possibility of this happening. Educate the team to recognise potential external attacks, maintain good backups, update your systems regularly, protect mobile work environments, use strong and hard to guess passwords, use the right software, draft an emergency plan and a good understanding of the law are crucial in helping to prevent hackers from gaining control or in the worst case scenario shutting down your company completely.”
Taste The final speaker on this highly informative day was Prof. Dr. Fritz-Gerald Schröder from the Dresden University of Applied Sciences. As it was getting late, Schröder fortunately turned out to be an exceptionally talented speaker, who spoke about taste engagingly and humorously. According to him, our senses can sometimes deceive us. “We identify basic tastes like bitter, salty, sweet, and sour, with umami subtly present in the background. But our perception of taste is strongly shaped by our other senses, such as sight, sound and touch, which actually fool us. Smell also plays a crucial role in how we perceive flavour. And… let’s not even start on how the widespread dominance of the taste of Coca-Cola and fast food could be seen as the exploitation of children. Schröder was now on fire. “The layout of supermarkets is not accidental; it’s all part of a cunning strategy. Not for our benefit, but for the interests of supermarkets. There is no such thing as coincidence in a supermarket. Taste is actually the sum of sensory illusions.” Following his presentation, the hotel bar becko- ned, and after a brief stop in the hotel room, another excellent dinner and entertainment was just a few steps away. After dinner, the group was directed to a bar belonging to the hotel, where we all joined in a music quiz and said farewell to former chairman Hans Deckers. The later the evening got, the merrier…
Pilzhof Wallhausen Next day, at a good hour’s drive from Leipzig, everyone was welcome to visit Pilzhof Pilzsubstrat Wallhausen GmbH, which is the company’s official name. The company is part of the Walkro group. Holger Haltmann, manager of Pilzhof, explained. “In 1999, we laid the foundation stone for a farm that was always intended as a phase IV set-up, i.e. composting and growing on trays until a few days before harvest. So no harvesting takes place at the farm. Our customers do the picking. We have been operating since 2000, initially with a capacity of 800 tons of phase III compost a week. This has risen over the years to 2000 tons. We have 67 customers who buy trays at the pinhead stage or filled with
In the ‘Bierkeller’, former chairman Hans Deckers is interviewed by former chairman Franz Schmaus. On the left, the new chairman Waldemar Schuller.
phase III compost. We fill 2500 trays measuring 2.7 square metres a week, with a filling weight of 90 kilos per square metre.” At the company, where the team are clearly proud of the achieve- ments, many employees were on hand during the tour to explain more about the processes. Sven Dietrich, manager of the tray facility, had the following to say. “1200 tons of phase III compost are produced here, and we use almost 800 tons of it ourselves. So 400 tons of phase III is also supplied in bulk to our customers. We use casing soil from Wokas in Poland and fill about 1400 trays a week with Sylvan A15 and the rest with Amycel Heirloom. We have 11 growing rooms and one steam room that we use to cook out the trays returned by the customers before the trays are reused. The trays are dispatched to the customers after 12-15 days.” John Nooijen of Walkro, who is also in charge of composting, added: “We have 29 phase II and III tunnels in a rotation schedule. We usually fill nine tunnels each week, which we inoculate with spawn in seven phase III tunnels. We fill fresh compost on Wednesdays and Thursdays and inoculate on Mondays and Tuesdays. We have five phase I bunkers with a capacity of 600 tons. We exclusively use horse manure and operate a cycle of 7-8 days. The only straw we use is in the biofilter. The straw is replaced every two weeks and mixed with horse manure. The phase I compost is left outside for one night before being filled in the tunnel to encourage micro-organism activity.” After this very interesting tour, we had an opportunity to replenish our own energy before embarking on what for most of us was a long journey home. It was a highly successful weekend.
Pilzhof
Pilzsubstrat Wallhausen
produces 2000 tons of phase III compost a week.
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 17
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