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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Establishing a good harvesting team is very important and every farm needs a good leading example with eye for details to lead that process. A good harvest management can make or break all the efforts from earlier stages. What is a good starting point and where are improvements possible?

Of course the best starting point is knowing and realizing what benefits selective picking can bring. As explained in my earlier blog a mushroom grows rapidly and doubles in weight every 24 hours. In an ideal situation that means harvesting 24 hours would be the most beneficial. Every time when the mushrooms reach their maximum size they get picked and every pass the pickers do, space is created for the other mushrooms so that as many possible mushrooms can reach that maximum size. What that maximum size is depends also on the market. Of course that is hard to manage to harvest 24 hours but some companies make it work and see huge improvements in yield and quality. When you do a trial yourself on a few square meters and see how much more yield you can get when you only pick the mushrooms when they are ready to be picked, the results will be stunning. I did it myself one day on a big farm where they were harvesting already on a reasonable level in 2 shifts and still got 43% (!) more yield. Now that is hard to do with all the pickers on big farms but it shows the potential and importance of good training, managing and planning.

My experience is that on a small farm the owner is more involved in the daily operations, the amount of pickers is lower and therefore the results in yield and quality are better than on many big farms where managing the people is a bigger task.

Training and a good system will bring you many advantages and a quality that stands out. Every farm should have a designated trainer that will train new pickers into perfection. Remember that it’s easier to train a new picker when you spend the time then retrain pickers with bad habits. When new pickers come to join the team they should have a motivated coach and someone with know-how who can explain the selective picking way into detail. Training pickers on selective picking in their first weeks is more important than the speed they pick. As most of the farms pay their pickers per kg, they will pick up the speed later. In a lot of farms, the best picker is always related to the one with the best picking performance based on speed, but is that so? Try to measure how many total kg every individual picker makes every week. You will find out that some pickers harvest more total kg than others, those pickers bring you more yield and are more valuable for the farm as the fastest picker.

Planning rooms according the expected daily production is very important in the process of selective picking. Selective picking requires that only the mushrooms that need to be harvested are getting picked, not more. Picking too small in the morning because there are too many pickers in the room or because the same pickers have to go to other rooms will cost production. Try to plan in every single room the needed amount of pickers so that each room can harvest the entire day. Another advantage of that is that you can start in the morning some pickers already in the 2nd and 3rd flushes instead of doing that later and loose already quality. On many occasions the 3rd flushes get only harvested at the end of the working day when mushrooms are already soft and opening, not very good for quality and yield at all!

First important step to learn would be to estimate the total production of the day and the picking performance of the available pickers. That will give you the total needed hours to harvest the room. If you divide that number by the required picking time you get the total of pickers needed for that day, in that room. See below an example of a set-up for your daily production planning.

Every room is planned on the total expected kg, picking performance and based on that information, in the last column the total amount of pickers needed for that day in the individual grow rooms, based on an 8 hours working day.

That way you will give the mushrooms the required time to grow. Every hour a mushroom will grow 1mm and in weight 4%. Every pass the pickers make they should only pick those that are ready and leave the others. Picking down a room with nice quality mushrooms to 50 mm early in the day because they are not getting harvested until the next day, is disastrous for yield. Even when you have only 1 room to pick for the day, plan the amount of pickers so that you make advantage of the growth of the mushrooms during all day.

To introduce the picking method on your farm will be a process that, depending on how you manage this, will take some time. See it as an investment for the future but definitely worth doing. The benefits will be huge and in a competitive market necessary for every farm to compete.

Erik de Groot
GLAGS Global Agriculture Services
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