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Hello colleagues! We promised you today to answer your questions, here we have our beloved UMDIS consultant, Iurie Boiciuc, and we are asking the first question of those that you sent us.
The first question was sent to us from Spain. In translation, it sounds like this: “How to water the third phase on the casing?”
Good afternoon I am very glad that you all were active and started asking me questions. I will try to answer all questions briefly. If you need more details for some moments, you can call our UMDIS company. The third phase on the casing I water a lot. I am a fan of watering. There are two options.
If some of you load the compost without casing, then I try to water the compost first and re-moisten it at the level that I need so that the water compresses from the entire compost layer. Then, after applying casing, I do light watering so that the casing is just shining. I no longer have a goal to moisten the compost. If we load compost along with peat, then I do abundant watering through the casing to moisten all my compost. And for this I have two – two and a half days.
Because after the compost begins to recover, it does not absorb water. That is, if the temperature allows me (the temperature of the compost is not lower than 20 degrees), I start watering from the very first day. It depends, of course, on the quality of the compost, but on average it is from 20 to 50 litres in two days through casing.
The only thing to pay attention to is that the peat structure is not washed off. If we see that the structure of the casing is washed off, then it is better not to add more water to compost and casing.
The second question we have from Romania is: “How to pull the spawn to the surface?”
It’s very simple. You need to know what to pay attention to. It is very important that you do not make pins under the casing. This can happen in two cases: if you are late with watering, that is, the spawn is already out between the lumps of casing or on the top layer of peat, but we continue to water. This usually happens on the fourth or fifth day, depending on the quality of the compost and the quality of casing. The spawn is already on the surface, and you give water and use this water to make pins with a casing. And then you can wait a very long time, but the spawn will not go. This is one point that you absolutely have to finish watering for the third phase on the third day, maximum three and a half days. It’s in good compost. If the compost which is bad, cacking doesn’t work, then maybe the fourth day, but not 5-6. The second moment, when we cannot pull the spawn to the surface, when the end of watering, the stop phase is already close, we have a wind in the room (somewhere is a gap in the air conditioner, somewhere under the doors, under the gate) – we are not hermetically closed. Oxygen gets in, CO does not get high enough, and then the mycelium does not come to the surface, it starts to make pins.
The third question was sent to us from Uzbekistan: “How to make shock in the summer?”
Summer, of course, as we all know very well, is different from winter, not only shock, but all stages of cultivation. In the summer, I try to bring more spawn to the surface so that I have clean mushrooms. This is due to the fact that in summer the humidity is high outside. In order for me to have clean mushroom, I need more spawn. Therefore, I may have a lengthening of the stop phase and the beginning of the shock. The first two days I try to keep the CO high and high humidity. Then I make them down a little during the shock, but very slowly, so that my mycelium goes on the top in sufficient quantities so that the mushrooms are clean. This is due to the humidity outside.
The next question, or rather two questions together, was sent to us from Armenia. “How to make the transition from cooling down to pinheading?” and the second related question: “What to pay attention for and what parameters?”
For me, the end of the cooling down is when the spawn already made pins on the top, it does not matter on what day – this means that we are moving on to pinheading. Usually, the mycelium is made pins when the temperature of the compost fell below 25 degrees, and the air temperature is about 18 degrees, the average humidity is 94, CO 2000-2200. With these parameters, the spawn is already made pins, I turn to pinheading stage.
This transition is highly dependent on how active our compost is. If the compost is active and its temperature drops down, then I am in no hurry to remove moisture, I am in no hurry to cool the air even more. I wait until the compost has calmed down, until the temperature of the compost is parallel with the temperature of the air. However, we must remember that a mushroom grows from evaporation. That is, from the end of the cooling down to the appearance of the first flash, we increase evaporation every day. That is, during pinheading, we increase evaporation. How quickly to do this depends on our cooling down. Usually, a day after the end of cooling down, we increase evaporation. I mean that we gradually cool by a degree and reduce the humidity. And these changes are happening every day to make all the generations that we have go up. If we do not do this, we will raise only two maximum three generations. To raise 4-5 generations, we need 5 days to increase evaporation.
The next question was sent to UMDIS Mushroom Information Agency from Turkey: “How many kilograms of mushrooms should be harvested from a ton of compost?”
What I notice is that the trend “the more the better” is decreasing because everyone is chasing quality, not quantity. But every year the technology of growing is getting better and better, and on average we succeed if we have 40 percent per ton of compost from 3 flushes. Of course, many want 35 percent but the highest quality. But there are my clients who take 45 to 50 percent. But there is one thing – part of the mushrooms is collected with roots, without cutting of the stem. These people take up to 50 percent. But on average it is 40 percent per ton of compost.
And the last question that was sent to us from Ukraine: “How to deal with trichoderma?”
This disease is probably a topic for many mushroom growers. Of course, there are a lot of different types of Trichoderma. It can come with compost, you can develop it yourself, and it can come with peat. Mushroom growers should avoid high temperatures in the compost and free water. Compost should not have free water. Then your fault is excluded. It is already necessary to look for a problem in compost or peat. Your goal is not to overheat or pour compost.
We hope that these consultations and answers to your questions were useful to you, and we will gladly continue to advise you. Contact us at UMDIS by mail inna.ustilovskaja@gmail.com . Also, you can order Iurie`s consulting by this mail.
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