These three principles are the base of disease control on a mushroom farm. To my opinion there is no farm that has not a spot of disease somewhere.
But depending on what is done it will develop into a serious problem or it will stay a hidden time bomb.
If a problem is discovered it is of crucial importance that is recognised. To make sure that will happen training of people on the farm and especially pickers is needed. They are your eyes on the farm.
They need to know the most common diseases and especially in a young stage. Many places of dry bubble are not recognised and are only seen if the disease is in an almost incurable stadium. The small wart on a mushroom or grey spot is often missed.
The same goes for insects. Many growers do not know the difference between a phorid and a sciarid. Although the damage pattern is totally different, so Is the threshold where it really starts costing production. Also the cure is completely different.
Example: growers use diflubenzuron against phorids.
It is only active against sciarids.
If the disease is recognised then it should be isolated. It can be covered on the spot but the most important is to simply keep all doors closed. Check filters and door seals. If a room is infected, make sure the infection is contained in that one room and does not spread on the farm.
After the isolation the disease can be treated. If the spot is detected in an early stage one can do with just a sport treatment. If it is more the whole room should be taken on.
But too often the infection spreads and the whole farm must be treated. Generally room treatment for a full cycle with an overlap of two or three rooms to break the lifecycle of the disease.

So, just a test:
Look at the photo and spot the phorid. Or is it a sciarid?

A lot of farms around the globe are using imported casing soil from Europe. A good, heavy casing soil with a good water holding capacity will give many benefits and are making it worth the investment to import the casing from that far away instead of using other alternatives. However, it’s really important to prepare the casing soil the right way and get the casing on the growing beds the right way, without losing those benefits. Getting a good, consistent casing on the beds will give better yields and quality and let’s go through the process to see what is the best way to prepare and adjusting the casing soil would be.

All the big bags transported from Europe have the casing soil inside for some weeks. When stored at site you need to add that extra time. Not hard to understand that the wet, heavy casing soil will get anaerobic spots inside the big bags. Therefore, it would be beneficial to open up the bags a few days before you will use it to open it all up, get it aerated, and get rid of the anaerobic spots. Of course you need a good clean space to do that. Another big advantage of that is that you are able to mix all bags together which will give a much better consistent moisture in the casing. Although the casing companies are trying to get the same moisture in all big bags it’s hard to get that done perfectly all the way through and mixing them all up will improve that.

Not the ideal situation but if there is no clean space available you can unload the casing soil from the big bags directly into the machinery.

Mixing of the bags can be done with a bucket of a loader, a Bobcat or something similar. That way the structure will not get damaged much, just don’t push too hard when driving into the casing and drop it carefully and not too high. After the mixing with the casing lying on a floor you also have the possibility the get the required moisture in the casing up to the required level. Watering can be done on the top of the casing with a water hose but of course make sure to spread that evenly over the whole batch. After being on the floor for one day the water will have the time to get through all the layer of the casing soil and that will also get the PH level more even. Uneven PH levels will give uneven grow speeds of the mycelium.

The casing we use has to deal with different climate periods. Those changes will be occurring all year around and they will change the amount of water you need to adjust the casing with. It’s never a routine job to add water but, same as in the grow rooms, it needs attention and adjusting accordingly.
You can use a mixing machine as well to add water and get it all mixed well, just ensure you don’t break the structure of the casing too much and don’t use augers to mix it. Augers will damage the structure by compress the casing and press out all air between the clumps.

As you see there are a lot of things that can influence the quality of the imported casing. Just make sure to adjust to your current situation and try to get the best result out of it.

Erik de Groot
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Too often there are problems with second flushes. The first flush is rather normal but not extra-ordinary. The problem starts showing on the third harvesting day of that first flush by loss of quality and second flushes do not come back the way they should.
If the casing soil of those rooms is examined closely then it will appear that whatever water is given, it is still very dry. All water given after the first flush seems to be gone before the flush has even started.
Most of the times there is too much mycelium in that casing soil. A problem what was already there before the start of the first flush but really shows in the second.
At that moment the problem cannot be solved anymore. One has to look for solutions before even the fructification has started.
Solutions lay in the choice of casing soil, the amount of water on that casing soil during incubation, the way of watering and in the climate control during casing soil incubation.

Too much mycelium results in too fine strands of mycelium and therefore a lack of water transport to the mushrooms. Mycelium dries out very fast and too much mycelium forms a crust together with the casing soil. What is needed is a thick, white type of mycelium. Only this can guarantee strong, heavy and white mushrooms. Especially in second flushes.

Henk van Gerwen

On April 23 and 24, the Russian Mushroom Days took place at the Azimut Olympic Hotel in Moscow. Every year the event attracts more and more professionals from around the world. And already at the entrance it became obvious that this one was no exception.
Within the Mushroom days, a two-day international conference “Russian mushroom growing: a new quality of growth” was held, at which manufacturers of equipment and services from Russia, Europe and Asia spoke. I was lucky to present products new to the Russian market at the conference: ChampFood supplements and Lambert mycelium. Lambert presented the revolutionary Speed Spawn to the Russian audience, which aroused great interest among those present.
The conference announced the production and consumption of champignons in Russia in 2018 and early 2019, which surpassed all, even the wildest forecasts of previous years. I had the opportunity to talk with the heads of the mushroom enterprises operating and under construction with a total capacity of 70,000 tons of mushrooms per year. It is important to note that the rapid growth of mushroom production in Russia is taking place against the background of a smooth growth of retail and wholesale prices for mushrooms.

In the near future, competition between manufacturers will increase, and the main factor determining the success of enterprises will be the quality of management. Since there are only a few such specialists in Russia, the management culture of large mushroom enterprises should be imported in the same way as equipment and mycelium. For long-term sales of equipment and services in Russia, and even more so for possible investments, it is necessary to supply not only equipment and materials, but also production culture. The farther, the more accessible the material resources will be, but the payback of investment will depend more and more on the culture of their use.