compost temperature properly and allow the mycelium to colonise the compost thoroughly.
Six week cycle with three flushes This cycle is only used when growers harvest a third flush. There are various advantages and disadvantages associated with this cycle: a third flush often takes more than a week to harvest optimally, the mushroom quality is generally lower and a third flush also has a lower yield. However, if the price of compost is high, it often helps to maximise its production potential.
Four and a half week cycle with two flushes.
Six week cycle with three flushes. MUSHROOM BUSINESS 33
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
