It looks like we are not going to have any winter this season in Europe. On the contrary. It is very wet and humidity is very high.
This has its reflection on compost and casing.
If raw materials for compost are stored outside or under just a roof, they are evaporating less water and in the same time some materials get wet by the rain.

At the end of a year or at the start of a new one it is always a good thing to look back and forward. Look at it as an evaluation and re-focussing of targets. It is also a good time to give yourself and your team a feedback.
Looking back to 2021 it was a year of great challenges. We had our normal variations in compost and casing soil quality. It still is impossible to predict the weather so we still will have to cope with changes in raw materials due to the weather. And reacting to that always comes too late.

Mushrooms that grow between the 1st and 2nd break are called tweeners or in between mushrooms. They are very hard mushrooms because they had a lot of water at the end of the breaks but will discolor fast, once picked, because of that water. They are, however, white inside and are therefore extremely suitable to use for slicing. Many farms worldwide are growing tweeners, only to use them for their sliced product. However, if you have a lot of tweeners it can have a negative effect on the quantity of pins in 2nd breaks. You need to control the amount of tweeners that grow out and spread them out nicely over the whole shelf. If some spots have many tweeners together the 2nd break will not be able to develop well, and yield will be lost. On some farms I see harvest managers making some extra yield with tweeners but not realizing enough that that extra yield gets lost in the 2nd breaks, where you normally pick you nicest quality mushrooms.

That doesn’t mean you can’t grow tweeners. Some farms use them to control the quantity of the pins in 2nd breaks. Just by leaving them nicely spread over the beds you can control the amount of 2nd break mushrooms. Clean the beds good after the 1st break, don’t pick for 2 days and on the 3rd, day manage it well controlling the in between break. If you see the 2nd break coming up spontaneously you can leave some more tweeners, if the 2nd break is struggling on some spots, you must open the in between break up and pick some more there. That need to be planned and managed good to get the best benefits out of the total production.

Erik de Groot
Global Agriculture Services
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Generally picking is considered by many as a low education job. But on the other hand, we rely on our picking force to deliver a good quality mushroom, meeting the customer demands. No bruised mushrooms, no nail or knife damage, right stem length, straight cut stem, no weak mushrooms in the punnet and for all, the right size. And that is where many things go wrong. It is fairly easy to learn the pickers the right way of picking. Twist and do not pull. Do not take to many mushrooms in one hand so they do not get damaged and put them caps up into the punnet. But getting the calibration right is a constant struggle. Pickers tend to have the habit to pick too small and this will cost you money. They simply pick the mushrooms that were meant to be picked tomorrow. An extra thing to that is that pickers lose the bonus while working really hard.

For the right calibration there are many tools like fruit grading rings, grading cards and other different tools. But the easiest tool they have in their hands: the knife.
The knife most used in mushroom growing is the curved knife and the length of the blade is exactly 60 mm. The calibration most wanted on many farms is 55 to 60 mm. Generally, this size is picked first before thinning out. And this is just the size of mushroom that is as wide as the length of their knife. They just have to keep the knife just above the mushrooms to judge the size. This way the mushrooms can be calibrated before they are picked and they will not be damaged by any other form of grading tools. The rings only let mushrooms through which are small enough. The bigger mushrooms get stuck and will be damaged. But the mushrooms that go through easily are too small and that is the calibration the picker will harvest. By using the knife not only there will be no damage but it is also faster.

If a smaller calibration is harvested like a 40 mm mushroom, a line can be made on the blade with a marking pen. Especially new pickers will be very fast in learning this trick. By banning the calibration rings also, the hygiene on the farm is served. Because these rings are hard to clean and experience learns that they are always dirty and are taken from room to room.

Give it a try and your harvesting staff will be happy.