Starting off, with our gratitude towards Mushrooms Canada, for allowing us to use their video.
Pieter J.C. Vedder Author of modern mushroom growing 2020 harvesting (click link)
For all those that never met him in person, as an educator, see video below.
Don't forget the basics.
The basic is, and you can come up with all kind of machinery and all kind of techniques, but it is as simple as this; pre–wetting means make every piece of straw or material what you are using for making compost, wet as soon as possible—every piece of straw and cover it with some slurry, some type of nutrients for those microorganisms, who are actually doing the job
We will go over the few factors later on. Composting means that we give certain microorganisms the opportunity to do in two weeks, what they normally do in half a year; just break down that material. And you should never forget the role of mushrooms in nature. People sometimes forget what the role of mushrooms in nature is.
Also shortness of the material. Aha, so we said try in an early stage to cover every piece of material with a layer of slurry. I'm not using water—and go back to what David said: if it is a kind of a slurry then there is a better water holding capacity of the particles. Yeah, water would run off easier but if it is a kind of runoff material with already some
food, some bacteria, some germs in it—yeah it sticks better to the pieces of straw. Try to crush them but not chop it because—because for two reasons—because you can't do the same in a tunnel Phase II, as you can do in a thinner layer if that material is short and a little bit on the wet side. That is the contradiction—then you can handle Phase II maybe in such a layer but not in a higher layer
Talking about composting what you are doing is you are burning off carbohydrates—not because our mushroom could not utilize them but it is too attractive for competitors and so on. So here we start pre–wetting. Pre–wetting means more or less prepare the material for the big happening. Here you start biological
activity. Microorganisms are breaking down that kind of material and that material of course is organic material. So if you start here at the beginning with for instance a C/N ratio. Everybody I suppose understands the C/N ratio. The ratio between the amount of carbon and nitrogen. In straw the C/N ratio is more or less 80, that means 80 to 1. 80 parts carbon against one nitrogen; that is straw.
P.J.C. Vedder on Mushroom Cultivation during Technology Transfer Seminar part 1 ←click link for watching video
Don't forget to click on 'CC' for seeing English caption...
Best also to view on YouTube as there are clickable points built in—below video in text!
Readers and/or viewers, should realize, that such a Technology Transfer Seminar was done in a 2nd language for us. Always so for the impromptu, without paper or any note points.
Also, answering any upcoming questions from the audience.
Try doing this, for hours on end...
You must thrive on a lot of knowledge and experience for being able to do this spontaneously, time and time again, and with the same enthusiasm as you did for the very first time!
Being mighty proud of my Pieter as one of the BEST educators. His knowledge can still help numerous mushroom growers.