Mushroom Compost
Intruiging name for a gardening fertilizer, mushroom compost comes from the growing medium commercial farmers use to grow mushroom after following an extensive regime to prepare it first.
A specially formulated and processed compost made from wheat straw, corn cobs. cottonseed hulls, hay, gypsum and chicken manure.The process takes between three to four weeks while the ingredients are closel monitored to make sure the correct temperature is maintaned.
Temperatures exceeding 160 degrees are needed for at least a few days out of the whole period. When it's ready the mix is then pasteurized using steam and then top dressed with a layer of sphagnum peat moss mixed with ground limestone. Mushrooms are grown on this peat base.
At the end of the mushroom harvesting time, the farmer will then steam pasteurize everything in the growing room. This discarded growing medium is often sold to gardeners for using in place of peat moss.
The slow release effect from the mushroom compost is what makes it so advantagous to the gardener as it can be dug into the soil or used as mulch.
Steam pasturizing ensures that any and all eed seed, pests or insects that coud have been present in the mushroom compost are completely illiminated making it ideal for all gardeners to safely use whether it's for organic gardening or normal gardening.
It's worth mentioning that some gardeners do not subscribe to the view that mushroom compost is all it's cracked up to be. They will tell you it's not as high in nutrients as say, worm compost or vegetable compost. It's also high in salt residue from growing the mushrooms.
Flies and fungus gnats are a major problem in the mushroom farmers faciities so spraying with chemical products such as cyromazine, Dimlin, and methoprene is needed to control the problem.
Fungal infections can sometimes wipe out a whole crop so again chemicals are used to control things. The most common ones being benomyl thiabendazole and chlorothalonil.
Organic gardeners should not use mushroom compost if there is any doubt as to what has been sprayed on the compost and it would deffinately not qualify for use in certified organic farms.
A specially formulated and processed compost made from wheat straw, corn cobs. cottonseed hulls, hay, gypsum and chicken manure.The process takes between three to four weeks while the ingredients are closel monitored to make sure the correct temperature is maintaned.
Temperatures exceeding 160 degrees are needed for at least a few days out of the whole period. When it's ready the mix is then pasteurized using steam and then top dressed with a layer of sphagnum peat moss mixed with ground limestone. Mushrooms are grown on this peat base.
At the end of the mushroom harvesting time, the farmer will then steam pasteurize everything in the growing room. This discarded growing medium is often sold to gardeners for using in place of peat moss.
The slow release effect from the mushroom compost is what makes it so advantagous to the gardener as it can be dug into the soil or used as mulch.
Steam pasturizing ensures that any and all eed seed, pests or insects that coud have been present in the mushroom compost are completely illiminated making it ideal for all gardeners to safely use whether it's for organic gardening or normal gardening.
It's worth mentioning that some gardeners do not subscribe to the view that mushroom compost is all it's cracked up to be. They will tell you it's not as high in nutrients as say, worm compost or vegetable compost. It's also high in salt residue from growing the mushrooms.
Flies and fungus gnats are a major problem in the mushroom farmers faciities so spraying with chemical products such as cyromazine, Dimlin, and methoprene is needed to control the problem.
Fungal infections can sometimes wipe out a whole crop so again chemicals are used to control things. The most common ones being benomyl thiabendazole and chlorothalonil.
Organic gardeners should not use mushroom compost if there is any doubt as to what has been sprayed on the compost and it would deffinately not qualify for use in certified organic farms.