Peter Flegg investigates: watering mushroom beds--how much?

摘要

As mushrooms are about nine-tenths water, it is not surprising that water plays such a great part in mushroom growing. In April 1996 I investigated substrate moisture (Mushroom Journal No. 555) and in 1997 (Mushroom Journal No. 574) evaporative losses from mushroom beds. During 1999 at least three aspects of the mushroom and moisture attracted my attention, in Journal No. 589 it was the addition of salts via irrigation water, No. 594 saw a review of the properties and functions of the casing layerincluding its water holding properties and in No. 597 I described the mushroom's way of transporting water and nutrients. Also in 1999 (Mushroom Journal No. 593) I put together the thoughts of several mushroom growers on watering mushroom beds. If in 1999 it looked as though I was becoming obsessed with mushrooms and water, I seemed to lose interest in the subject during 2000 and it was not until April 2001 that I toyed with a few minor questions of the quality of water applied to mushroom beds. All that devotion to mushrooms and moisture yet I had made barely a mention of that most important question, 'how much water?'