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Abstract: It was exactly twelve months ago in Toronto at the North American Mushroom Conference that John Miller, that excellent Public Relations Officer for the Australian Mushroom Growers, talked me into giving a paper here in Sydney on the relationship of water and the mushroom crop. I thank the organisers of the XI International Mushroom Congress for the honour of being asked to speak here, and hope that the title of my paper will become more obvious as I proceed. You will have noticed that I have called this the XI International Mushroom Congress and purposely dropped the word "scientific" as I am no scientist, but a practical mushroom grower, always looking for perfection in growing techniques. Do not believe for one moment that I achieve perfection, but I'm sure all worthy growers of any crops should try to attain it. When I was at Horticultural College many years ago, there was one good practical instructor who would always ask, on any task to be undertaken, three questions - Where, When and Why? In that context it applied to potting on, pruning or similar horticultural operations, and I shall always remember this instructor as the person who taught me more about what the word "growing" means than all the other lecturers put together. We, as mushroom growers, should subconsciously always ask these questions of ourselves on all operations on our farms, and if we are to understand our crop thoroughly we should be able to answer these questions to some degree, I have made known some of my views on water and its uses at a previous mushroom growers' conference, and now feel that we should apply the three "Ws" to this subject. To be honest, I feel that we can drop one "W", the one indicating Why, because we all should know why we water, and I would like to replace this with a capital "H" for How. We now have three questions we should ask ourselves, "When 4S3 - where - and How" at any point of adding water to the crop. "When" is the all important timing of water application; "Where" being the specific stage of growth at which we add water; "How"being the means and method of application. I personally feel that the timing of waterings at any stage of mushroom production is the most important aspect, closely followed by how much water is given and how it is applied. Let us now consider the application of this prinicple at various stages of cropping and production.
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