HDC Research Review (25) -- Developments in Casing

摘要

For several decades, mushroom growers have relied on various mixtures of peat and chalk or lime to provide them with a suitable casing layer. Ralph Noble and Andreja Do-brovin-Pennington of HRI Wellesbourne investigate whether further improvements inthe formulation and performance of casings can be made. In the 1990s, many growers switched from milled light brown peats to wet-dug brown and black peats for mushroom casing, to improve product quality. Peat, even from the same layer in a bog, is a naturally variable material. In previous HDC funded work we identified some of the important properties of peat for mushroom casing (see HDC Factsheet 40/97 Peat for casing). Of particular importance are water-holding capacity at saturation and under suction, and bulk density, HDC funded experiments also showed that wet-dug brown peats produced slightly cleaner mushrooms than black or milled peats.