When I first became involved in mushrooms almost forty years ago Dr. Sinden, was the big name in the Mushroom Industry. He was closely associated with composting though he contributed significantly to many other aspects of mushroom growing includingpests and diseases. "Sinden Compost" or "Short Composting" were terms which were coming widely into use in the early sixties. Prior to Sinden, compost was made by the long composting method. Materials could spend up to five weeks in large piles on the yard often with a fair amount of anaerobic content and with an enormous loss of bulk and nutrient value. Mushroom growing in the 1960s in some ways was very different from today but in others not as much as might be thought. Good compost looked and smelled much the same, as did a quality mushroom though there were far fewer of them around. We had Verticillium, Cobweb and flies, and Dr Kneebone in the U.S.A. was even talking about an X disease which subsequently turned out to be virus. A lot of cropping was in small wooden boxes ("fish boxes"). A yield of 1.51lb per square foot in five flushes was considered good. I remember one financial director saying "if we could only consistently get 2lb per square foot we would be laughing all the way to the bank."We eventually achieved the yield but by then the goal posts had moved and we have been casing moving targets ever since. A question which interested me greatly in the early days was: can a compost at the end of preparation be quickly tested or analysedso as to predict how it will later perform during cropping?
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